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154-517: The Marinids were prolific builders of madrasas , a type of institution which originated in northeastern Iran by the early 11th century and was progressively adopted further west. These establishments served to train Islamic scholars , particularly in Islamic law and jurisprudence ( fiqh ). The madrasa in the Sunni world was generally antithetical to more " heterodox " religious doctrines, including

308-601: A Sunni institution under Ayyubid rule (today's Al-Azhar University ). By the 900s AD, the Madrasa is noted to have become a successful higher education system. In the late 11th century, during the late ʻAbbāsid period, the Seljuk vizier Niẓām al-Mulk created one of the first major official academic institutions known in history as the Madrasah Niẓāmīyah , based on the informal majālis (sessions of

462-474: A mida'a (ablutions hall) which is located at its northern side. At the courtyard's eastern end is another decorated archway which grants entrance to the prayer hall. Most of the Marinid-era madrasas were oriented so that the main axis of the building was already aligned with the qibla (the direction of prayer), allowing the mihrab (niche symbolizing the qibla) of the prayer hall to be allowed with

616-462: A spherical trigonometric formula that takes the coordinates of a location and of the Kaaba as inputs ( see formula below ). The method is applied to develop mobile applications and websites for Muslims, and to compile qibla tables used in instruments such as the qibla compass . The qibla can also be determined at a location by observing the shadow of a vertical rod on the twice-yearly occasions when

770-399: A book arguing for a southeastern qibla, writing that the north/northeast qibla was invalid and resulted from a lack of religious knowledge. In reaction, Abdali published a response to their arguments and criticism in an article entitled "The Correct Qibla" online in 1997. The two opinions resulted in a period of debate about the correct qibla. Eventually most North American Muslims accepted

924-511: A congregational prayer, the imam stands in it or close to it, in front of the rest of the congregation. The mihrab became a part of the mosque during the Umayyad period and its form was standardised during the Abbasid period ; before that, the qibla of a mosque was known from the orientation of one of its walls, called the qibla wall. The term mihrab itself is attested only once in

1078-521: A degree) —causes a more than 100-metre (330 ft) shift from the location of the Kaaba. In comparison, the construction process of a mosque can easily introduce an error of up to five degrees from the calculated qibla, and the installation of prayer rugs inside the mosque as indicators for worshipers can add another deviation of five degrees from the mosque's orientation. A minority of Islamic religious scholars—for example Ibn Arabi ( d.  1240 )—consider ayn al-ka'ba to be obligatory during

1232-425: A future career. He wrote that this was a transitional stage and that there needs to be flexibility regarding the age in which pupils graduate, as the student's emotional development and chosen subjects need to be taken into account. During its formative period, the term madrasah referred to a higher education institution, whose curriculum initially included only the "religious sciences", whilst philosophy and

1386-445: A guide to teachers working at maktab schools. He wrote that children can learn better if taught in classes instead of individual tuition from private tutors , and he gave a number of reasons for why this is the case, citing the value of competition and emulation among pupils, as well as the usefulness of group discussions and debates . Ibn Sīnā described the curriculum of a maktab school in some detail, describing

1540-536: A larger külliye or a waqf -based religious foundation which included other elements like a mosque and a hammam (public bathhouse). The following excerpt provides a brief synopsis of the historical origins and starting points for the teachings that took place in the Ottoman madrasas in the Early Modern Period: Taşköprülüzâde's concept of knowledge and his division of the sciences provides

1694-632: A madrasa would be referred to as a localized area or center within the mosque for studies and teachings relating the Quran. Among the first advanced topics featured at a madrasa was Islamic law . There was a premium fee required to study Islamic law, which was sometimes fronted by state or private subsidiaries. The topics of this higher education also expanded larger than the Islamic time and area. Arab translations of Greco-Roman classical texts were often examined for mathematical and grammatical discourse. Since

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1848-529: A manner consistent with its original architectural style. Today it is open as a historic site and tourist attraction. The madrasa is a two-story building accessed via an L-shaped bent entrance at the eastern end of Tala'a Kebira street. The vestibule leads to the main courtyard of the building, entered via an archway with a wooden screen ( mashrabiya ). The south and north sides of the courtyard are occupied by galleries with two square pillars and two smaller marble columns, which support three carved wood arches in

2002-468: A marker is added (such as lines drawn in the mosque) that can be followed instead of the mihrab . Muslims use various instruments to find the qibla direction when not near a mosque. The qibla compass is a magnetic compass which includes a table or a list of qibla angles from major settlements. Some electronic versions use satellite coordinates to calculate and indicate the qibla automatically. Qibla compasses have existed since around 1300, supplemented by

2156-618: A mosque or when standing for prayers. On the other hand, Muhammad Hadi Bashori in 2014 opines that "correcting the qibla is indeed a very urgent thing", and can be guided by simple methods such as observing the shadow. In the history of the region, disputes about the qibla had also occurred in the then- Dutch East Indies in the 1890s. When the Indonesian scholar and future founder of Muhammadiyah , Ahmad Dahlan , returned from his Islamic and astronomy studies in Mecca, he found that mosques in

2310-424: A mosque, and funded by an early charitable trust known as waqf . Madrasas were largely centred on the study of fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence). The ijāzat al-tadrīs wa-al-iftāʼ ("licence to teach and issue legal opinions") in the medieval Islamic legal education system had its origins in the ninth century after the formation of the madhāhib (schools of jurisprudence). George Makdisi considers

2464-634: A much larger scale. The emergence of the maktab and madrasa institutions played a fundamental role in the relatively high literacy rates of the medieval Islamic world. Under the Anatolian Seljuk , Zengid , Ayyubid , and Mamluk dynasties (11th-16th centuries) in the Middle East, many of the ruling elite founded madrasas through a religious endowment and charitable trust known as a waqf . The first documented madrasa created in Syria

2618-590: A prayer congregation; Muhammad and his followers immediately changed their direction from Jerusalem to Mecca in the middle of the prayer ritual. The location of this event became the Masjid al-Qiblatayn ("The Mosque of the Two Qiblas"). There are different reports of the qibla direction when Muhammad was in Mecca (before his migration to Medina). According to a report cited by historian al-Tabari and exegete (textual interpreter) al-Baydawi , Muhammad prayed towards

2772-524: A rigorous balance between different elements, marking the period of highest achievement in Marinid architecture. The main courtyard demonstrates this in particular. The floor pavement and the lower walls and pillars are covered in zellij (mosaic tilework ). While most of the zellij is arranged to form geometric patterns and other motifs, its top layer, near eye-level, features a band of calligraphic inscriptions on sgraffito -style tiles running around

2926-481: A sphere (as opposed to the conventional trigonometry which deals with those of a two-dimensional triangle). If a location O {\displaystyle O} , the Kaaba Q {\displaystyle Q} , and the north pole N {\displaystyle N} form a triangle on the sphere of the Earth, then the qibla is indicated by O Q {\displaystyle OQ} , which

3080-477: A starting point for a study of learning and medrese education in the Ottoman Empire. Taşköprülüzâde recognises four stages of knowledge—spiritual, intellectual, oral and written. Thus all the sciences fall into one of these seven categories: calligraphic sciences, oral sciences, intellectual sciences, spiritual sciences, theoretical rational sciences, and practical rational sciences. The first Ottoman medrese

