Fatima Al-Fihri



At a time when women were deprived of their rights to education and inheritance elsewhere in the world in the year 859, two Muslim women were building mosques, a university, and library.

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    It all started 1215 years ago, approximately in 800 CE in Qayrawan or in nowadays known as Tunisia. Qayrawan was founded by the Umayyah dynasty in 670, Qayrawan was a city of Islamic scholarship, culture, and civilization. Many scholars were attracted to this earthly paradise of learning and prayer. The city also served as a military post for the conquest of al-Gharb in northwest Africa.

   The Aghlabid dynasty ruled Qayrawan under Abbasiyyah Caliphate during the eighth and ninth centuries. They brought peace to the region Ifriqiyya and conquered Sicily. Aghlabid palaces were also famous. In short, when Fatima al-Fihri left Qayrawan with her father for Fes in the west, it was like they were leaving one paradise in order to create another. So, her family migrated from their original home to the city of Fez in Morocco in the ninth century. 

    Fez at that time was a bustling metropolis of the ‘Muslim West’, known as Al-Maghrib. One of the most influential Muslim cities and held the promise in the people’s imaginations of fortune and felicity. Fez boasted a rich combination of religion and culture, both traditional and cosmopolitan. This was the city where Fatima’s family settled and she eventually married.   

   Fatima's father, Muhammad ibn Abdullah Al-Fihri was a businessman, he worked so hard and eventually, after so much toil and struggle, he became a very successful businessman. Because of that, Fatima's family was blessed with prosperity. Muhammad Al-Fihri was also a pious and well- educated man, so he teaches both of his daughters in their home because there wasn't any school at that time. 

    After some time, Fatima's father died and not so long, followed by the deaths of her husband and brother. The consecutive deaths of her relatives saddened both her and her sister very deeply. Fatima and her sister, Maryam received quite a big amount of wealth. Both Fatima and Maryam were visionary women, they were well educated and religious. The two sisters vowed to dedicate their wealth for the benefit of their community. They could have spent the rest of her days in comfort but they decided to take Robert Frost's “less traveled” road and that made all the difference. 

    Observing that the local mosques in Fez were becoming overcrowded with the growing population of worshipers, many of whom were refugees from Islamic Spain, Mariam built the grand Al-Andalus Mosque in the year 859. Fatima, in her part, decided to build a mosque in Fez.

    In Ramadan of 245 Al-Hijri (859 AD), Fatima Al-Fihri started building a mosque. She named it Al-Quaraouiyine in honor of the city Al-Qayrawan from where her ancestors came. Fatima directly oversaw and guided the construction process in great detail. She had ambitious aspirations, and early on began buying property adjacent to the initial land, thereby significantly increasing the size of the mosque. She diligently spent all that was required of time and money to see the project to completion.  She was also extremely pious and devout in worship and made a religious vow to fast daily from the first day of construction until the project was completed some two years later, whereupon she offered prayers of gratitude in the very mosque she had so tirelessly worked to build. The mosque became the biggest mosque in North Africa.

    Alongside the mosque, Fatima also built a university or a 'madrasah', or so it was known at that time. The university actually resides in the area of the mosque complex. The location of the university within the compounds of the mosque attracted scholars from far and wide. The university produced great thinkers such as Abu Al-Abbas, the jurist Muhammad Al-Fasi, and Leo Africanus, a renowned traveler and writer. Other prominent names associated with the institution include the Maliki jurist Ibn Al-Arabi, the historian Ibn Khaldun, and the astronomer Al-Bitruji (Alpetragius).

    The university played a leading role in cultural and academic relations between the Islamic world and Europe. The university’s outstanding caliber attracted Gerber of Auvergne who later became Pope Sylvester II and went on to introduce Arabic numerals and the concept of zero to medieval Europe. One of the university’s most famous students was the Jewish philosopher, theologian, astronomer, and physician, Maimonides.

    Alongside the Qur’an and Fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence), other subjects that were also taught at the university included grammar, medicine, mathematics, astronomy, chemistry, history, geography, and music. Gradually, a broader range of subjects was introduced in the university, particularly natural sciences, physics, and foreign languages. 

    Al-Qarawiyyin was way ahead of its time: 100 years before Al-Azhar University in Egypt (est. 975 AD) came into existence, 200 years before Europe's oldest university – Bologna in Italy (est. 1088 AD), and Oxford (est. 1096 AD) – the oldest university in Britain. It was almost 800 years before what is probably the “Athens of our time,” Harvard in the USA (est. 1636 AD).

    Fatima Al-Fihri also founded a library at the University of Qarawiyyin, which is one of the world’s oldest libraries, preserving some of Islam’s most valuable manuscripts. The library is rich in the oldest works of Islamic literature. Among the manuscripts, it has kept safe are volumes from the famous Al-Muwatta of Malik written on gazelle parchment, the Sirat Ibn Ishaq, a copy of the Qur’an given to the university by Sultan Ahmad al-Mansur in 1602, and the original copy of Ibn Khaldun’s book Al-‘Ibar. The library’s collection of over 4000 manuscripts includes a 9th century Qur’an and the earliest collection of Hadiths.

    Fatima binti Muhammad Al-Fihri passed away in 880 CE and it is almost 1135 years later but the Al-Qarawiyyin University is still existent and is known as one of the highly appreciated Moroccan universities. Fatima Al-Fihri is admired even until now by many women for being the smart, ambitious, and inspiring woman she was.

  According to UNESCO, the University of Qarawiyyin is the oldest operational educational institution in the world. The fact that the first university in the world was founded by a woman is fascinating, and her being a Muslim woman makes it even more so. 

    Almost 1200 years have passed since the founding of the University of Al-Qarawiyin in 859, and it continues to this day to graduate students in the various religious and physical sciences. This esteemed institution, which already had 8,000 students by the 14th century, is central to the legacy of Fatima Al-Fihri. Her story is one of tireless dedication to the Islamic tradition of learning and academic study, as well as personal devotion to pleasing Allah SWT by serving as a genuine benefactor to humanity. The world is richer as a result.

   If Cambridge has Newton who changed the world, Al-Qarawiyyin also has two icons that changed their world. Ibn Rushd (1126-1198 AD) or Averroes translated and interpreted Aristotle. It was through his works, Europe re-discovered Aristotle and the Greek scholars. Instead of roaming continental Europe, if only Adam Smith, the founder of Economics, had made a trip to Al-Qarawiyyin. In their library, he would have read Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406 AD). Smith would have seen many of his ideas in Moral Sentiments (1759) – written or thought about 400 years before his time. 

   While it took centuries for women to liberate themselves in the west. Meanwhile, women during the golden age of Islam contributed equally to men. The list is not small. Maryam Al Asturlabi of Aleppo (10th century) was a famous astronomer. Lubna of Córdoba (10th century) was a slave who became a mathematician and poet, par excellence in the Umayyah palace in Andalusia. Zaynab binti Ahmad (14th century) of Damascus was a leading scholar in jurisprudence. She was also the teacher of the famous traveler, Ibn Battuta.

Fatima Al-Fihri and Al-Qarawiyyin are one of the numerous testimonies to how Islam contributed to mankind what many today may no longer be aware of.

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