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Origin and Character of Al-Madrasah

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 December 2009

A. L. Tibawi
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Extract

THE scholarly article entitled ‘Muslim institutions of learning in eleventhcentury Baghdad’ by Dr. George Makdisi deserves careful study. It is much more than a mosaic of notices of institutions and men of learning; it has a thesis running through its course, which seeks to elucidate the character of the madrasah in general and that founded by Niẓām al-Mulk in Baghdad in particular.

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Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 25 , Issue 2 , June 1962 , pp. 225 - 238
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Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London 1962

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References

page 225 note 1 BSOAS, xxiv, 1, 1961, 1–56Google Scholar.

page 225 note 2 For a long time two articles commanded general respect, and were, and still are, often used, with varying degrees of accuracy and care, by scholars writing in Western or Islamic languages. The two articles are, of course, (a) Goldziher's ‘Education—Muslim’ in Hasting's Encyclopaedia of religion and ethics, v, 198–207; and (6) Pedersen's ‘’ in the Encyclopaedia of Islam (first edition), III, pt. 1, 315–76, particularly section F, ‘The mosque as an educational centre’, pp. 350–68. In the Shorter Encyclopaedia of Islam (ed. H. A. R. Gibb and J. H. Kramers) this latter article was abridged and split into two,‘Madrasa’ (pp. 300–10) and‘’ (pp. 330–53). In parts, both articles require revision. Of the works that seem to have leaned very heavily on either or both articles, mention may be made of Totah, Khalil, The contributions of the Arabs to education, New York, 1926Google Scholar; Salama, Ibrahim, L'enseignement islamique en Egypte, Le Caire, 1939Google Scholar; Shalaby, Ahmad, History of Muslim education, Beirut, 1954Google Scholar; Tritton, A. S., Materials on Muslim education in the Middle Ages, London, 1957Google Scholar.

page 226 note 1 See the writer's article ‘Muslim education in the golden age of the Caliphate’, Islamic Culture, xxviii, 3, 1954,434Google Scholar et passim. (This article is unfortunately marred by many misprints.)

page 226 note 2 Rasā'il al-Safā' (Cairo, 1347/1928), ii, 146. See further the writer's article ‘Some educational terms in Rasā'il I aṣ-Ṣafā'’, Islamic Quarterly, v, 1–2, 1959, 56 ff.

page 226 note 3 See Qur'ān x, 71; xxxiv, 46; cf., however, al-, ṢaḥĪḥ (BŪIāq, 1296), in, 49, where Ibn ‘Abbās relates that the Prophet said: . Al- obviously ignores this tradition when he recommends the teacher to emulate the Prophet in not expecting any reward, not even thanks. See Iḥyā’ (BŪlāq, 1289), I, 56. Thus the practice of gratuitous teaching persisted down to the era of al-madrasah when according to Ḥājjī . al-ẓunŪn (ed. Flügel), I, 53, the ‘ulamā’ of Transoxania deplored the grant of allowances to scholars in Baghdad.

page 226 note 4 cf. Ibn Sa'd, Ṭabaqāt (ed. Sachau), III (1), 243; AbŪ YŪsuf, Kitāb al- (BŪlāq, 1302), p. 8, 1. 22.

page 227 note 1 Very little is known concerning Bait al-Ḥikmah. See Ibn al-Nadīm, al-Fihrist (ed. Flügel), 243; al-Qifṭi, al-ḥukamā’ (ed. Lippert, 1903), 98, 441–2. On Dār al-'Ilm where under al-‘Azīz and Ibn Killis quarters and allowances to students were provided, see al-Maqrīzī, al- (Cairo, 1326), II, 334–5; on a similar arrangement near al-Azhar, see iv, 49, 192.Pedersen's assertion that both Bait al-Ḥikmah and Dār al-'Ilm were institutions carrying on ‘old traditions from the Hellenistic period’ is interesting, but seems rather far-fetched. See his article ‘Some aspects of the history of the madrasa’, Islamic Culture, iii, 4, 1929, 532Google Scholar.

