Madrasa
Madrasa, sometimes romanized as madrasah or madrassa, is the Arabic word for any type of educational institution, secular or religious, whether for elementary education or higher learning. In countries outside the Arab world, the word usually refers to a specific type of religious school or college for the study of the religion of Islam, though this may not be the only subject studied.
In an architectural and historical context, the term generally refers to a particular kind of institution in the historic Muslim world that primarily taught Sharia and fiqh, as well as other subjects on occasion. The origin of the madrasa is widely credited to Nizam al-Mulk, a vizier under the Seljuks in the 11th century, who was responsible for building the first network of official madrasas in Iran, Mesopotamia, and Khorasan. From there, the construction of madrasas spread across much of the Muslim world over the next few centuries, often adopting similar models of architectural design.
The madrasas became the longest-serving institutions of the Ottoman Empire, beginning service in 1330 and operating for nearly 600 years on three continents. They trained doctors, engineers, lawyers and religious officials, among other members of the governing and political elite. The madrasas were a specific educational institution, with their own funding and curricula, in contrast with the Enderun palace schools attended by Devshirme pupils.
Definition
Etymology
The word ' derives from the triconsonantal Semitic root د-ر-س D-R-S 'to learn, study', using the wazn مفعل;, meaning "a place where something is done". Thus, ' literally means "a place where learning and studying take place" or "place of study". The word is also present as a loanword with the same general meaning in many Arabic-influenced languages, such as: Urdu, Pashto, Baluchi, Persian, Turkish, Azeri, Kurdish, Indonesian, Somali and Bosnian.Arabic meaning
In the Arabic language, the word مدرسة ' simply means the same as school does in the English language, whether that is private, state or religious school, as well as for any primary or secondary school whether Muslim, non-Muslim or secular. Unlike the use of the word school in British English, the word ' more closely resembles the term school in American English, in that it can refer to a university-level or post-graduate school as well as to a primary or secondary school. For example, in the Ottoman Empire during the Early Modern Period, madrasas had lower schools and specialised schools where the students became known as danişmends. In medieval usage, however, the term madrasah was usually specific to institutions of higher learning, which generally taught Islamic law and occasionally other subjects, as opposed to elementary schools or children's schools, which were usually known as kuttāb, khalwa or maktab. The usual Arabic word for a university, however, is جامعة . The Hebrew cognate midrasha also connotes the meaning of a place of learning; the related term midrash literally refers to study or learning, but has acquired mystical and religious connotations.Meaning and usage in English
In English, the term or "madrasa" usually refers more narrowly to Islamic institutions of learning. Historians and other scholars also employ the term to refer to historical learning institutions throughout the Muslim world, which is to say a college where Islamic law was taught along with other secondary subjects, but not to secular science schools, modern or historical. These institutions were typically housed in specially designed buildings which were primarily devoted to this purpose. Such institutions are believed to have originated, or at least proliferated, in the region of Iran in the 11th century under vizier Nizam al-Mulk and subsequently spread to other regions of the Islamic world.History
Early history
The first institute of madrasa education was at the estate of Zayd ibn Arqam near a hill called Safa, where Muhammad was the teacher and the students were some of his followers. After Hijrah the madrasa of "Suffa" was established in Medina on the east side of the Al-Masjid an-Nabawi mosque. Ubada ibn as-Samit was appointed there by Muhammad as teacher and among the students. In the curriculum of the madrasa, there were teachings of The Qur'an, The Hadith, fara'iz, tajweed, genealogy, treatises of first aid, etc. There was also training in horse-riding, the art of war, handwriting and calligraphy, and athletics and martial arts. The first part of madrasa-based education is dated from the first day of "nabuwwat" to the first portion of the Umayyad Caliphate. At the beginning of the Caliphate period, the reliance on royal courts initially confined sponsorship and scholarly activities to major centres.In the early history of the Islamic period, teaching was generally carried out in mosques rather than in separate specialized institutions. Although some major early mosques like the Great Mosque of Damascus or the Mosque of Amr ibn al-As in Cairo had separate rooms which were devoted to teaching, this distinction between "mosque" and "madrasa" was not very developed. Notably, the al-Qarawiyyin, established in 859 in the city of Fez, present-day Morocco, is considered the oldest university in the world by some scholars, though the application of the term "university" to institutions of the medieval Muslim world is disputed. According to tradition, the al-Qarawiyyin mosque was founded by , the daughter of a wealthy merchant named. This was later followed by the Fatimid establishment of al-Azhar Mosque in 969–970 in Cairo, initially as a center to promote Isma'ili teachings, which later became a Sunni institution under Ayyubid rule. By the 900s AD, the Madrasa is noted to have become a successful higher education system.