3234-527: A starting point for higher education for Muslim India. Babur of the Mughal Empire founded a madrasa in Delhi which he specifically included the subjects of mathematics, astronomy, and geography besides the standard subjects of law, history, secular and religious sciences. Although little is known about the management and inner workings of these places of Islamic higher education, religious studies bore

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3388-434: A student "had to study in a guild school of law, usually four years for the basic undergraduate course" and ten or more years for a post-graduate course. The "doctorate was obtained after an oral examination to determine the originality of the candidate's theses", and to test the student's "ability to defend them against all objections, in disputations set up for the purpose." These were scholarly exercises practised throughout

3542-594: A survey of the main city mosques of Tunisia, in which he found that most were aligned close to 147°. This is the direction of the Great Mosque of Kairouan , originally built in 670 and last rebuilt by the Aghlabids in 862, which is often credited as the model used by the other mosques. Among the mosques surveyed, the Great Mosque of Sousse was the only one with a significant difference, facing further south at 163°. The actual direction to Mecca as calculated using

3696-420: A university, however, is جامعة ( jāmiʻah ) . The Hebrew cognate midrasha also connotes the meaning of a place of learning; the related term midrash literally refers to study or learning, but has acquired mystical and religious connotations. In English, the term madrasah or "madrasa" usually refers more narrowly to Islamic institutions of learning. Historians and other scholars also employ

3850-716: A university-level or post-graduate school as well as to a primary or secondary school. For example, in the Ottoman Empire during the Early Modern Period , madrasas had lower schools and specialised schools where the students became known as danişmends . In medieval usage, however, the term madrasah was usually specific to institutions of higher learning, which generally taught Islamic law and occasionally other subjects, as opposed to elementary schools or children's schools, which were usually known as kuttāb , khalwa or maktab . The usual Arabic word for

4004-596: Is 17°30′ north of Mecca. Even though a line drawn on world maps—such as those using the Mercator projection—would suggest a southeastern direction to Mecca, the astronomical calculation using the great circle method does yield a north-of-east direction (56°33′). Nevertheless, most early mosques in the United States face east or southeast, following the apparent direction on world maps. As the Muslim community grew and

4158-457: Is acceptable if the more precise ayn al-ka'ba cannot be ascertained. The most common technical definition used by Muslim astronomers for a location is the direction on the great circle —in the Earth's Sphere —passing through the location and the Kaaba. This is the direction of the shortest possible path from a place to the Kaaba, and allows the exact calculation ( hisab ) of the qibla using

4312-494: Is almost due north. This apparent counter-intuitiveness is caused by projections used by world maps, which by necessity distort the surface of the Earth. A straight line shown by the world map in using the Mercator projection is called the rhumb line or the loxodrome, which is used to indicate the qibla by a minority of Muslims. It can result in a dramatic difference in some places; for example, in some parts of North America

4466-472: Is chiseled with a background of arabesque or vegetal motifs, as well as a small Kufic script composition inside each of the octagonal stars in the wider geometric pattern. This design marks an evolution and refinement of the earlier Almoravid -era bronze-plated decoration on the doors of the nearby Qarawiyyin Mosque. Another piece of notable metalwork in the madrasa is the original bronze chandelier hanging in

4620-407: Is derived from the cotangent rule which applies to any spherical triangle with angles A {\displaystyle A} , B {\displaystyle B} , C {\displaystyle C} and sides a {\displaystyle a} , b {\displaystyle b} , c {\displaystyle c} : Applying this formula in

4774-545: Is estimated from the first day of " nabuwwat " to the first portion of the Umayyad Caliphate . At the beginning of the Caliphate period, the reliance on courts initially confined sponsorship and scholarly activities to major centres. In the early history of the Islamic period, teaching was generally carried out in mosques rather than in separate specialized institutions. Although some major early mosques like

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4928-479: Is nonetheless considered by many as the starting point for the proliferation of the formal madrasah across the rest of the Muslim world, adapted for use by all four different Sunni Islamic legal schools and Sufi orders . Part of the motivation for this widespread adoption of the madrasah by Sunni rulers and elites was a desire to counter the influence and spread of Shi'ism at the time, by using these institutions to spread Sunni teachings. Dimitri Gutas and

5082-627: Is nowhere near that direction. In various places, there are also the "qiblas of the companions" ( qiblat al-sahaba ), those which were used there by the Companions of the Prophet —the first generation of Muslims, who are considered role models in Islam. Such directions were used by some Muslims in the following centuries, side by side with other directions, even after Muslim astronomers used calculations to find more accurate directions to Mecca. Among

5236-681: Is possible" for the astronaut. The qibla is the direction of the Kaaba , a cube-like building at the centre of the Sacred Mosque ( al-Masjid al-Haram ) in Mecca , in the Hijaz region of Saudi Arabia. Other than its role as qibla, it is also the holiest site for Muslims, also known as the House of God ( Bayt Allah ) and where the tawaf (the circumambulation ritual) is performed during

5390-617: Is the Craig projection or the Mecca projection, created by the Scottish mathematician James Ireland Craig , who worked at the Survey Department of Egypt, in 1910. His map is centered in Mecca and its range is limited to show the predominantly Muslim lands. Extending the map further than 90° in longitude from the center will result in crowding and overlaps. Historical records and surviving old mosques show that throughout history

5544-401: Is the direction of the great circle passing through both O {\displaystyle O} and Q {\displaystyle Q} . The qibla can also be expressed as an angle, ∠ N O Q {\displaystyle \angle NOQ} (or ∠ q {\displaystyle \angle q} ), of the qibla with respect to the north, also called

5698-767: Is tied to the establishment of the Delhi Sultanate in 1206 which set a basis of importance for Muslim education. Under control of the Delhi Sultanate, two early important madrasas were founded. The first was the Mu’zziyya named after Muḥammad Ghuri of the Ghorid Dynasty and his title of Muʿizz al-Dīn and founded by Sultan Iltutmish. The other madrasa was the Nāṣiriyya, named after Nāṣir al-Dīn Maḥmūd and built by Balban. These two madrasas bear importance as

5852-532: Is widely credited to Nizam al-Mulk , a vizier under the Seljuks in the 11th century, who was responsible for building the first network of official madrasas in Iran, Mesopotamia , and Khorasan . From there, the construction of madrasas spread across much of the Muslim world over the next few centuries, often adopting similar models of architectural design. The madrasas became the longest serving institutions of

6006-469: The ijāzah to be the origin of the European doctorate. However, in an earlier article, he considered the ijāzah to be of "fundamental difference" to the medieval doctorate, since the former was awarded by an individual teacher-scholar not obliged to follow any formal criteria, whereas the latter was conferred on the student by the collective authority of the faculty. To obtain an ijāzah ,

6160-461: The rasd al-qiblat moments or its antipodal counterparts, or at the same time of the day two days before or after each event, still show accurate directions with negligible difference. Spherical trigonometry provides the shortest path from any point on Earth to the Kaaba, even though the indicated direction might seem counterintuitive when imagined on a flat world map . For example, the qibla from Alaska obtained through spherical trigonometry