page 227 note 2 cf. al-Maqdisī, Aḥsan al-taqāsīm (Leiden, 1906), 205, 413; Mez, Die Renaissance des Islams(English translation, 1937), 172 ff.

page 227 note 3 In his Die Academien der Araber und ihre Lehrer (Göttingen, 1837), Wüstenfeld uses the term ‘academy’ while Goldziher, Vorlesungen über den Islam (Heidelberg, 1910), 120, 177, uses ‘Schule’ or ‘Hochschule’, and later writers use ‘school’ (Totah, op. cit., 20) or ‘college’(Tritton, op. cit., 102) for madrasah. None of these terms is adequate without qualification. Under drs, Lisān al-‘Arab (Būlāq, 1301), vii, 381–3, gives the general meaning of reading and study, and adds that ‘midrās is the house where the Qur'ān is studied; it is also the midrās of the Jews’. This may be the justification for Pedersen's conjecture of a connexion with the Hebrew midrāsh.

page 228 note 1 Ibn al-Jauzī, in al-Muntazam fī al-mulūk im'l-umam (Ḥaidarābād, 1359), ix, 66, says that the endowment of the Niẓāmīya in Baghdad was for the benefit of the followers of the Shāfi'ī school of fiqh. But this does not necessarily mean that it was for this branch of religious knowledge alone. Indeed, it is stipulated in the same passage for a reader to recite the Qur'ān and for a grammarian to teach Arabic, both receiving remuneration from the endowment.

page 228 note 2 The use of this generic term is deliberate, in order to avoid the obvious objection to ‘professor’ and ‘professorship’. Wüstenfeld (op. cit., 8, 13 et passim) uses ‘Lehrer’ and ‘Lehrerstelle’ which seem to meet the case admirably.

page 228 note 3 However, Dr. Makdisi not only reduces him to the position of a teacher of fiqh, but casts doubt as to his motive in leaving teaching and then returning to it later (p. 40). Al- himself explained it all in a moving passage in his al-min al-ḍaād (Cairo, ‘Aṭāyā. Press, n.d.) pp. 62–1. It was a keen sense of religious duty that prompted him, after eleven years of seclusion (‘uzlah), to obey the sultan, who issued an irrevocable order (amara amra ilzām) to him to teach at Naisābūr, much nearer to his native Ṭūs. Cf. Majallat‘ al-Majma‘ al-‘llmī al-‘Irāqī, iii, 1, 1954, 152, where it is stated that al- declined teaching again in the Niẓāmīya of Baghdad on the ground that in the meantime he became ‘burdened with wife and children’.

page 228 note 4 Fālihat al-ulūm (Cairo, 1322), 6, 36; cf. p. 62 where al- advocates a ‘liberal’ approach to all the religious sciences.

page 229 note 1 Subkī, Ṭabaqāt al-Shāfi'īyah al-kubrā (Cairo, 1324), iii, 259, ; cf. iv, 103, for the comprehensive range of studies which al- pursued with this same teacher, Imām al-Ḥaramain al-Juwainī, from religious sciences to falsafa.

page 229 note 2 See Ihyā’, I, 16, 17, 20, 31, 40, et passim.

page 229 note 3 In this matter there is no distinction between what al-Mawardī in al-Aḥkām al-sulṭānīya(Cairo, 1298), 96, calls masājīd svMānīya and masājid ‘āmīya.

page 229 note 4 Contrary to Dr. Makdisi's unsupported statement (p. 12), mudarris was not exclusively used for a teacher of fiqh in a madrasah or in what he calls a mosque-college. Al-, in Fātiḥa, pp. 11, 61, uses also mu'allim and . Nor does the term dars mean only a lesson in fiqh. In the same work, al- (p. 19) quotes a tradition in which the expression nadrusu'l ‘ilm occurs, ‘ilm here meaning . In the charming lines by Abū Nuwās, dars is used for a lesson given by a mu'allim in a maktab. See the poem quoted by Aḥmad Amīn, Ṭuḥa al-Islam (Cairo, 1353/1935), II, 51–2. In Rasā'il Ial-Ṣafā’ (I, 236) the term is used for the study of all branches of knowledge (‘ulūm). Furthermore, not only mutafaqqih, but also muta‘allim, is used for a student of fiqh. See al-, Fātiḥa, 11. In his Iḥyā’, 56, he uses tadrīs in the same sentence for fiqh and kalām. Subkī, on whom Dr. Makdisi relies so much for definition of terms, thus speaks of al-'s teaching in the Niẓāmīya (Ṭahaqāt, iv, 104), . Al- himself describes his teaching in Baghdad as nashr al-‘ilm. See al-min al-ḍalāl, 3; cf. 64.