The development of the formal ''madrasah''
In the late 11th century, during the late ʻAbbāsid period, the Seljuk vizier Nizam al-Mulk| created one of the first major official academic institutions known in history as the Nizamiyyah|, based on the informal ., who would later be murdered by the Assassins, created a system of state madrasas in various Seljuk and ʻAbbāsid cities at the end of the 11th century, ranging from Mesopotamia to Khorasan. Although madrasa-type institutions appear to have existed in Iran before Nizam al-Mulk, this period is nonetheless considered by many as the starting point for the proliferation of the formal madrasah across the rest of the Muslim world, adapted for use by all four different Sunni Islamic legal schools and Sufi orders. Part of the motivation for this widespread adoption of the madrasah by Sunni rulers and elites was a desire to counter the influence and spread of Shi'ism at the time, by using these institutions to spread Sunni teachings.Dimitri Gutas and the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy consider the period between the 11th and 14th centuries to be the "Golden Age" of Arabic and Islamic philosophy, initiated by al-Ghazali's successful integration of logic into the curriculum and the subsequent rise of Avicennism. In addition to religious subjects, they taught the "rational sciences," as varied as mathematics, astronomy, astrology, geography, alchemy, and philosophy, depending on the curriculum of the specific institution in question. The madrasas, however, were not centres of advanced scientific study; scientific advances in Islam were usually carried out by scholars working under the patronage of royal courts. During the Islamic Golden Age, the territories under the Caliphate experienced a growth in literacy, having the highest literacy rate of the Middle Ages, comparable to classical Athens' literacy in antiquity but on a much larger scale. The emergence of the maktab and madrasa institutions played a fundamental role in the relatively high literacy rates of the medieval Islamic world.
File:Nur al-Din Madrasa.jpg|thumb|Courtyard of the Nur al-Din Madrasa in Damascus, originally built in 1167 by Nur ad-Din ZengiUnder the Anatolian Seljuk, Zengid, Ayyubid, and Mamluk dynasties in the Middle East, many of the ruling elite founded madrasas through a religious endowment and charitable trust known as a waqf. The first documented madrasa created in Syria was the Madrasa of Kumushtakin, added to a mosque in Bosra in 1136. One of the earliest madrasas in Damascus, and one of the first madrasas to be accompanied by the tomb of its founder, is the Madrasa al-Nuriyya founded by Nur al-Din Zengi in 1167–1172. After Salah ad-Din overthrew the Shi'a Fatimids in Egypt in 1171, he founded a Sunni madrasa near the tomb of al-Shafi'i in Cairo in 1176–1177, introducing this institution to Egypt. The Mamluks who succeeded the Ayyubids built many more madrasas across their territories. Not only was the madrasa a potent symbol of status for its patrons but it could also be an effective means of transmitting wealth and status to their descendants. Especially during the Mamluk period, when only former slaves could assume power, the sons of the ruling Mamluk elites were unable to inherit. Guaranteed positions within the new madrasas thus allowed them to maintain some status and means of living even after their fathers' deaths. Madrasas built in this period were often associated with the mausoleums of their founders.
Further west, the Hafsid dynasty introduced the first madrasas to Ifriqiya, beginning with the Madrasa al-Shamma῾iyya built in Tunis in 1238. By the late 13th century, the first madrasas were being built in Morocco under the Marinid dynasty, starting with the Saffarin Madrasa in Fes and culminating with much larger and more ornate constructions like the Bou Inania Madrasa.
During the Ottoman period the medrese was a common institution as well, often part of a larger külliye or a waqf-based religious foundation which included other elements like a mosque and a hammam. The following excerpt provides a brief synopsis of the historical origins and starting points for the teachings that took place in the Ottoman madrasas in the Early Modern Period: