Fatima Al-Fihri: The Woman Who Built Al-Qarawiyyin
Recognised by Nkuzify as Patron Teacher of the Year.
Some teachers never stand in front of a class. They build the room. Fatima al-Fihri is one of them.
Who Was Fatima Al-Fihri?
According to traditional accounts, Fatima was born around the year 800 in Kairouan, in present-day Tunisia. Her father, Mohammed al-Fihri, was a wealthy merchant, and the family moved to Fez, in Morocco, as part of a wave of families leaving Kairouan in the early Idrisid period, as Wikipedia explains. Fatima and her sister Mariam were well educated, and when their father died they inherited a large fortune.
What She Built
Fatima is credited with founding the al-Qarawiyyin mosque in Fez in 857 or 859, according to an early source called Rawd al-Qirtas. The name points back to her hometown, since it refers to the people of Kairouan. Her sister Mariam is reputed to have founded the al-Andalusiyyin mosque at about the same time.
From A Mosque To A Place Of Learning
The mosque was a place of prayer and also of teaching, first in the Islamic sciences and then in more and more subjects, including the natural sciences. Over the centuries that teaching grew until it became one of the leading centres of learning of the Islamic Golden Age, as the article on the University of al-Qarawiyyin describes. The university that carries its name today is acknowledged by Guinness World Records as the oldest institution operating as a degree-granting university, and it became a state university in 1963.
To be exact about what she did: Fatima founded the mosque. She did not set up a university in the ninth century. The university grew out of the mosque she built, as its teaching expanded over generations, which is why the mosque and the university are told as one continuous story. Very little is known about her personal life, possibly because of a fire in 1323 that hit the archives of al-Qarawiyyin.
Why Nkuzify Holds Her Up
She had money, and she chose to turn it into a place where people could learn. That place has been teaching for more than eleven hundred years. Many teachers pass on knowledge to a class. Fatima made sure there was a room, a roof and a community for teachers to stand in. That is why she is a patron of teaching.
Nobody alive today knows exactly how Fatima al-Fihri looked. The pictures on this page are illustrations.
Where this comes from: Wikipedia on Fatima al-Fihriya and on the University of al-Qarawiyyin, and the Muslim Heritage article on Al-Qarawiyyin.
Meet The Other Patrons
Imhotep, Ptahhotep, Ahmed Baba of Timbuktu, Al-Farabi. You can also go back to the full list: Global Patrons Of Teaching: Imhotep, Ahmed Baba, Fatima Al-Fihri And More.
Thank You
Happy Teachers' Day to Fatima al-Fihri, and to every teacher who keeps this long line going, from all of us at Nkuzify.
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