Encyclopedia of Islam

university

While the content and form of instruction has 

dramatically changed with the introduction of 

Western-style universities in the 19th and 20th 

centuries, higher 

edUcation

 in the Islamic world 

has had a long and venerable history. Important 

institutions of learning associated with 

mosqUes

such as al-a

zhar

 in e

gypt

, al-Zaytuna in Tunisia, 

and al-Qarawiyyin in m

orocco

 arose during the 

ninth and 10th centuries, preceding the develop-

ment of universities even in Europe. The 

madrasa

,

or school of Islamic law, was the primary teaching 

institution. Additional institutions such as the 

khanqah or zawiya, two kinds of Sufi institutions, 

later came to supplement the education available 

from the madrasa. For information on any of these 

traditional institutions of higher learning, please 

see relevant encyclopedia articles, as this entry 

will address the development of Western-style 

learning in the Islamic world.

Increasing European dominance and encoun-

ters with 

colonialism

 led leaders in Muslim 

lands to undertake educational reform. Technical 

training schools, usually schools of medicine or 

ones focused on military skills, were founded 

during the first half of the 19th century. With the 

introduction of Western-style institutions such 

as these, often with help from European experts, 

the way was paved for the establishment of other 

colleges or faculties. These institutions often con-

tributed to the early founding of a national uni-

versity, as in the Ottoman Empire (1900), e

gypt

(1906),  s

yria

 (1924), and i

ran

 (1934). Else-

where, as in South Asia, the colonial governments 

themselves founded universities. The first three 

universities in the region were founded in British 

i

ndia

 in 1857, with three additional universities 

established before the end of the century, includ-

ing one in Lahore. Missionaries, too, played a 

role in founding universities, specifically in l

eba

-

non

 in 1864 and 1875. However, the balance of 

Muslim-majority countries did not witness the 

establishment of Western-style universities until 

the postwar period, for example, i

ndonesia

 and 

m

alaysia

 (1949), l

ibya

 (1955), i

raq

 (1956), 

s

aUdi

 a

rabia

 (1957), and Kuwait (1960).

All of these universities were modeled on 

Western-style teaching methods and university 

curricula, and in some cases they offered instruc-

tion only in Western languages. In the 1970s a 

movement began to establish Islamic universi-

ties, or to “Islamize” teaching at existing uni-

versities. At Saudi Arabia’s Islamic University of 

m

edina

, traditional subjects are taught by Western 

teaching methods. The First World Conference 

on Muslim Education in m

ecca

, held in 1977, 

prompted Malaysia and p

akistan

 to begin the pro-

cess of founding specifically Islamic universities, 

and  b

angladesh

 and Niger followed. Soon after, 

J

ordan

,  m

orocco

,  a

lgeria

,  t

Unisia

, and other 

states introduced courses in Islamic culture into 

their required university curricula. Independently, 

the textbooks and curricula of Iranian universities 

were “Islamized” following the 1979 revolution.

See also  a

bdUh

,  m

Uhammad

;  a

ligarh

; 

kuttab

; 

reneWal

 

movements

; 

secUlarism

; W

esternization

.

Shauna Huffaker