6314-548: The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy consider the period between the 11th and 14th centuries to be the " Golden Age " of Arabic and Islamic philosophy , initiated by al-Ghazali 's successful integration of logic into the madrasah curriculum and the subsequent rise of Avicennism . In addition to religious subjects, they taught the "rational sciences," as varied as mathematics , astronomy , astrology , geography , alchemy and philosophy depending on

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6468-458: The Andalusian cities of Córdoba , Seville , Toledo , Granada , Murcia , Almería , Valencia and Cádiz during the Caliphate of Córdoba . In the Ottoman Empire during the early modern period, "Madaris were divided into lower and specialised levels, which reveals that there was a sense of elevation in school. Students who studied in the specialised schools after completing courses in

6622-566: The Arab world , the word usually refers to a specific type of religious school or college for the study of the religion of Islam (loosely equivalent to a Christian seminary ), though this may not be the only subject studied. In an architectural and historical context, the term generally refers to a particular kind of institution in the historic Muslim world which primarily taught Islamic law and jurisprudence ( fiqh ), as well as other subjects on occasion. The origin of this type of institution

6776-640: The Arab-Muslim conquests of the region. Like madrasas (which referred to higher education), a maktab was often attached to an endowed mosque. In the 11th century, the famous Persian Islamic philosopher and teacher Ibn Sīnā (known as Avicenna in the West), in one of his books, wrote a chapter about the maktab entitled "The Role of the Teacher in the Training and Upbringing of Children", as

6930-512: The Great Mosque of Damascus or the Mosque of Amr ibn al-As in Cairo had separate rooms which were devoted to teaching, this distinction between "mosque" and "madrasa" was not very present. Notably, the al-Qarawiyyin ( Jāmiʻat al-Qarawīyīn ), established in 859 in the city of Fes , present-day Morocco , is considered the oldest university in the world by some scholars, though the application of

7084-501: The Hajj and umrah pilgrimages. The Kaaba has an approximately rectangular ground plan with its four corners pointing close to the four cardinal directions . According to the Quran , it was built by Abraham and Ishmael , both of whom are prophets in Islam. Few historical records remain detailing the history of the Kaaba before the rise of Islam, but in the generations prior to Muhammad,

7238-777: The Idrisid period (8th–10th centuries) up to the Alawi period (17th century to present). While modern calculations yield the qiblas of between 91° (almost due east) in Marrakesh and 97° in Tangier, only mosques constructed in the Alaouite period are constructed with qiblas relatively close to this range. The qibla of older mosques vary considerably, with concentrations occurring between 155°–160° (slightly east of south) as well as 120°–130° (almost southeast). In 2008, Bonine also published

7392-776: The Ottoman Empire , during the Early Modern Period, the study of hadiths was introduced by Süleyman I . Depending on the educational demands, some madrasas also offer additional advanced courses in Arabic literature , English and other foreign languages, as well as science and world history. Ottoman madrasas along with religious teachings also taught "styles of writing, grammar, syntax, poetry, composition, natural sciences, political sciences, and etiquette." People of all ages attend, and many often move on to becoming imams . The certificate of an ʻālim , for example, requires approximately twelve years of study. A good number of

7546-433: The exact direction of the qibla which are equivalent to the modern formula. Initially, this "qibla of the astronomers" was used alongside various traditionally determined qiblas, resulting in much diversity in medieval Muslim cities. In addition, the accurate geographic data necessary for the astronomical methods to yield an accurate result was not available before the 18th and 19th centuries, resulting in further diversity of

7700-408: The inhiraf al-qibla . This angle can be calculated as a mathematical function of the local latitude ϕ {\displaystyle \phi } , the latitude of the Kaaba ϕ Q {\displaystyle \phi _{Q}} , and the longitude difference between the locality and the Kaaba Δ L {\displaystyle \Delta L} . This function

7854-401: The secular sciences were often excluded. The curriculum slowly began to diversify, with many later madrasas teaching both the religious and the "secular sciences", such as logic , mathematics and philosophy . Some madrasas further extended their curriculum to history , politics , ethics , music , metaphysics , medicine , astronomy and chemistry . The curriculum of a madrasah

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8008-696: The ḥuffāẓ (plural of ḥāfiẓ ) are the product of the madrasas. The madrasas also resemble colleges, where people take evening classes and reside in dormitories. An important function of the madrasas is to admit orphans and poor children in order to provide them with education and training. Madrasas may enroll female students; however, they study separately from the men. Features Types Types Features Clothing Genres Art music Folk Prose Islamic Poetry Genres Forms Arabic prosody National literatures of Arab States Concepts Texts Fictional Arab people South Arabian deities In

8162-412: The 12th century) and Samarkand (180°, 225°, 230°, 240°, and 270° were recorded in the 11th century). According to the doctrine of jihat al-ka'ba , the diverse directions of qiblas are still valid as long as they are still in the same broad direction. In 1990, the scholar of geography Michael E. Bonine conducted a survey of the main mosques of all major cities in present-day Morocco—constructed from

8316-469: The 9th century (3rd century AH ), developed by various scholars, including Habash al-Hasib (active in Damascus and Baghdad c.  850 ), Al-Nayrizi (Baghdad, c.  900 ), Ibn Yunus (10th–11th century), Ibn al-Haytham (11th century), and Al-Biruni (11th century). Today spherical trigonometry also underlies nearly all applications or websites which calculate the qibla. When

8470-669: The Arabic language, the word مدرسة madrasah simply means the same as school does in the English language, whether that is private, public or parochial school, as well as for any primary or secondary school whether Muslim , non-Muslim, or secular. Unlike the use of the word school in British English, the word madrasah more closely resembles the term school in American English, in that it can refer to

8624-519: The Ayyubids built many more madrasas across their territories. Not only was the madrasa a potent symbol of status for its patrons but it could also be an effective means of transmitting wealth and status to their descendants. Especially during the Mamluk period, when only former slaves ( mamālīk ) could assume power, the sons of the ruling Mamluk elites were unable to inherit. Guaranteed positions within

8778-453: The Earth, while the equator is the only line of latitude that is also a great circle (other lines of latitude are centered north or south of the centre of the Earth). The great circle is the theoretical basis in most models that seek to mathematically determine the direction of the qibla from a locality. In such models, the qibla is defined as the direction of the great circle passing through

8932-499: The Kaaba had been used as a shrine of the pre-Islamic Arabic religion . The qibla status of the Kaaba (or the Sacred Mosque in which it is located) is based on the verses 144, 149, and 150 of the al-Baqarah chapter of the Quran, each of which contains a command to "turn your face toward the Sacred Mosque" ( fawalli wajhaka shatr al-Masjid il-Haram ). According to Islamic traditions, these verses were revealed in

9086-923: The Kaaba is within one's field of vision. For instance, there are legal opinions that accept the entire southeastern quadrant in Al-Andalus (Islamic Iberian Peninsula ), and the southwestern quadrant in Central Asia, to be valid qibla. Arguments for the validity of jihat al-ka'ba include the wording of the Quran, which commands Muslims only to "turn [one's] face" toward the Great Mosque, and to avoid imposing requirements that would be impossible to fulfill if ayn al-ka'ba were to be obligatory in all places. The Shafi'i school of Islamic law, as codified in Abu Ishaq al-Shirazi 's 11th-century Kitab al-Tanbih fi'l-Fiqh , argues that one must follow

