Zâhiri and Sofyân at-Thauri, were also chiefs of orthodox sects, but their opinions had not many followers, and after some time were totally abandoned. Ibn Jarîr at-Tabari, whose reputation as an historian is so familiar to Europeans, founded also a particular sect, which disappeared soon after his death. The heretical doctrines of the shiites, who, under the name of Rafidites or Ismailians, hold so prominent a place in Moslim history, had little influence on Arabic literature; but the science of scholastic theology, a Motazelite innovation, gave to the language a scientific precision which it had not hitherto possessed, and which was still more deeply impressed on its style by the translations of Aristotle's works and those of other Greek philosophers. The art of medicine was received from foreigners; the early physicians were natives of India, the next were tributary subjects, and alKindi was one of the first Moslims (1) by whom it was practised. influence of medical writings on general literature was necessarily very slight. Alchemy, an art cultivated from the most ancient times, was always a favourite study with the Moslims, and in this pursuit they made many discoveries which served later to form the basis of chemistry. Astrology, like alchemy, was one of the oldest delusions of the human mind, and, although reproved by the Sunna, it has always continued to flourish in every Moslim country, but what they considered as its parasitical branch, astronomy, has long since faded and shrunk away.

The

It is generally mentioned by Arabic historians that the first madrasa (place of study) was founded at Baghdad in the year 459 of the Hijra (A. D. 1066), by the celebrated Nizâm al-Mulk. This statement has led some European writers to assert that the first Arabian Academy, or College, was established

after, a portion of the learned men disapproved of analogical deductions and rejected that mode of proceeding these were the Zahirites (followers of Abû Dâwûd Sulaimân), and they laid down as a principle that all points of law should be taken from the Nusus (text of the Koran and Traditions) and the Ijmâ (universal accord of the ancient imams)."

(1) It was once supposed that al-Kindi was a Jew, but this is now well known to be false. He belonged to one of the most noble Arabian tribes, that of Kinda, his father and grandfather were Moslims and his great-grandfather was one of Muhammad's companions. It might be said that he was a convert to the Jewish religion, but how then did he contrive to escape the punishment of death inflicted by the law of Muhammad upon apostates, and why should he have borne the title of the Philosopher of the Moslims? M. de Sacy has already remarked and refuted this error in his Abdallatif, p. 487.

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by that vizir. The idea which they attach to these words is not, however, very clear if they mean that an academy or college is an institution which students must frequent that they may obtain their degrees, then they are mistaken in supposing madrasas to be the first establishments of the kind; and if they add that the academies were civil foundations endowed with real estates, and containing chambers or cells in which the students lodged, they are still wrong in the date, for, according to a very good authority, a madrasa was founded at Naisapûr for Abû Ishak al-Isfarâini, the celebrated Shâfite doctor and professor, who, we know, died A. H. 418 (1). A fact of this nature could not escape the attention of the celebrated annalist and biographer ad-Dahabi, and his observations on the subject are deserving of a place here. He says in his Annals of Islamism (2): Those who pretend that Nizâm al-Mulk was the first founder of madrasas are mistaken. Before his birth the Baihakian madrasa existed at Naisapûr as also the Saîdian "madrasa; the latter was built by the emir Nasr Ibn Subuktikîn, a brother of "the sultan Mahmûd, when governor of that city. The third was founded "at the same place by the Sufi preacher Abû Saad Ismail Ibn Ali Ibn alMuthanna of Astarâbâd, one of the khatib al-Baghdâdi's masters. The fourth was in the same city, and had been erected for the master Abû "Ishak." As-Soyùthi, who cites the foregoing passage in his Husn alMuhâdira (5), then subjoins some extracts from other writers which also merit insertion: "The Hâkim (4) says in his article on the master Abû "Ishak: Before this madrasa there was no other like it in Naisapûr, from which it is manifest that others had been founded there previously. Taj "ad-din as-Subki says in his work, entitled at-Tabakát al-Kubra (5): · Upon

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(1) His life is given in page 8 of this volume.

(2 Cited by as-Soyûti in his Husn al-Muhâdira, MS. No. 652, fol. 233.

(3) As-Soyûti died A. H. 911 (A. D. 1505). A full account of his life and a complete list of his writings will be found in the work entitled Soiuti liber de interpretibus Korani, by Meursinge, Leyden, 1839.

