Houses of Learning: a study pack

Part two: the handout

II. Houses of Learning

A mosque is built. A teacher sits by a pillar. Students gather, and in a few generations there is a school. Africa has some of the oldest that are still open.

The story in brief

1. In 670 Uqba ibn Nafi founded Kairouan in what is now Tunisia. It became the great school of Maliki law in the west.
2. Ibn Abi Zayd of Kairouan wrote the Risala, a short handbook that children across West Africa memorized for a thousand years.
3. By tradition Fatima al-Fihri founded al-Qarawiyyin in Fez in 859. UNESCO and Guinness describe it as the oldest existing, continually operating educational institution in the world, though historians debate parts of the story.
4. Al-Azhar in Cairo held its first Friday prayer in 972 and has been teaching, with interruptions, ever since.
5. In Timbuktu scholars taught in their own houses and kept their own libraries. In 2012 and 2013 its librarians moved hundreds of thousands of manuscripts to Bamako to save them.
6. In Sokoto, Nana Asma’u organized the jajis about 1830: women who traveled between villages teaching other women.
7. Most of this learning began on a lawh, a wooden board, written, recited until known by heart, and washed clean.

Dates

• 670Uqba ibn Nafi founds Kairouan and its great mosque.
• 859Al-Qarawiyyin is founded in Fez, by tradition by Fatima al-Fihri.
• 972First Friday prayer at al-Azhar in Cairo. Lessons are recorded from 975.
• 996Ibn Abi Zayd of Kairouan, author of the Risala, dies.
• 1591A Moroccan army conquers Songhay. Ahmad Baba is deported to Marrakesh three years later.
• About 1830Nana Asma’u organizes the jajis, traveling women teachers, in Sokoto.
• 1988Timbuktu is placed on the UNESCO World Heritage List.
• 2012Timbuktu’s librarians begin moving hundreds of thousands of manuscripts to safety in Bamako.

People

• Fatima al-Fihri ninth century, by traditionBy tradition, the daughter of a family from Kairouan who spent her inheritance founding the mosque of al-Qarawiyyin in 859. Historians debate the details. The school has not closed since.
• Ibn Abi Zayd al-Qayrawani 922 to 996Jurist of Kairouan and author of the Risala, the short handbook of Maliki law that West African children memorized for a thousand years. Bilali Muhammad wrote parts of it from memory in Georgia.
• Ahmad Baba 1556 to 1627Timbuktu’s most famous scholar. Deported to Marrakesh after the Moroccan conquest, he taught there in exile and came home in 1608.
• Nana Asma’u 1793 to 1864Poet and teacher in three languages. About 1830 she organized the jajis, women who traveled between villages to teach other women, using her verse as the curriculum.

Words to know

Lawh

A smooth wooden writing board. The teacher writes verses on it, the child recites until they are known, then it is washed for the next ones.

Maliki law

One of the four schools of Sunni law, named for Imam Malik of Madinah. Kairouan was its great school in the west.

Risala

“The Letter”: Ibn Abi Zayd’s short handbook of Maliki law, memorized across West Africa.

Manuscript

A book written by hand. Timbuktu’s families still own their libraries of them.

Jajis

The women teachers Nana Asma’u organized about 1830. Their students were called the yan-taru.

World Heritage List

UNESCO’s list of places of outstanding value to all people. Kairouan, Fez, Cairo, Timbuktu, Chinguetti and Harar are on it.

Read together

Talk about it

1. Fatima al-Fihri spent her inheritance on a mosque that became a school. If you could build one thing for your community with what you have, what would it be?See: Fez, 859
2. Ahmad Baba is reported to have said that his library of some 1,600 volumes was the smallest in his family. What does that tell you about Timbuktu?See: Timbuktu
3. Timbuktu’s librarians risked their lives to move the manuscripts. What makes a book worth that risk?See: Timbuktu
4. Nana Asma’u wrote her teaching in verse so it could be memorized. Why does verse stay in the memory? What have you learned that way?See: Chinguetti, Harar, Sokoto
5. On a lawh the words are washed away once they are known by heart. What is the difference between keeping knowledge on a page and keeping it in the heart?See: The lawh

Try this

1. Make a lawh. Write two short lines you want to learn on a whiteboard or card. Read them until you know them, wipe the board clean, and write the next two. At the end, recite everything from memory.
2. Put the schools in order. Order these by date: al-Azhar (972), Kairouan (670), al-Qarawiyyin (859), and the Zaytuna in Tunis (about 699, by Tunisia’s heritage agency). Then find each one on the atlas.
3. Save the library. In groups, plan how you would move a library of a thousand handwritten books out of danger in one night. What goes first, and how do you carry it?

On the atlas: Kairouan Tunis Fez Cairo Timbuktu Marrakesh Chinguetti Harar Sokoto

Check yourself

1. Who founded Kairouan, and in what year?
2. Who, by tradition, founded al-Qarawiyyin in Fez, and when?
3. What handbook did Ibn Abi Zayd write?
4. Name Timbuktu’s three old mosques.
5. Where did Timbuktu’s librarians move the manuscripts in 2012 and 2013?
6. Who were the jajis?
7. What is a lawh?

From The First Refuge, ferrand.africa/teach/houses-of-learning/. Free to print and copy for teaching.