9240-533: The Kaaba. Another report, cited by al-Baladhuri and also by al-Tabari, says that Muhammad prayed towards Jerusalem while in Mecca. Another report, mentioned in Ibn Hisham 's biography of Muhammad , says that Muhammad prayed in such a way as to face the Kaaba and Jerusalem simultaneously. Today Muslims of all branches, including the Sunni and the Shia , all pray towards the Kaaba. Historically, one major exception

9394-465: The Latin title licentia docendi 'licence to teach' in the European university may have been a translation of the Arabic, but the underlying concept was very different. A significant difference between the ijāzat al-tadrīs and the licentia docendi was that the former was awarded by the individual scholar-teacher, while the latter was awarded by the chief official of the university, who represented

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9548-490: The Ottoman Empire, beginning service in 1330 and operating for nearly 600 years on three continents. They trained doctors, engineers, lawyers and religious officials, among other members of the governing and political elite. The madrasas were a specific educational institution, with their own funding and curricula, in contrast with the Enderun palace schools attended by Devshirme pupils. The word madrasah derives from

9702-624: The Quran is the core of all learning, it is described in this journal as the “Spine of all discipline” A typical Islamic school usually offers two courses of study: a ḥifẓ course teaching memorization of the Qur'an (the person who commits the entire Qur'an to memory is called a ḥāfiẓ ); and an ʻālim course leading the candidate to become an accepted scholar in the community. A regular curriculum includes courses in Arabic , tafsir (Qur'anic interpretation), sharīʻah (Islamic law), hadith , mantiq (logic), and Muslim history . In

9856-518: The Quran, but it refers to a place of prayer of the Israelites rather than a part of a mosque. The Amr ibn al-As Mosque in Fustat , Egypt, one of the oldest mosques, is known to have been built originally without a mihrab , though one has since been added. Ayn al-ka'ba ("standing so as to face the Kaaba head-on") is a position facing the qibla so that an imaginary line extending from

10010-575: The Sun appears to " shift " between the Northern and Southern Tropics seasonally; additionally, it appears to move from east to west daily as a consequence of the Earth's rotation. The combination of these two apparent motions means that every day the Sun crosses the meridian once, usually not precisely overhead but to the north or to the south of the observer. In locations between the two tropics—latitudes lower than 23.5° north or south—at certain moments of

10164-454: The Sun is directly overhead in Mecca—on 27 and 28 May at 12:18 Saudi Arabia Standard Time (09:18 UTC), and on 15 and 16 July at 12:27 SAST (09:27 UTC). Before the development of astronomy in the Islamic world, Muslims used traditional methods to determine the qibla. These methods included facing the direction that the companions of Muhammad had used when in the same place; using

10318-525: The astronomically calculated qibla. Places long settled by Muslim populations tend to have resolved the question of the direction of the qibla over time. Other countries, like the United States and Canada, have had large Muslim communities only in the past several decades, and the determination of the qibla can be a matter of debate. The Islamic Center of Washington, D.C. was built in 1953 facing slightly north of east and initially puzzled some observers, including Muslims, because Washington, D.C. 's latitude

10472-628: The best examples of their kind in this period. The madrasa also features notable examples of Marinid-era ornamental metalwork . The doors of the madrasa's entrance are made of cedar wood but are covered in decorative bronze plating. The current doors in place today are replicas of the originals which are now kept at the Dar Batha Museum . The plating is composed of many pieces assembled together to form an interlacing geometric pattern similar to that found in other medieval Moroccan art forms such as Qur'anic or manuscript decoration. Each piece

10626-461: The collective faculty, rather than the individual scholar-teacher. Qibla The qibla ( Arabic : قِبْلَة , lit.   'direction') is the direction towards the Kaaba in the Sacred Mosque in Mecca , which is used by Muslims in various religious contexts, particularly the direction of prayer for the salah . In Islam, the Kaaba is believed to be a sacred site built by prophets Abraham and Ishmael , and that its use as

10780-407: The compilation of astronomical tables. This new science was applied to develop new methods of determining the qibla, making use of the concept of latitude and longitude taken from Ptolemy's Geography as well as trigonometric formulae developed by Muslim scholars. Most textbooks of astronomy written in the medieval Islamic World contain a chapter on the determination of the qibla, considered one of

10934-454: The courtyard. Above this, in general, is a zone of extensive and intricately-carved stucco decoration , including another layer of calligraphic decoration, niches and arches sculpted with muqarnas , and large surfaces covered in a diverse array of arabesques (floral and vegetal patterns) and other Moroccan motifs. Lastly, the upper zones generally feature surfaces of carved cedar wood, culminating in richly sculpted wooden eaves projecting over

11088-502: The curricula for two stages of education in a maktab school. Ibn Sīnā wrote that children should be sent to a maktab school from the age of 6 and be taught primary education until they reach the age of 14. During which time, he wrote, they should be taught the Qur'an, Islamic metaphysics , Arabic, literature , Islamic ethics , and manual skills (which could refer to a variety of practical skills). Ibn Sīnā refers to

11242-649: The curriculum of the specific institution in question. The madrasas, however, were not centres of advanced scientific study; scientific advances in Islam were usually carried out by scholars working under the patronage of royal courts. During the Islamic Golden Age , the territories under the Caliphate experienced a growth in literacy , having the highest literacy rate of the Middle Ages , comparable to classical Athens ' literacy in antiquity but on

11396-423: The development of practical instruments to calculate the qibla. The qibla found using modern instruments might differ from the direction of mosques, because a mosque might be built before the advent of modern data, and orientation inaccuracies might have been introduced during the building process of modern mosques. When this is known, sometimes the direction of the mosque's mihrab is still observed, and sometimes

11550-418: The direction of sunset—which varies slightly throughout the year. Different opinions exist among Indonesian Islamic astronomers: Tono Saksono et al. argues in 2018 that facing the qibla during prayers is more of a "spiritual prerequisite" than a precise physical one, and that an exact direction to the Kaaba itself from thousands of kilometres away requires an extreme precision impossible to achieve when building

11704-460: The direction to which animals are turned during dhabihah (Islamic slaughter); the recommended direction to make du'a (supplications); the direction to avoid when relieving oneself or spitting; and the direction to which the deceased are aligned when buried . The qibla may be observed facing the Kaaba accurately ( ayn al-ka'ba ) or facing in the general direction ( jihat al-ka'ba ). Most Islamic scholars consider that jihat al-ka'ba

11858-557: The directions described as the qiblas of the companions are due south in Syria and Palestine, the direction of the winter sunrise in Egypt, and the direction of the winter sunset in Iraq. The direction of the winter sunrise and sunset are also traditionally favoured because they are parallel to the walls of the Kaaba. The determination of qibla has been an important problem for Muslim communities throughout history. Muslims are required to know