(4) This is the celebrated Abû Abd Allah Muhammad Ibn al-Bali. His life is given by Ibn Khallikân. (5) Abu Nasr Abd al-Wahhab Ibn Taki ad-din Ali Ibn Dià ad-din Abd al-Kafi, a doctor of the sect of as-Shafi and chief kâdi (kâdi 'l-Kudât) of Damascus, drew his descent from one of those members of the tribe of Khazraj who took up arms for Muhammad. He bore the surnames of Tâj ad-din (crown of religion) and as-Subki (native of Subk, a village in Egypt). This celebrated imâm was equally illustrious as a juris

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"reflection I am strongly inclined to think that Nizâm al-Mulk was the ...first who established in them a fixed allowance for the support of students, for I have not been able to ascertain that such was previously the case.' In corroboration of the preceding remarks, other similar facts might be adduced, and without specifying the existence of a dar al-ilm or house of science opened at Baghdad under the patronage of the vizir Sâpûr Ibn Ardashîr, who died A. H. 416 (1), we might refer, as M. de Hammer has already done, to the dar al-Hikma (2) or house of wis

consult, a theologian, and a professor. One of his masters was the well-known historian Shams ad-din adDahabi. He filled four times the place of kâdi at Damascus, and officiated as a khatib or preacher in the great mosque founded by the Omaiyides in that city. Among the numerous works which he composed, the most remarkable are—an abridgment of Ibn Hajib's (grammatical) work (the Kafia); the chronological history of the Shafite doctors, in three editions designated as the at-Tabakåt al-Kubra (the greater), at-Tabakåt al-Wusta (the medium), and at-Tabakât as-Sughra (the less). He left different pieces in prose and verse. Born at Cairo, A. H. 728 (A.D. 1327-8); died of the plague at Damascus, A. H. 771 (A. D. 1369-70). — (Al-Manhal asSafi. Tab. as-Shaf.)-His father Abù 'l-Hasan Ali, surnamed Taki ad-din, was a doctor of the sect of asShafi and eminent as a jurisconsult, a hafiz, an interpreter, a reader of the Koran, a theologian, a teacher of scholastic divinity, a grammarian, and a philologer. He was born at Subk in Sharkiya, a province of Lower Egypt, A. H. 673 (A. D. 1274-5). In 731 he was appointed kâdi of Damascus, where he acted also as a professor. He died A. H. 736 (A. D. 1355), leaving after him a high reputation for learning and virtue. He wrote some works, of which the principal is a commentary on the Koran, entitled ad-Durr an-Nazim in three volumes. For further details, see the Tabakåt as-Shafiyin, MS. No. 861.

(1) See page 553 of this volume.

(2) The Dar al-Hikma differed from every other school and madrasa by the sciences taught in it and by the peculiar object of its institution, which was to propagate the Batinite doctrines. See M. de Sacy's Exposé de l'histoire des Druzes, vie de Hakem, p. cccxii. Al-Makrizi, in his Khitat, gives the following account of this establishment: -The Dar al-Ilm or house of science, called also the Dar al-Hikma or house of philosophy, was opened by the khalif al-Hâkim in the month of the latter Jumâda, A. H. 395. The public of all classes were admitted and had permission to read or copy, as they pleased, the works which the khalif had sent to it from his own libraries. The quantity of books which it contained was immense, and consisted of treatises on all the sciences and on general literature; among these volumes were some written by the most celebrated penmen. The interior of the establishment was carpeted, gilt, and hung with curtains over the windows and the doors, and a number of guardians, slaves, and farrâshes kept the whole in order. Lessons were given in it by jurisconsults, koran-readers, astronomers, grammarians, philologers, and physicians, who all received salaries for their services. Paper, pens, and ink were always ready for the public. In the year 403, al-Hâkim sent for a number of arithmeticians, logicians, jurisconsults, and physicians employed in the Dar al-Ilm; each class was introduced separately and discussed questions in his presence, after which he clothed them in robes of honour and made them rich presents. This establishment possessed an annual revenue of two thousand five hundred and seventy dinars for its support, of which sum a part was employed in the following manner: for mats, 10 dinars; salary of the katib or copyist, 90 dinars; salary of the librarian,

