Contributed by Prof. Dr. Nazeer Ahmed, PhD
The madrassah, an ancient institution founded in the early years of Islamic history, has gone through profound transformations in the last 1400 years. The various dimensions of this transformation have been investigated and documented in other articles in the encyclopedia. In the table given below, we summarize the major changes that the madrassah, as an institution, has undergone and the historical context of those changes. We hope this table will serve as a quick reference for the historical evolution of the madrassah.
Period | Archetype | Institutional Structure/Teaching Method | The Syllabus | The Universities |
632-765The UmayyadPeriod |
The visionary;Salman Farsi;Omar bin Abdel Aziz |
The halqa;Imam in an open halqa in a mosque or home | Knowledge transmitted by the Prophet |
Madina and Kufa as centers of learning; Damascusis a learning center |
765-847The Early Abbasidperiod | The rationalist (man of the mind);al Mansur;al Mutawakkil; |
The mosque-madrasa complex;A’alim to talib;
Open discourse |
The Qur’an;The Prophetic tradition;Arabic language;Philosophy; Logic; Mathematics |
Baghdad becomes the intellectual capital of the world. Darul Hikmah established in Baghdad |
847-1258 The late Abbasid period. Brilliant civilization in Khorasan and Spain |
The integrationist; “al Hakim” ;Ibn Sina | The mosque-madrasa complex; A’alim to talib. Structured discourse | Qur’anic sciences; Akhlaq;Languages;
Mathematics; Logic; Natural sciences; Experimentation; History; Medicine Tasawwuf |
Thriving universities In Kairaoun, Fas, Cordoba, Toledo, Seville, Baghdad, Cairo (Al Azhar), Esfehan, Herat, Samarqand, Bukhara |
1258-1650 Political and social disintegration in Asia and the Maghrib (1212-1500);The Ottomans, The Safavids and the Great Moguls emerge. |
The Sufi;The wali;(man focused on the soul);Man of Akhlaq;Shaikh Abdel Qader Jeelani |
The zawiyah;Decentralized educational system; Shaykh to murids | The Qur’an;Tasawwuf; Trade skills;
Basic technology; Military Chivalry; “Aadab”; Arithmetic; (Neglect |
Universities in Samarqand, Tabriz,Qum,Timbaktu, Cairo, Kairaoun, Bijapur,and Pasai exist side by side with the zawiyas; Patronage of scholars in the Delhi courts. |
1650- 1850 The ascent of Europe. Science and technology move West.Muslims lose trade routes.European colonies |
The traditionalist;The Mullah;The Mufti;
Aurangzeb |
Isolation of the Madrasa. Beginning of “the age of discontinuity”;Mullah to talib |
The Qur’an;Hadith (Neglect of Mathematics, science,history and the sciences of the soul) |
Universities in Egypt and Africa survive as skeletons from a bygone era |
1880-1920 Hey-day of colonialism | The “reformer”;The apologist; Jamaluddin al Afghani |
“Western” style university; Continuation of “the age of discontinuity”; Complete dissociationof “deeni” and “dunawi” or secular education;Professor to student |
Languages;Clerical skills;Some science;Some math (Neglect of history and the sciences of the soul) |
“Western”style universities in Istanbul;Aligarh,Cairo, and later in other major cities around the world |
1920-TodayPost colonial period. Neo-colonialism | The awakening; Mohammed Iqbal | Attempts to reconcile western thought with Islamic teachings;Professor to student |
Emphasis on science and technology | Western style universities |
* This article was submitted to the Encyclopedia of Islamic History (www.historyofislam.com) on March 1, 1995. This date may be used as the first date of publication. The article is based on lectures given by Prof. Dr. Nazeer Ahmed in the 1967 to 1992 period.