12012-723: The doctrine espoused by the Almohad dynasty . As such, it only came to flourish in Morocco under the Marinid dynasty which succeeded the Almohads. To the Marinids, madrasas played a part in bolstering the political legitimacy of their dynasty. They used this patronage to encourage the loyalty of Fes's influential but fiercely independent religious elites and also to portray themselves to the general population as protectors and promoters of orthodox Sunni Islam. The madrasas also served to train

12166-455: The early 9th century were approximate solutions to the mathematical problem, usually using a flat map or two-dimensional geometry. Since in reality the Earth is spherical, the directions found were inexact, but they were sufficient for locations relatively close to Mecca (including as far away as Egypt and Iran) because the errors were less than 2°. Exact solutions, based on three-dimensional geometry and spherical trigonometry, began to appear in

12320-503: The east side of the Al-Masjid an-Nabawi mosque. Ubada ibn as-Samit was appointed there by Muhammad as teacher and among the students. In the curriculum of the madrasa, there were teachings of The Qur'an, The Hadith, fara'iz, tajweed , genealogy , treatises of first aid , etc. There was also training in horse-riding, the art of war, handwriting and calligraphy , athletics and martial arts . The first part of madrasa-based education

12474-423: The entrance of the main courtyard. However, the space into which the al-Attarine Madrasa was built evidently did not allow for this layout, and instead the mihrab is off to the side on the southern wall of the prayer hall, on an axis perpendicular to the main axis of the building. The prayer hall itself is rectangular, but a triple-arched gallery on its north side allowed architects to place a square wooden cupola over

12628-623: The fixed setting and rising points of a specific star, the sunrise or sunset at the equinoxes , or at the summer or the winter solstices . Historical sources record several such qiblas, for example: sunrise at the equinoxes (due east) in the Maghreb , sunset at the equinoxes (due west) in India, the origin of the north wind or the fixed location of the North Star in Yemen, the rising point of

12782-417: The flat map shows Mecca in the southeast while the great circle calculation shows it to the northeast. In Japan the map shows it to the southwest, while the great circle shows it to the northwest. The majority of Muslims, however, follow the great circle method. A retroazimuthal projection is any map projection which preserves the angular direction (the azimuth ) of the great circle path from any point of

12936-479: The focus amongst most other subjects, particularly the rational sciences such as mathematics, logic, medicine, and astronomy. Although some tried to emphasize these subjects more, it is doubtful that every madrasa made this effort. While " madrasah " can now refer to any type of school, the term madrasah was originally used to refer more specifically to a medieval Islamic centre of learning, mainly teaching Islamic law and theology , usually affiliated with

13090-449: The focus of theology and legal study was utmost, specified law schools began their own development. On the theological side however, these remained mainly at the general madrasa since it was more common and easier for the lower-level students to approach. The requirement of competent teachers to keep a madrasa up and running was also important. It was not uncommon for these scholars to be involved in multiple fields such as Abd al-Latif who

13244-493: The great circle method ranges from 110° to 113° throughout the country. Variations of the qibla also occur in Indonesia, the country with the world's largest Muslim population. The astronomically calculated qibla ranges from 291°—295° (21°—25° north of west) depending on the exact location in the archipelago. However, the qibla is often known traditionally simply as "the west", resulting in mosques built oriented due west or to

13398-494: The hall consists of a "lambrequin"-style arch whose intrados are carved with muqarnas. The upper walls of the chamber, below the wooden cupola, also feature windows of coloured glass which are set into lead grilles (instead of the much more common stucco grilles of that period) forming intricate geometric or floral motifs. The marble (or onyx ) columns and the engaged columns of the courtyard and prayer hall also feature exceptionally elegant and richly-carved capitals , among

13552-746: The late 13th century, the first madrasas were being built in Morocco under the Marinid dynasty , starting with the Saffarin Madrasa in Fes (founded in 1271) and culminating with much larger and more ornate constructions like the Bou Inania Madrasa (founded in 1350). During the Ottoman period the medrese ( Turkish word for madrasah ) was a common institution as well, often part of

13706-524: The list of qibla angles often written on the instruments themselves. Hotel rooms with Muslim guests may use a sticker showing the qibla on the ceiling or a drawer. With the advent of computing, various mobile apps and websites use formulae to calculate the qibla for their users. Because varying methods have been used to determine the qibla, mosques were built throughout history in different directions, including some that still stand today. Methods based on astronomy and mathematics were not always used, and

13860-405: The locality and the Kaaba. One of the properties of a great circle is that it indicates the shortest path connecting any pair of points along the circle—this is the basis of its use to determine the qibla. The great circle is similarly used to find the shortest flight path connecting the two locations—therefore the qibla calculated using the great circle method is generally close to the direction of

14014-409: The locality to Mecca. As the ellipsoid is a more accurate figure of the Earth than a perfect sphere, modern researchers have looked into using ellipsoidal models to calculate the qibla, replacing the great circle by the geodesics on an ellipsoid . This results in more complicated calculations, while the improvement in accuracy falls well within the typical precision of the setting out of a mosque or

14168-432: The lower levels became known as danişmends ." Mosques were more than a place of worship as they were also utilized as an area to host community transactions of business. It was the center of most of a city's social and cultural life. Along with this came trades of information and teachings. As the mosque was a starting ground for religious discourse in the Islamic world, these madrasas became more common. In this context,

14322-435: The main space in front of the mihrab. This unusual but elegant solution to the limited and awkward space available for construction demonstrates the ingenuity and rational approach to design that Marinid architects had achieved by this time. Although its exterior is completely plain (like most traditional Moroccan buildings of its kind), the madrasa is famous for its extensive and sophisticated interior decoration, which exhibits

14476-413: The many things connecting astronomy with Islamic law (sharia). According to David A. King, various medieval solutions for the determination of the qibla "bear witness to the development of mathematical methods from the 3rd/9th to the 8th/14th centuries and to the level of sophistication in trigonometry and computational techniques attained by these scholars". The first mathematical methods developed in

14630-462: The map to a point selected as the center of the map. The initial purpose of its development was to help finding the qibla, by choosing the Kaaba as the center point. The earliest surviving works using this projection were two astrolabe-shaped brass instruments created in 18th-century Iran. They contain grids covering locations between Spain and China, label the locations of major cities along with their names, but do not show any coastline. The first of

14784-412: The medieval Islamic world, an elementary school (for children or for those learning to read) was known as a ' kuttāb' or maktab . Their exact origin is uncertain, but they appear to have been already widespread in the early Abbasid period (8th-9th centuries) and may have played an early role in socializing new ethnic and demographic groups into the Islamic religion during the first few centuries after

14938-439: The medieval qibla tables, al-Khalili's work is "the most impressive from the view of its scope and its accuracy". The accuracy of applying these methods to actual locations depend on the accuracy of its input parameters—the local latitude and the latitude of Mecca, and the longitude difference. At the time of the development of these methods, the latitude of a location could be determined to several arc minutes' accuracy, but there

15092-460: The medreses which was to continue until the end of the empire. The term "Islamic education" means education in the light of Islam itself, which is rooted in the teachings of the Qur'an - the holy book of the Muslims. Islamic education and Muslim education are not the same. Because Islamic education has epistemological integration which is founded on Tawhid - Oneness or monotheism . To Islam,

