George Makdisi was a professor of oriental studies. He studied first in the United States, and later in Lebanon. He then graduated in 1964 in France from the Paris-Sorbonne University.
He taught in the University of Michigan and Harvard University before reaching the University of Pennsylvania in 1973, as a professor of Arabic. Here he remained until his retirement in 1990, when he held the post of director of the Department of Oriental Studies. He became a Professor Emeritus of "Arab and Islamic Studies" in the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.
He was particularly interested in issues around higher education in the world.
He published the work al-Wadih fi Usul al-fiqh (The Fundamentals of Principles of Jurisprudence) in three volumes, published in Stuttgart, Germany by Steiner Verlag.
He was a member and honorary member of numerous professional scientific organizations. Among other honors, he was twice a Guggenheim fellow.[2] In 1977, he served as the President of the Middle East Studies Association of North America, now based in Tucson, Arizona, United States.
Really in depth book on the madrasa system during medieval Islam. The detail is pretty intense and can be boring at times, but it also marks the efforts and intellect of the author who attempts to recreate the vast network and system of education that existed in the Muslim world. Although some of his theories have been criticized and are currently defunct, his book remains one of the foundational resources for anyone studying Islamic education.
an extraordinary exposition of the medieval learning and the connections between two civilizations. Makdisi belongs to the old school of scholarship. He uses expansive material to make just one single point.
By the grace of God, I have finished reading the book The Rise of Colleges by George Makdisi.... and I can confidently say that my life before this book is not the same as my life after it.
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When I came to Canada, there were several questions in my head.... One of those questions is: Why did Muslims fall behind and their conditions deteriorated... And how did the West become a refuge for everyone who wants to lead a decent and just life? I pray to God constantly and I always ask Him questions like these and then I start searching. God always responds to me and sends me the answer - I never remember that I asked God for something and did not get an answer - but the answer may take a long time and may be in stages, time passes and then I find that I found the answer
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The book The emergence of colleges contributed strongly to answering this question in my mind .... So what does the book say:
1- The book talks about the beginning of the education system by colleges... and the college system includes students, professor/faqih and assistant professors: assistant professors - teaching assistants - final year students and so on... The license/licence/licence is granted through Examinations conducted by scholars for students. And because you are mostly familiar with this system, you will think it is an obvious thing, but the truth is otherwise. The system did not exist before the Islamic civilization and flourished in Islamic mosques because there is no system in Islam like the church or a system of dominant clerics. In Islam, anyone can object to Anyone and also rejected his words. And this system has evolved over the years to become very close to what it is now in Western societies. 2- The Islamic system for studying in the so-called Islamic schools/mosques/colleges is based mainly on debate and objection, freedom of thought and freedom of criticism. The jurist presents his thesis/fatwa/opinion, shows his evidence, proves his theory, receives objection from others, criticism and questions, and responds to them. The debate system may have been the core of Islamic colleges, and this system has moved entirely to the West - I see this clearly during my studies at the university in Canada - and has completely disappeared from the East. There is no longer freedom of opinion and there is no longer the ability to issue fatwas, prove them and criticize them, and it has completely disappeared. Debates and presentation of arguments and proofs, and science in Islamic countries has become only teaching me 3- Islamic schools of jurisprudence were not formed by the death of Abu Hanifa, Ahmad, al-Shafi鈥檌 or Malik. Rather, it took hundreds of years to form at the hands of their students and the disciples of their students. 4- There were a large number of sects, but most of them disappeared because education in Islamic countries was based only on the endowment, and here there is a great difference in the age of the West and Islamic countries. The West has succeeded in transforming colleges and universities into corporate institutions that live a long life and are not linked to one person or the donations of one family. Converting charitable institutions to legal persons and protecting them was the most important breakthrough in the West in scientific research and the most important reason for the failure of Islamic countries to maintain a stable educational system. 5- The influence of politicians on the sects is very large, and the desire of the politicians to spread a particular sect led to the disappearance of most sects of jurisprudence and led to the spread of certain sects 6- Many now claim that his doctrine is the doctrine of truth because it is widespread - like the Ash鈥檃rite or Salafist now- and both doctrines were originally spread by imposition and brute force or by restricting the rest of the doctrines and the nullification of any voice of objection or criticism 7- Sicily - now self-governing and belonging to Italy - and Andalusia - Spain and Portugal today - were under the rule of Muslims for long periods. In Sicily, Muslims established their colleges and institutes, and Frederick II, the great Emperor of France - France was ruling Italy at that time - was raised and educated at the hands of Muslims and took with him in his court in France - he was ruling from Italy in fact - many Muslim scholars. Frederick was influenced by Islamic civilization and his hatred of the Pope鈥檚 control in Rome and his conflict with him made him found the first two universities in Europe in Bologna and in Paris on a semi-secular system based on objection, debate and criticism - as in Islamic schools - and rid of the authoritarian church system on education. In the same period of time, King Alfons II took Toledo from the Muslims in Andalusia and did the same by building mosques in Spain on the same Islamic system and in the same way as Muslims gave permission 8- All the terms of higher studies are Islamic terms, just like the BA, which means a license, a license, or a teaching assistant, and the method of writing research papers - which are the core and basis of Western civilization and scientific research - such as margins, sources, comments and criticism are all Islamic innovations in the ages. Islamic prosperity has completely disappeared in the current era in Islamic countries 9 - Muslims now do not know anything about the priority of scientific research and the method of questioning, proof and interpretation. And they do not know that they are originally its source, and they do not know that it is the main reason for the development of the West
This was a very dry, academic read. Some academic books take the effort to have a narrative, accessible prose. This one did not. Moreover, it often felt like a dry list of terms and their definitions. For example, types of madrasas, the jobs involved in them (teachers, faqihs, imams, bookkeepers, janitors, reciters, lecturers, and so forth), the types of students, the types of teaching methods, and so forth. I can see the attempt was made to give a holistic view of education in medieval Islamic societies, particularly Damascus, Baghdad, and Cairo. However, the listing of all these possible terms and details made it feel more like a technical manual than a smooth description of what these places were like.
Nevertheless, it is certainly a good, reliable resource, especially if one needs a reference for this topic. I did learn a lot about the technicalities of education in the medieval Islamic world--from waqfs to private instruction. A lot of emphasis was placed on fiqh--its learning and teaching--and how the madhabs played a role in academics, politics, and society. Only the last chapter is dedicated to western forms of education, and basically Makdisi argues there that the university and the madrasa come from two separate intellectual/pedagogical traditions and we can't say that one was inherited from the other, but rather that they existed alongside each other and may have adopted some of each other's methods.
TLDR: not a very enjoyable narrative, but a useful reference.
Full of anecdotes and insights, but definitely could have been more concise. Too many details, unfortunately, made it difficult to make out where the argument was heading. But hey, maybe i shouldnt complain- there is no better book on the history of Islamic pedagogy.
Originally recommended by Dr. Umar Faruq Abd-Allah, the book is an awesome book which traces the development of Islamic teaching and learning from the mosques to complex madrasas, and the influence of that on universities. Makdisi uses a vast amount of knowledge and references to describe accurately the situation in medieval Islam, citing the appointment and resignation of professors, how universities were funded, how the teaching went, and how the students carried themselves through university life. He gets a bit too much into the details sometimes, but only to make a good point. Definitely worth reading.