Around the age of 15, students who had com-
pleted two or three years in a Quran school, or
the equivalent with tutors, could obtain higher
levels of education from religious experts who
taught at the congregational mosques (sing. jami),
mosque-colleges (sing. masjid), and colleges of
law (sing. madrasa). The colleges and other places
of religious education developed from local learn-
ing circles of teachers and students and became
the dominant centers of higher learning during
the 11th and 12th centuries as a Sunni response
to philosophical rationalism and growing Shii
power and influence. The Shia also developed
institutions of higher education. In the early
period, major centers of learning were located in
the cities of Kufa, Basra, baghdad, Nishapur, Shi-
raz, Balkh, cairo, damascUs, JerUsalem, medina,
granada, and cordoba. Later ones emerged in
Isfahan, Qom, Mashhad, Najaf, and istanbUl. In
india, the leading centers of Islamic education
were in delhi, Jawnpur, Bijapur, and Lucknow.
The salaries of the professors, their assistants,
and the expenses for founding, maintaining, and
operating the schools were traditionally financed
by private donations from wealthy and powerful
individuals, including Women. As a rule, Islamic
schools were not funded directly by the govern-
ment or public taxes. They often housed manu-
script libraries, and there were usually copyists
and booksellers nearby, making it convenient for
students to acquire learning materials and texts.
Madrasas usually had residential quarters for lead-
ing professors and students, but additional hous-
ing was available at nearby hostels.
The purpose of the college was to teach the
sharia and related subjects. It usually specialized
in a particular school (madhhab) of Islamic law.
Sunni madrasas specialized in teaching the juris-
prudence (fiqh) of one of the four major Sunni
schools—Hanafi, Shafii, Maliki, or Hanbali. Shii
colleges emphasized Jaafari jurisprudence and
the teachings of the Twelve imams. A few colleges
offered courses in more than one legal tradition
as well as in comparative fiqh. The curriculum
typically included courses in the Quranic sciences
(tafsir and alternative readings of the Arabic text),
hadith studies, arabic langUage and literatUre,
and the biographies of mUhammad and his com-
panions. Theology, history, and ethics were also
taught, but as secondary subjects. Philosophy,
mysticism, the natural sciences, and advanced
mathematics were studied by only a select few;
they were more commonly studied outside the
college. Students who obtained higher education
became members of the Ulama: judges, jurists,
preachers, or teachers of Islamic knowledge.
Although girls could attain an elementary educa-
tion, they were not allowed into the religious col-
leges. They could obtain a higher education only
in a limited way at the mosque, or, if they were
from the family of a great male scholar, at home.
Indeed, some of the most noted hadith scholars in
medieval Cairo and Damascus were the daughters
of famous male scholars.
Medieval madrasa education depended on the
development of informal, face-to-face relations
between students and teachers. Students joined
the learning circle of a scholar (shaykh) known for
his mastery of a particular field of Islamic scholar-
ship. Learning at this level still involved significant
amounts of memorization, but it also required
cultivating the skills of intellectual conversation
and disputation. Serious students might take years
to master the different areas of knowledge and the
relevant intellectual skills. At the same time, they
formed long-lasting networks of associations with
their teachers and fellow students. When they had
demonstrated mastery of a teacher’s book or sub-
ject area, they would receive a certificate (ijaza)
that authorized them to teach what they had
learned to others. They did not get a degree from
the college as today’s students do, but collected
certificates from individual professors with whom
they had studied. This authorization incorporated
them into traditions of scholarship that had been
transmitted over many generations. Moreover,
students often had to travel abroad in order to
further their education. The importance of edu-K (^208) education