15246-495: The mid-9th century. Habash al-Hasib wrote an early example, using an orthographic projection . Another group of solutions uses trigonometric formulas, for example Al-Nayrizi 's four-step application of Menelaus's theorem . Subsequent scholars, including Ibn Yunus, Abu al-Wafa, Ibn al-Haitham and Al-Biruni, proposed other methods which are confirmed to be accurate from the viewpoint of modern astronomy. Muslim astronomers subsequently used these methods to compile tables showing

15400-478: The middle and two smaller stucco muqarnas arches on the sides. Above these galleries are the facades of the second floor marked by windows looking into the courtyard. This second floor, accessed via a staircase off the southern side of the entrance vestibule, is occupied by 30 rooms which served as sleeping quarters for the students. This makes for an overall arrangement similar to the slightly earlier Madrasa as-Sahrij . The entrance vestibule also grants access to

15554-655: The modern values. For example, while the Al-Azhar Mosque in Cairo was built using the "qibla of the astronomers", but the mosque's qibla (127°) differs somewhat from the results of modern calculations (135°) because the longitude difference used was off by three degrees. Accurate longitude values in the Islamic world were available only after the application of cartographic surveys in the 18th and 19th centuries. Modern coordinates, along with new technologies such as GPS satellites and electronic instruments, resulted in

15708-507: The month of Rajab or Sha'ban in the second Hijri year (623 CE), or about 15 or 16 months after Muhammad's migration to Medina . Prior to these revelations, Muhammad and the Muslims in Medina had prayed towards Jerusalem as the qibla, the same direction as the prayer direction—the mizrah —used by the Jews of Medina . Islamic tradition says that these verses were revealed during

15862-508: The mosque, they provided accommodations for students, particularly those coming from outside of Fes. Many of these students were poor, seeking sufficient education to gain a higher position in their home towns, and the madrasas provided them with basic necessities such as lodging and bread. However, the madrasas were also teaching institutions in their own right and offered their own courses, with some Islamic scholars making their reputation by teaching at certain madrasas. The al-Attarine madrasa

16016-594: The new madrasas (and other similar foundations) thus allowed them to maintain some status and means of living even after their fathers' deaths. Madrasas built in this period were often associated with the mausoleums of their founders. Further west, the Hafsid dynasty introduced the first madrasas to Ifriqiya , beginning with the Madrasa al-Shamma῾iyya built in Tunis in 1238 (or in 1249 according to some sources ). By

16170-570: The north/northeast qibla with a minority following the east/southeast qibla. The International Space Station (ISS) orbits the Earth at high speed—the direction from it to Mecca changes significantly within a few seconds. Before his flight to the ISS, Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor requested, and the Malaysian National Fatwa Council provided, guidelines which have been translated into multiple languages. The council wrote that

16324-560: The north–south direction. The result of this observation is very accurate, but it requires an accurate determination of the local time of culmination as well as making the correct observation at that exact moment. Another common method is using the compass, which is more practical because it can be done at any time; the disadvantage is that the north indicated by a magnetic compass differs from true north. This magnetic declination can measure up to 20°, which can vary in different places on Earth and changes over time . As observed from Earth,

16478-474: The number of mosques increased, in 1978, an American Muslim scientist, S. Kamal Abdali, wrote a book arguing that the correct qibla from North America was north or northeast as calculated by the great circle method which identifies the shortest path to Mecca. Abdali's conclusion was widely circulated and then accepted by the Muslim community, and mosques were subsequently reoriented as a result. In 1993, two religious scholars, Riad Nachef and Samir Kadi, published

16632-473: The opposite phenomenon when the Sun passes above the antipodal point of the Kaaba (in other words, the Sun passes directly underneath the Kaaba), causing shadows in the opposite direction from those observed during rasd al-qiblat . This occurs twice a year, on 14 January 00:30 SAST (21:30 UTC the previous day) and 29 November 00:09 SAST (21:09 UTC the previous day). Observations made within five minutes of

16786-413: The person's line of sight would pass through the Kaaba. This manner of observing the qibla is easily done inside the Great Mosque of Mecca and its surroundings, but given that the Kaaba is less than 20 metres (66 ft) wide, this is virtually impossible from distant locations. For example, from Medina, with a 338-kilometre (210 mi) straight-line distance from the Kaaba, a one- degree deviation from

16940-428: The pilgrimage. Islamic etiquette ( adab ) calls for Muslims to turn the head of an animal when it is slaughtered , and the faces of the dead when they are buried, toward the qibla. The qibla is the preferred direction when making a supplication and is to be avoided when defecating, urinating, and spitting. Inside a mosque, the qibla is usually indicated by a mihrab , a niche in its qibla-facing wall. In

17094-542: The placement of a mat. For example, calculations using the GRS 80 ellipsoidal model yields the qibla of 18°47′06″ for a location in San Francisco , while the great circle method yields 18°51′05″. The great circle model is applied to calculate the qibla using spherical trigonometry —a branch of geometry that deals with the mathematical relations between the sides and angles of triangles formed by three great circles of

17248-557: The prayer hall, which includes an inscription praising the madrasa's founder. Madrasa Madrasa ( / m ə ˈ d r æ s ə / , also US : /- r ɑː s -/ , UK : / ˈ m æ d r ɑː s ə / ; Arabic : مدرسة [mædˈræ.sæ, ˈmad.ra.sa] , pl. مدارس , madāris ), sometimes transliterated as madrasah or madrassa , is the Arabic word for any type of educational institution , secular or religious (of any religion), whether for elementary education or higher learning. In countries outside

17402-440: The precise imaginary line—an error hardly noticeable when setting one's prayer mat or assuming one's posture—results in a 5.9-kilometre (3.7 mi) shift from the site of the Kaaba. This effect is amplified when further than Mecca: from Jakarta , Indonesia—some 7,900 km (4,900 mi) away, a one-degree deviation causes more than a 100-kilometre (62 mi) shift, and even an arc second 's deviation— ( 1 ⁄ 3600 of

17556-405: The qibla angle with respect to the north, ∠ q {\displaystyle \angle q} , is known, true north needs to be known to find the qibla in practice. Common practical methods to find it include the observation of the shadow at the culmination of the sun—when the sun crosses exactly the local meridian . At this point, any vertical object would cast a shadow oriented in

17710-464: The qibla determination should be "based on what is possible" and recommended four options, saying that one should pray toward the first option if possible and, if not, fall back successively on the later ones: In line with the fatwa council, other Muslim scholars argue for the importance of flexibility and adapting the qibla requirement to what an astronaut is capable of fulfilling. Khaleel Muhammad of San Diego State University opined "God does not take

17864-602: The qibla from a list of locations, grouped by their latitude and longitude differences from Mecca. The oldest known example, from c.  9th-century Baghdad, contained entries for each degree and arc minute up to 20°. In the 14th century, Shams al-Din al-Khalili , an astronomer who served as a muwaqqit (timekeeper) in the Umayyad Mosque of Damascus, compiled a qibla table for 2,880 coordinates with longitude differences of up to 60° from Mecca, and with latitudes ranging from 10° to 50°. King opines that among