page 230 note 1 In using ‘professorial chair’ Dr. Makdisi seems to be following Pedersen. See Shorter Encyclopaedia of Islam, 308a.

page 230 note 2 Dr. Makdisi cites Subkī's Ṭabaqāt, without specification, for the statement that when the caliph appointed Abū Manṣūr al-Jīlī to ‘a professorial chair’ he was asked (by whom it is not stated): . It is obvious that this sentence is ambiguous, and therefore one cannot generalize from it, especially when in the case of other ‘appointments’, the appointing authority is not mentioned. Actually Subkī, iii, 204, has only one sentence about Abū Manṣūr, namely that he died in Muḥarram of the year 452. The origin of the phrase in question is thus unknown. The quotation from Ibn al-Jauzī's al-Muntazam, viii, 76, that Ibn al-Sammāk ‘ held two appointments’ does not seem to be warranted by the sentence: (Incidentally Ibn al-Sammāk was one of four in Baghdad who earned the epithet .)

page 231 note 1 Sir Hamilton Gibb who has kindly read this article called my attention to a statement which occurs in Yāqūt's biography of al-Tibrīzī, the author of the well-known commentary on al-Mu‘allaqāt. In Mu‘jam al-udabā’, vii, 287, Yāqūt says that Tibrīzī taught adab in the Niẓāmīya: . According to the same source Tibrīzī was born in 421. On the study of Arabic language, grammar, and literature in the Niẓāmīya in the sixth century see the same work, v, 423–4. In 580, Ibn Jubair (Riḥah, edited Wright and De Goeje, p. 219) attended a majlis in the Niẓāmīya which was inclusive of practically all the religious sciences, commencing as usual with the Qur’ān, tafsīr, and , followed by questions.

page 231 note 2 lḥyā’ I, 57.

page 232 note 1 Subkī, Ṭabaqāt, III, 135–45; Ibn al-JauzI, al-Muntaẓam, IX, 65–8.

page 232 note 2 Ibn al-, al-Kāmil (Leiden, 1864), x, 54, 141. Niẓām's own education was in the religious sciences, and he himself held well-attended circles for in Baghdad and certain centres in (Subkī, Ṭabaqāt, in, 140–1). His interest in does not square with his founding, as it is alleged, a college of law, to which moreover he donated a unique MS of Ibrāhīm Harbī's al- (Subkī, Ṭabaqāt, iii, 230).

page 232 note 3 It is not certain that these institutions were all called Niẓāmīya immediately on their foundation. Not only was the name of the illustrious minister an inducement to later writers to associate them with his name, but the official character of these institutions was mixed up with the idea of pattern or order (niẓām) which distinguished them from the institutions that preceded them.

page 232 note 4 Ibn al-Jauzī, al-Muntazam, ix, 66.

page 232 note 5 cf. Ibn al-, al-Kāamil, x, 141, ‘He ordered (amara) the building of madāris in all countries’; cf. al-Maqrizi, al- (Cairo, 1326), iv, 192, who says that the Niẓāmīya is ascribed to (mansūbah) Niẓām.

page 233 note 1 There is a slip in Dr. Makdisi's translated account, p. 32, 1. 1—‘Dhu'l-Ḥijja’ should be ‘Dhu'l-Qa'da’; cf. p. 38 under Abū Naṣr b. al-.

page 233 note 2 By what seems to be self-contradiction, Dr. Makdisi says (p. 53) that Niẓam intended the madrasah as an institution which ‘provided for the future of the supported school of law by attracting students into its system’. The school of law meant here is, of course, the Shāfi'ī.

