Education in the Middle East
Illustration from The Maqamat of al-Hariri [Painting]
During the Abassid period and onward, children four or older in villages and urban centers began attending schools (maktabs) attached to mosques to obtain a basic education in religious matters. Students in a maktab sat in a semicircle on the floor around the teacher writing their lessons on a tablet and then repeating it back for correction. In this illustration, one boy recites for the teacher while another boy takes his turn pulling the ceiling fan. Attendance at maktabs was voluntary; typically, wealthier families paid for their child to attend and poorer students exchanged the running of a teacher's errands for tuition. Successful students could go on to study with individual scholars at madrasas, which were supported by an endowment.
Generally, girls did not attend schools and when they were educated, if at all, it was in separate facilities or by private tutors. Some women made notable contributions to Islamic scholarship in the medieval period, routinely giving lectures, traveling for knowledge, transmitting and critiquing hadith, and issuing legal decisions. They did so within the cultural conventions of modesty and avoiding, to the extent possible, mixing with men.
Illustration from the Maqamat of al-Hariri, painted by Yahya ibn Mahmud al-Wasiti, from Baghdad, Iraq 1237. Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris. Annotated by Heidi Morrison.
How to Cite This Source
Heidi Morrison, "Education in the Middle East," in Children and Youth in History, Item #459, http://chnm.gmu.edu/cyh/teaching-modules/459 (accessed March 5, 2015).
- Primary Sources
- Ijazahs (Diploma) [Calligraphy]
- Ibn Khaldun's Study of History (1377 CE) [Literary Excerpt]
- 'Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi's Autobiography [Personal Account]
- Illustration from The Maqamat of al-Hariri [Painting]
- Devshirme System [Gravure]
- Ottoman Decree, 1856 [Legal Document]
- British Parliamentary Papers [Official Documents]
- "Girls' Education is the Basis of Civilization and Moral Refinement" 1907 [Magazine Article]
- Taha Hussein, Minister of Education [Motto]
- Education in Post-Colonial Algeria [Newspaper Article]
- Gülen Movement [Literary Excerpt]
- Education in a Warzone [Podcast]