18018-405: The qibla in new locations. Mathematical methods based on astronomy would develop only at the end of the 8th century or the beginning of the 9th, and even then they were not initially popular. Therefore, early Muslims relied on non-astronomical methods. There was a wide range of traditional methods in determining the qibla during the early Islamic period, resulting in different directions even from

18172-438: The qibla indicated by the local mosque when one is not near Mecca or, when not near a mosque, to ask a trustworthy person. When this is not possible, one is to make one's own determination—to exercise ijtihad —by the means at one's disposal. A great circle , also called the orthodrome, is any circle on a sphere whose centre is identical to the centre of the sphere. For example, all lines of longitude are great circles of

18326-417: The qibla is a necessary condition for the validity of salah —the Islamic ritual prayer—in normal conditions; exceptions include prayers during a state of fear or war, as well as non-obligatory prayers during travel. The hadith (Muhammad's tradition) also prescribes that Muslims face the qibla when entering the ihram (sacred state for hajj), after the middle jamrah (stone-throwing ritual) during

18480-589: The qibla more accurately, and they still appear in some surviving medieval mosques today. The study of astronomy—known as ilm al-falak ("science of the celestial orbs") in the Islamic intellectual tradition—began to appear in the Islamic World in the second half of the 8th century, centred in Baghdad, the principal city of the Abbasid Caliphate . Initially, the science was introduced through

18634-516: The qibla of Muhammad in Medina), and 204° (the setting point of Canopus). The modern qibla for Cairo is 135°, which was not known at the time. This diversity also results in the non-uniform layout in Cairo's districts, because the streets are often oriented according to the varying orientation of the mosques. Historical records also indicate the diversity of qiblas in other major cities, including Córdoba (113°, 120°, 135°, 150°, and 180° were recorded in

18788-516: The qibla to perform their daily prayers, and it is also needed to determine the orientation of mosques. When Muhammad lived among the Muslims in Medina (which, like Mecca, is also in the Hejaz region), he prayed due south, according to the known direction of Mecca. Within the few generations after Muhammad's death in 632, Muslims had reached places far away from Mecca, presenting the problem of determining

18942-403: The qibla was often determined by simple methods based on tradition or "folk science" not based on mathematical astronomy. Some early Muslims used due south everywhere as the qibla, literally following Muhammad's instruction to face south while he was in Medina (Mecca is due south of Medina). Some mosques as far away as al-Andalus to the west and Central Asia to the east face south, even though Mecca

19096-412: The qibla was ordained by God in several verses of the Quran revealed to Muhammad in the second Hijri year . Prior to this revelation, Muhammad and his followers in Medina faced Jerusalem for prayers. Most mosques contain a mihrab (a wall niche) that indicates the direction of the qibla. The qibla is also the direction for entering the ihram (sacred state for the hajj pilgrimage);

19250-496: The qibla. Historical mosques with differing qiblas still stand today throughout the Islamic world . The spaceflight of a devout Muslim, Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor , to the International Space Station (ISS) in 2007 generated a discussion with regard to the qibla direction from low Earth orbit , prompting the Islamic authority of his home country, Malaysia , to recommend determining the qibla "based on what

19404-457: The region of Iran in the 11th century under vizier Nizam al-Mulk and subsequently spread to other regions of the Islamic world. The first institute of madrasa education was at the estate of Zayd ibn Arqam near a hill called Safa , where Muhammad was the teacher and the students were some of his followers. After Hijrah (migration) the madrasa of "Suffa" was established in Madina on

19558-415: The ritual prayer, while others consider it obligatory only when one is able. For locations further than Mecca, scholars such as Abu Hanifa ( d.  699 ) and Al-Qurtubi ( d.  1214 ) argue that it is permissible to assume jihat al-ka'ba , facing only the general direction of the Kaaba. Others argue that the ritual condition of facing the qibla is already fulfilled when the imaginary line to

19712-617: The royal capital of Yogyakarta had inaccurate qiblas, including the Kauman Great Mosque , which faced due west. His efforts in adjusting the qibla were opposed by the traditional ulama of the Yogyakarta Sultanate , and a new mosque built by Dahlan using his calculations was demolished by a mob. Dahlan rebuilt his mosque in the 1900s, and later the Kauman Great Mosque would also be reoriented using

19866-443: The same determination method could yield different qiblas due to differences in the accuracy of data and calculations. Egyptian historian Al-Maqrizi (d. 1442) recorded various qibla angles used in Cairo at the time: 90° (due east), 117° (winter sunrise, the "qibla of the sahaba"), 127° (calculated by astronomers, such as Ibn Yunus), 141° ( Mosque of Ibn Tulun ), 156° (the rising point of Suhayl/Canopus), 180° (due south, emulating

20020-604: The same place. In addition to due south and the qiblas of the companions, the Arabs also knew a form of "folk" astronomy—called so by the historian of astronomy David A. King to distinguish it from conventional astronomy, which is an exact science—originating from pre-Islamic traditions. It used natural phenomenon, including the observation of the Sun, the Moon, the stars, and wind, without any basis in mathematics. These methods yield specific directions in individual localities, often using

20174-641: The scholars and elites who operated their state's bureaucracy. The al-Attarine Madrasa, along with other nearby madrasas like the Saffarin and the Mesbahiyya , was built in close proximity to the al-Qarawiyyin Mosque/University, the main center of learning in Fes and historically the most important intellectual center of Morocco. The madrasas played a supporting role to the Qarawiyyin; unlike

20328-498: The secondary education stage of maktab schooling as a period of specialisation when pupils should begin to acquire manual skills, regardless of their social status. He writes that children after the age of 14 should be allowed to choose and specialise in subjects they have an interest in, whether it was reading, manual skills, literature, preaching, medicine , geometry , trade and commerce , craftsmanship , or any other subject or profession they would be interested in pursuing for

20482-471: The setting and rising points of celestial objects; using the direction of the wind; or using due south, which was Muhammad's qibla in Medina. Early Islamic astronomy was built on its Indian and Greek counterparts, especially the works of Ptolemy , and soon Muslim astronomers developed methods to calculate the approximate directions of the qibla, starting from the mid-9th century. In the late 9th and 10th centuries, Muslim astronomers developed methods to find

20636-525: The shaykhs). Niẓām al-Mulk , who would later be murdered by the Assassins ( Ḥashshāshīn ), created a system of state madrasas (in his time they were called the Niẓāmiyyahs, named after him) in various Seljuk and ʻAbbāsid cities at the end of the 11th century, ranging from Mesopotamia to Khorasan . Although madrasa-type institutions appear to have existed in Iran before Nizam al-Mulk, this period

20790-403: The spherical triangle △ N O Q {\displaystyle \triangle NOQ} (substituting B = ∠ q = ∠ N O Q {\displaystyle B=\angle q=\angle NOQ} ) and applying trigonometric identities obtain: This formula was derived by modern scholars, but equivalent methods have been known to Muslim astronomers since

20944-402: The star Suhayl ( Canopus ) in Syria, and the midwinter sunset in Iraq. Such directions appear in texts of fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence) and texts of folk astronomy. Astronomers (aside from folk astronomers) typically do not comment on these methods, but they were not opposed by Islamic legal scholars. The traditional directions were still in use when methods were developed to calculate

