From the first half of the 17th century to the second half of the 18th century, that is, before the American Revolution, educational colleges in the new British colonies arose in an informal manner in the form of charitable endowment institutions and they enjoyed the distinctive right that universities specialize in granting degrees, and this pattern returns To the British Merton College, which was founded in 1264 AD and was a model for colleges that were later established in the United Kingdom in Oxford and Cambridge.
In his book, “The Establishment of Faculties .. Science Institutes for Muslims and the West,” the late American author and academic George Georges Makdisi explains the relationship of the history of Islamic science institutes with the religious history of Islam, and their inspiration for the European and Western educational renaissance. It also discusses the emergence of these scientific institutes and their interaction with theological and juridical movements.
The book, whose first English edition was published in 1981, focuses on a specific educational institution, the "Islamic College", and discusses its school method, and its educational output, especially in the fourth century AH, corresponding to the 11th century AD in Baghdad, which is the spatial and temporal era in which this school flourished.
The former professor at the University of Michigan, Harvard, and Pennsylvania discusses - in the book whose Arabic translation was published by Dar Madarat - "the presence of isotopes, similarities and identities in the tracks and directions" used in teaching methods, considering that they are not just similarities, even the technical terms coincide in many cases.
The author believes that the science institutes of Muslims have a great relationship with the European renaissance, and discusses "the existence of isotopes, similarities and congruence in the paths and directions" used in teaching methods, considering that they are not just similarities, even the technical terms are identical in many cases.
A special meeting
In the introduction to the Arabic edition of the book, Bashir Nafi ', professor of Islamic studies at the University of London, introduced the author, considering that his meeting with the prominent professor of Islamic studies, Henry Laoost (died in 1983) during his doctoral studies at the Sorbonne University, put him on the first path of the study of Islam in the middle age.
Lauste was a scholar of Islamic studies and best known for his specific care for Ibn Taymiyyah. In his footsteps, Makdisi chose the controversial Hanbali Abu al-Wafa bin Aqil as the subject of his academic dissertation published in French and still considered a major reference on the history of the Hanbali and the intellectual history of Islam in the fifth century AH.
Maqdisi called the "College" in the Islamic Education Institution, not the university, because of the difference in the foundations upon which the university was based in the Western context, considering that the faculty arises from a personal endowment initiative while the university was born as a drawing board with privileges, rights and protection, and it was not known The history of the Islamic experience, the university system, as Maqdisi explained in his last chapter of the book.
Islamic and European education
Makdisi begins his work on the history of education in Islam by studying the emergence and development of Islamic doctrinal doctrines, and the close relationship between school and school organization as a qualitative development in the meaning of education and its goal (compared to the mosque’s ring for example), and because school was not possible without the waqf, Makdisi goes to present one of the studies Extremely important for the origin of the endowment system, its terms and objectives, and its relationship to the Islamic conscience, according to Nafie 'introduction to the Arabic translation of a Jerusalem book.
Maqdisi discusses the two main points of view between students of Islam and medieval Europe, on the relationship between Islamic and Western education systems, the first of which sees the absence of a significant influence of Muslims on the philosophy of European education, and the second that sees the channels of communication in Sicily, Italy and Andalusia, between the Islamic and European worlds, helped In an educational renaissance on the European continent.
According to Nafie’s introduction, there is a fundamental difference in a Jerusalemite opinion between the Islamic endowment and its Byzantine counterpart, as the Islamic endowment is voluntarily established by a Muslim and granted eternally, independently of the state or any other official institution, while the Byzantine endowment is given to the institution of the church, which is already a body Corporate, to distribute it to the poor.
Nafeh added that what started to appear in Central Europe was a change in the characteristic of the endowment, probably under Islamic influence, the foundations of the existence of the college and university, and behind that, a great similarity can be seen in the patterns of education, methods and curricula between the new European educational institutions (in that era) The Islamic School, as both foundations for the school approach, which is considered the beginning of the modern scientific approach.
In the second chapter of the book, Makdisi presented the divisions of the fields of heritage knowledge, the educational system and the adopted curriculum, the theoretical sequence method and the sequence of the curricula, and also dealt with organizing the educational process and its method, citing a group of scholars, and explaining what the "school method" means, especially approaches to debate and debate And the report, which takes the student to the higher levels of Islamic education.
He reviewed a sample of the daily program of the Salihiya School established by King Salih Najm al-Din Ayoub - the seventh sultans of Egypt in the time of the Ayyubid state - in 641 AH / 1243-1244 AD, and dealt with the arrangement of the council and those sitting in the circles, the function of friends, prayers in the council, teaching days and holidays, and years of study Long.
Maqdisi also compared the methods of learning and remembering that include memorization, repetition, understanding, studying and a notebook, and reviewed the way of looking, controversy and consensus, debate and argument, methods of debate, and authorization of teaching, as well as the issue of the use of violence in debate, and the issue of the advisory leave.
College and university
In the third chapter, “The Society of Scholars”, the school community’s sanctuaries - teachers and students - demonstrate the system of educational grades and levels of students in schools, and deals with the method of distributing endowment yields and student dues from funds, as part of its review of student wages, the system of grants and gifts, and school budgets such as the school Amadiyah Al-Shafi’i, Al-Shamiya Al-Goaniya School, Dar Al-Qur’an and Al-Hadeeth Al-Tekheenazyah School, and the Persian School. It also discusses the volatility of the endowment yields, embezzlement cases and examples of misconduct.
The author divided the positions, professions and education functions of the teacher and his deputy, and his assistants such as teaching assistant and benefactor, and dealt with the role of the mufti and judge, grammatical functions and the sheikh of reading, preachers, imam, teacher, polite, captain, chief of supervision, transcriber, paper, corrector, references and servant.
In the fourth chapter, the author compared the experience of the Christian West and the experience of the Islamic world, stressing the similarities in teaching methods, functions, and positions, and similarities in phenomena such as the progress of legal studies and the deterioration of literary studies.
The university’s sanctuary is considered a form of social organization that appeared in the Christian West in the second half of the twelfth century, confirming that it was not a product of the Greco-Roman world, nor did it originate from the episcopal schools or monasteries ’schools that appeared before it, because it was different from it in its organization and studies .
Makdisi believes that the university owes nothing in its existence to Islamic civilization, and it is a creativity of the Christian West in its organization and system of privileges that it obtained from the Pope and the King, and the credit for granting these privileges and protection is due to the strange situation in which the students found themselves away from their homelands, as they found They are treated like foreigners in a city where only the locals have citizens.
In contrast to the university, which he described as alien to the Islamic experience, the college as a charity based on charity and alms, was authentic in the Islamic education system because of its association with the endowment system, and the first college in the Latin West was established in Paris in 1180 AD by Lord Jukius who had just returned from Visiting Jerusalem was like a hostel for poor students.
Intellectual movements
Makdisi said in the introduction to the Arabic edition that this study seeks to deepen understanding for a very important period in the history of Islamic thought, because intellectual movements increase our understanding of them when we study them in the context of the factors that led to their establishment, and that intellectual works expand the scope of our understanding of it - form and content - by the amount Inform us of the methods of education, study and authorship, and become familiar with its essential details.
Maqdisi stressed that his book does not provide an overview of Islamic education, because such a comprehensive study must be preceded by conducting many in-depth studies first, but rather tries to focus on a specific educational institution, which is the Islamic College, especially in its school form, and also focuses on the "method Consider "that was the product of this educational institution.