is

dom established at Cairo by the Fatimide khalif al-Hâkim in the year 395 of the Hijra, and to another college founded by the same prince for students of the sect of Mâlik, A. H. 400 (1). It is therefore manifest that Nizâm al-Mulk was not the first who founded a madrasa or college, and it easy to prove that academies existed long before his time; that they were held in the mosques, as is still the case at Cairo, Ispahân, Bokhara, Kairawan, and Fez. The Egyptian historians remark that under the reign of al-Azîz Nizar, public lectures on different branches of knowledge were opened in the mosque al-Azhar at Old Cairo and that the professors were paid by government. Still earlier Ibrahîm Ibn Hishâm al-Makhzûmi (2) caused regular lessons to be given in the great mosque of Damascus; in the time of Bilâl Ibn Abi Burda, who died A. H. 126, grammar was taught publicly in the mosques, and Abû Abd ar-Rahmân as-Sulami, who died A. H. 74, taught the readings of the Koran in the mosque of Kûfa; it has been even handed down on good authority that the first who taught in a mosque and instructed a circle of pupils in the reading of the Koran was Abû 'd-Dardâ, and he died A. H. 32 (3). We know moreover that the first school for Arabic literature was established by Ibn Abbâs, and that he himself gave regular lectures to an immense multitude who assembled in a valley near Mekka. A great number of passages might also be adduced, if necessary, to prove that from the time of the Tabis (4), the regular academies or upper schools were held in the mosques ; Tâbîs and that the sciences taught therein were such as related to the Koran and

48 dinars; for water, 12 dinars; for the farrâsh, 15 dinars; for paper, ink, and pens, 12 dinars; for the mending of the curtains, 1 dinar; reparation of books and replacing lost leaves, 12 dinars; a carpet for winter. 5 dinars; for palm-leaves, to strew the floor in winter, 8 dinars.-When Salâh ad-dîn re-established the Sunnite doctrines in Egypt, he founded the college called after him a'-Madrasa as-Salâhiya, and nominated the shaikh Najm ad-din Muhammad al-Khubushàni as its president, with a monthly salary of forty dinars (about 20 pounds) as chief professor, and another of ten as administrator of the wakfs, or property granted to the establishment for its support. He allowed him besides sixty Egyptian rails (pounds' weight) of bread daily and two skins of Nile water.-(Husn al-Muhâdira, fol. 235.)

(1) See M. de Sacy's Druzes, tom. I. pages cccxii and cccxlvi.

(2) Ibrahim Ibn Hisham al-Makhzumi was one of Hishâm Ibn Abd al-Malik's provincial governors that khalif died in the year 125 of the Hijra.

(3) Al-Yâfi's Miraat al-Janan.

(4) See note (2), page 4.

the Traditions (1). The names of all the great doctors who professed in the different cities of the Moslim empire are still known to us, and from the Tabakât al-Fokahâ alone a chronological list of teachers might be drawn up, commencing with the Tâbîs and descending to the latest times. Mathematics, astronomy, medicine, and metaphysics were excluded from the course of usual instruction, even in the madrasas (2), and could only be learned from private masters, as was still the case till very lately. From the preceding observations it may be concluded that Nizâm al-Mulk founded neither the first madrasa nor the first academy, and that the institution called after him the Nizâmiya was merely one of the earliest civil establishments for the propagation of learning; the talent of its professors shed, it is true, a brilliant lustre upon its reputation, but the mosques continued nevertheless to be the only regular academies acknowledged by the law (5).

It appears from a number of passages in the different Tabakáts and in the work of Ibn Khallikân, that the young student commenced his labours by learning the Koran by heart, and also as many of the Traditions as he was able to acquire at his native place; to this he joined a slight acquaintance with grammar and some knowledge of poetry; on attaining the age of from fourteen to sixteen, he began his travels and visited the great cities, where he learned Traditions and received certificates of licence (4) from eminent Traditionists. He then followed the different courses of lectures which were held in the mosques or in the madrasas, and in some cases he attached himself to one of the professors and lived with him not only as a pupil, but as a menial servant. He there learned by heart the approved works on the dogmas of

(1) During the first centuries of Islamism, professors received no other remuneration from their scholars than the presents which it was customary for the latter to give on passing to a higher class.

(2) The only exception I have hitherto remarked is offered by al-Hâkim's Dar al-Hikma.

(3) These observations will account for a singular statement made by al-Makkari in his History of Spain, where he says, MS. No. 704, fol. 60 recto: "Though learning was highly valued by the inhabitants of Spain, gentle and common, they had no madrasas specially established for the propagation of learning; but all the sciences were taught in the mosques for payment." M. Gayangos has omitted this curious passage in his abridged translation of that work.

(4) See a note on the subject of Ijazás, or certificates of capacity, in M. Hamaker's Specimen Catalogi MSS. Bib. Lugd. Bat. See also M. de Sacy's Chrestomathie, tom. I. p. 123.