21098-419: The student's "career as a graduate student of law." After students completed their post-graduate education, they were awarded ijaza s giving them the status of faqīh 'scholar of jurisprudence', muftī 'scholar competent in issuing fatwās ', and mudarris 'teacher'. The Arabic term ijāzat al-tadrīs was awarded to Islamic scholars who were qualified to teach. According to Makdisi,

21252-583: The sun reaches the zenith of the Kaaba, any vertical object on earth that receives sunlight cast a shadow that indicates the qibla ( see picture ). This method of finding the qibla is called rasd al-qiblat ("observing the qibla"). Since night falls on the hemisphere opposite of the Kaaba, half the locations on Earth (including Australia as well as most of the Americas and the Pacific Ocean) cannot observe this directly. Instead, such places observe

21406-462: The term "university" to institutions of the medieval Muslim world is disputed. According to tradition, the al-Qarawiyyin mosque was founded by Fāṭimah al-Fihrī , the daughter of a wealthy merchant named Muḥammad al-Fihrī . This was later followed by the Fatimid establishment of al-Azhar Mosque in 969–970 in Cairo, initially as a center to promote Isma'ili teachings, which later became

21560-487: The term to refer to historical learning institutions throughout the Muslim world , which is to say a college where Islamic law was taught along with other secondary subjects, but not to secular science schools, modern or historical. These institutions were typically housed in specially designed buildings which were primarily devoted to this purpose. Such institutions are believed to have originated, or at least proliferated, in

21714-623: The time, required the endowment of a habous , a charitable trust usually consisting of mortmain properties, which provided revenues to sustain the madrasa's operations and upkeep, set up on the sultan's directive. This provided for the madrasa to host an imam , muezzins , teachers, and accommodations for 50-60 students. Most of the students at this particular madrasa were from towns and cities in northwestern Morocco such as Tangier , Larache , and Ksar el-Kebir . The madrasa has been classified as historic heritage monument in Morocco since 1915. The madrasa has since been restored many times, but in

21868-498: The top of the walls. Wooden artwork is also present in the pyramidal wooden cupola ceiling of the prayer hall, carved with geometric star patterns (similar to that found more broadly in Moorish architecture ). The wood-carving on display here is also considered an example of the high point of Marinid artwork. The prayer hall also features extensive stucco decoration, especially around the richly-decorated mihrab niche. The entrance of

22022-532: The triconsonantal Semitic root د-ر-س D-R-S 'to learn, study', using the wazn ( morphological form or template) مفعل(ة) ; mafʻal(ah) , meaning "a place where something is done". Thus, madrasah literally means "a place where learning and studying take place" or "place of study". The word is also present as a loanword with the same general meaning in many Arabic-influenced languages, such as: Urdu , Pashto , Baluchi , Persian , Turkish , Azeri , Kurdish , Indonesian , Somali and Bosnian . In

22176-457: The two was discovered in 1989; its diameter is 22.5 centimetres (8.9 in) and it has a ruler with which one can read the direction of Mecca from the markings on the instrument's circumference, and the distance to Mecca from the markings on the ruler. Only the second one is signed by its creator, Muhammad Husayn. The first formal design of a retroazimuthal projection in the Western literature

22330-423: The works of Indian authors, but after the 9th century the works of Greek astronomers such as Ptolemy were translated into Arabic and became the main references in the field. Muslim astronomers preferred Greek astronomy because they considered it to be better supported by theoretical explanations and therefore it could be developed as an exact science; however, the influence of Indian astronomy survives especially in

22484-434: The year (usually twice a year) the Sun passes almost directly overhead. This happens when the Sun crosses the meridian while being at the local latitude at the same time. The city of Mecca is among the places where this occurs, due to its location at 21°25′ N. It occurs twice a year, firstly on 27/28 May at about 12:18 Saudi Arabia Standard Time (SAST) or 09:18 UTC, and secondly on 15/16 July at 12:27 SAST (09:27 UTC). As

22638-428: Was an expert in medicine, grammar, linguistics, law, alchemy, and philosophy. The choice of freedom in inquiry was also important. Muslim higher education at madrasas offered not only mastery in specified fields but also a more generalized, broader option. In Muslim India , the madrasa started off as providing higher education similarly to other parts of the Islamic world. The primary function for these institutions

22792-486: Was built between 1323 and 1325 on the orders of the Marinid sultan Abu Sa'id Uthman II. The supervisor of construction was Sheikh Beni Abu Muhammad Abdallah ibn Qasim al-Mizwar. According to the Rawd el-Qirtas (historical chronicle), the sultan personally observed the laying of the madrasa's foundations, in the company of local ulema . The creation of the madrasa, as with all Islamic religious and charitable institutions of

22946-409: Was created in İznik in 1331, when a converted Church building was assigned as a medrese to a famous scholar, Dâvûd of Kayseri. Suleyman made an important change in the hierarchy of Ottoman medreses. He established four general medreses and two more for specialised studies, one devoted to the ḥadīth and the other to medicine. He gave the highest ranking to these and thus established the hierarchy of

23100-541: Was no accurate method to determine a location's longitude. Common methods used to estimate the longitude difference included comparing the local timing of a lunar eclipse versus the timing in Mecca, or measuring the distance of caravan routes; the Central Asian scholar Al-Biruni made his estimate by averaging various approximate methods. Because of longitudinal inaccuracy, medieval qibla calculations (including those using mathematically accurate methods) differ from

23254-562: Was the Qarmatians , a now-defunct syncretic Shia sect which rejected the Kaaba as the qibla; in 930, they sacked Mecca and for a time took the Kaaba's Black Stone to their centre of power in al-Ahsa , with the intention of starting a new era in Islam. Etymologically, the Arabic word qibla ( قبلة ) means "direction". In Islamic ritual and law, it refers to a special direction faced by Muslims during prayers and other religious contexts. Islamic religious scholars agree that facing

23408-662: Was the Madrasa of Kumushtakin, added to a mosque in Bosra in 1136. One of the earliest madrasas in Damascus, and one of the first madrasas to be accompanied by the tomb of its founder, is the Madrasa al-Nuriyya (or Madrasa al-Kubra) founded by Nur al-Din in 1167–1172. After Salah ad-Din (Saladin) overthrew the Shi'a Fatimids in Egypt in 1171, he founded a Sunni madrasa near the tomb of al-Shafi'i in Cairo in 1176–1177, introducing this institution to Egypt. The Mamluks who succeeded

23562-472: Was to train and prepare workers for bureaucratic work as well as the judicial system. The curriculum generally consisted of logic, philosophy, law, history, politics, and particularly religious sciences, later incorporating more of mathematics, astronomy, geography, and medicine. Madrasas were often subsidized and founded by states or private individuals, and well-qualified teachers filled in the role for professors. Foundations of Islamic higher education in India

23716-526: Was usually set by its founder, but most generally taught both the religious sciences and the physical sciences. Madrasas were established throughout the Islamic world, examples being the ninth century University of al-Qarawiyyin , the tenth century al-Azhar University (the most famous), the eleventh century Niẓāmīyah , as well as 75 madrasas in Cairo, 51 in Damascus and up to 44 in Aleppo between 1155 and 1260. Institutions of learning were established in

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