Print Friendly, PDF & Email
Shirij Madrasa, Fez, Morocco, about 1350 AD

Shirij Madrassa, Fez, Morocco, about 1350 AD

Who went to a madrassa?

If you had done well at your maktab (elementary school), your parents might decide to send you on to a madrassa (high school and college) when you were about fourteen years old. That’s the same age as most kids today when they start high school. (But Ibn Khaldun and Al-Ghazali actually both started at twelve.)

What is a maktab?
History of schools and education
African science and education
All our Islamic Empire articles

Generally boys went to madrassas rather than girls, and only if their parents could afford to send them. Some boys could walk to a madrassa, and some had to go to a bigger town where they had a school. Those boys slept in dormitories at the madrassa, or rented rooms nearby. But there may have been some girls, too, as the story of Layla and Majnun shows.

Layla and Majnun
Medieval Islamic women

Layla and Majnun at school together, from a manuscript of the Khamsa that belonged to Timur's son and is now in the Hermitage Museum (1431 AD).

Layla and Majnun at school together, from a manuscript of the Khamsa that belonged to Timur’s son and is now in the Hermitage Museum (1431 AD).

When did the first madrassas open?

The earliest madrassas were probably built beginning about 850 AD, replacing earlier Roman and Sassanian schools. Like maktabs, madrassas were usually next to a mosque.

What is a mosque?
Roman high schools

What did you learn at a madrassa?

At the madrassa, boys learned more about Islam, but they also studied non-religious subjects like algebraastronomymedicinehistorypoetry, and law.

Islamic science and math
Islamic mathematics
Astronomy in medieval Islam
Medicine in medieval Islam
Medieval Islamic poetry

Students hearing a lecture in a madrassa

Students hearing a lecture in a madrassa

Scholars, research, and study

Madrassas were also centers for research and study for adults, like universities today. They were open to anybody who wanted to visit and learn, if the visitors knew enough to be able to understand what they heard.

Ibn Sina and geology
And Ibn al-Haytham and eyes
Ibn Khaldun and economics 

Learn by doing: go to a public university lecture about Islam
More about Islamic science

Bibliography and further reading about medieval Islamic schools:

More about the Islamic Empire
Quatr.us home