page 233 note 3 In Dr. Makdisi's translation of a passage from Bundāri on the rebuilding of Abū Ḥanīfah's tomb (p. 20) the word al-iqtida’ is rendered as ‘duplicate’. Here ‘emulation’ would have been more accurate. It would have, moreover, conveyed the idea, which ‘duplicate’ does not, that Niẓām was considered as an example to be copied in the building of madrasahs.

page 233 note 4 In translating a passage from Ibn al- Jauzī again on the rebuilding of Abū Ḥanīfah's tomb, Dr. Makdisi is not as exact as might be expeoted: (1) surely banā, means ‘built’ not ‘founded’; (2) ‘amila al-madrasah is clearly ambiguous, but it does not necessarily mean ‘built the madrasah’; (3) anzalaha'l-fuqahā’ is also ambiguous, and does not necessarily mean ‘lodged’ them in it.

page 233 note 5 See Ṭalas, As‘ad, La madrasa Ni^amiyya el son histoire, Paris, 1939Google Scholar.

page 234 note 1 Iraqi scholars, notably Muṣṭafā Jawād, have called attention to the madrasah opened in 459 near the tomb of Abū Ḥanīfah. There was no suggestion that it rivalled the Niẓāmīya. Under 580, Ibn Jubair gives a vivid account of a, majlis he attended in it, but he does not mention the Ḥanafī institution though he mentions the tomb and the dome (Riḥlah, 226, 229).

page 234 note 2 See p. 236, n. 3.

page 234 note 3 See Ch. Schefer's translation Siasset namèh (Paris, 1893), pp. 55 ff., 65 ff.; cf. English translation, The book of government or rules of kings, by H. Darke (London, 1960), pp. 43, 49; cf. the German translation, Siyāsatnāma, by K. E. Schabinger and von Schowingen (München, 1960), pp. 138, 144.

page 234 note 4 Briefly mentioned by Abu'l Fidā’, ta'al-bashar (Constantinople, 1286), III, 179. See further al-Mashriq, V, 164 ff.; x, 390 ff.; Strange, G. Le, Baghdad during the Abbasid Caliphate (Oxford, 1900), 266Google Scholar f. Dr. Makdisi considers the jāmi‘, masjid, and madrasah as distinct and different objects, not merely as institutions of learning but also as places of worship. The difference between the one mosque and the other is very slight, and the difference between either and the madrasah is often imperceptible. Its structure, when it took final shape, generally included the miḥrāb, the minbar as well as the lecture hall, quarters for scholars, and ablution facilities. The attempt to establish a distinction between masjid and madrasah (49–50) on the basis of a legal opinion of a man who died in A.H. 438 overlooks the purpose of such an opinion which was the legality of the application of an assigned sum of money for a purpose other than that of the donor. It was not concerned with the technical distinction between the two terms. Besides, this opinion, assuming that Subkī quoted it verbatim, was expressed before the emergence of the historic madrasah, and hence technically of little value. In general we must be very careful not to read too much into literature of this nature, for jurists are notorious for hair-splitting and arguing even concerning the improbable and the impossible.

page 235 note 1 Educational institutions in al-Maghrib and al-Andalus were chiefly the maktab and the masjid; those of the Fāṭimids were similar though known under different names. The madrasah as an Eastern Sunnī institution came to Egypt and Syria with Saladin, but according to al- Maqqarī, Nafḥ al-ṭīb (Būlāq, 1279), I, 104, was not adopted in al-Andalus where the masjid remained the sole centre of learning.

page 235 note 2 This is well expressed by the Mālikī jurist Abu'l Ḥasan al-Qābisī (d. A.H. 403) in his al-Risālah al-mufaṣṣilah li Aḥwāl al-mu‘allimīn (ed. Aḥmad Ahwānī, Cairo, 1364/1945), pp. 268–9. He states that caliphs made every provision for the welfare of the community in the public and private life of its members by the appointment of paid officials, but none of them appointed mu'allims for their children in the kuttāb. In Qābisī's view, it was inconceivable that this was due to neglect but rather to a desire to leave it in the hand of parents: .

page 236 note 1 On the place of the madrasah in the Seljūq era and later, see Gibb's, H. A. R. ‘Interpretation of Islamic history’, Journal of World History, i, 1, 1953, 55–6Google Scholar.

page 236 note 2 cf. al-Maqdisī, Aḥsan al-taqāsīm (BGA, Leiden, 1906), 44, 315; Subkī, Ṭabaqāt, iii, 137. The term came into general use in Egypt only after the fall of the Fāṭimids, and in the west even later. Muḥammad statement in his Tar'al-jami'āt al-Islāmīya al-kubrā (Tetuán, 1373/1953), p. 43, that Yusūf b. Tashfin established a madrasah in Fās and two others elsewhere about 450 must not be taken literally. He cites a modern, not an original source.

page 236 note 3 Abū Isḥāq al-Shīrāzī, the famous principal teacher of the Niẓāmīya in Baghdad, is reported to have said: ‘I travelled [from Baghdad] to and I found in every town or village on my way the position of qāḍī, muftī, or held by a former pupil of mine () or by one of my followers (aṣḥābī)’; see Subkī, Ṭabaqāt, III, 89.

page 236 note 4 The caliphs at the time were followers of al-Shāfi’ī; the sultans of Abū Ḥanīfah. Niẓām himself was a Shāfi'ī. The appearance of the madrasah coincided with fierce squabbles among the three rites: Shāfi'ī, Ḥanafī, and Ḥanbalī.

page 237 note 1 Subkī, Ṭabaqāt, iv, 125, refers to criticism of al- that he was inclined to philosophy and mysticism. Subkī says he had seen most of al- writing and he is inclined to believe that in belief he was an Ash'arite who meddled with the works of the Ṣūfīs: .

page 237 note 2 cf. Muṣṭafā Jawād's article ‘Al-madrasah al-Niẓāmīyah bi-’, Sumer, ix, 1953, 320, which states that Niẓām was an Ash‘arā, and that the name of Abu'l Ḥasan al-Ash'arī was written on the gate of the Niẓāmīya in Baghdad, and possibly also on the gates of all the other institutions established by him. The writer gives no source, and I saw no reference to this before the year 538. See al-Jauzī, al-Muntaẓam, x, 107, last line but one.

page 237 note 3 Ṭabaqāt, iii, 99.

page 237 note 4 cf. Ibn al-Jauzī, al-Muntaẓam, viii, 305–6. On the last page, Shīrāzī is reported to have said to the leader of the Ḥanbalites at the meeting with the caliph: ‘Here are my books on legal theory. I speak contrary to Ash'arism in them’.

page 237 note 5 Ibn al-Jauzī, al-Muntaẓam, viii, 312.

page 238 note 1 cf. Ibn al-, al-Kāmil, x, 141, who says that in consequence of Niẓām's order to stop the cursing of the Ash1'arites many self-exiled ‘ulamā’, including Imām al-Ḥaramain al-Juwainī, returned. The reception by Niẓām of Abū Ja'far al- and his son, suspected of Mu‘tazilī tendencies, if viewed in the light of this general tolerant policy, may be better appreciated by Dr. Makdisi (see pp. 36–7 of his article).

page 238 note 2 The phrase describing Shīrāzī as ‘simple-hearted and easily influenced’ in Niẓām's letter which Dr. Makdisi uses for ascribing ambivalence to Shīrāzī may be an interpolation. It does not seem to fit in with the contents and form of the letter, nor does it seem likely that Niẓām was capable of such language in addressing his learned protégé, nor would Shīrāzī be quick to publish a private letter derogatory to himself. Indeed, Subkī, Ṭabaqāt, III, 99, refers to Abū Isḥāq as kabīru ahli'l-Sunnah ba'dahū, the pronoun referring to Abu'l Ḥasan al-Ash‘arī himself. Such was the prestige of Shīrāzī in high places that the caliph al-Muqtadī sent him, with a palace chamberlain, as safīr to the sultan and Niẓām then at camp (Ibid., 91).