(Visiting Tunisia-1)
The Oldest Operating University Of The World:
Fatima al-Fihiriya Is The Connection
Between Kairouan (Tunisia)
And Qarawiyyin (Morocco)
(M. Javed Naseem)
Fatima bint Muhammad al-Fihriya al-Quraishia was an Arab Muslim woman who is credited with founding the oldest existing, continually operating and the first degree-awarding university in the world, the University of al-Qarawiyyin in Fez, Morocco, in 859-CE. She is also known as Umm al-Banayn.
Fatima was born around 800-AD in the town of Kairouan, in present-day Tunisia. She was of Arab Quraishi descent, hence the name ‘Fatima al-Fihri al-Quraishiyya. Her family was part of a large migration to Fez from Kairouan. Her father Mohammed al-Fihri was a successful rich merchant. She and her sister Maryam were well-educated and studied the Islamic jurisprudence, Fiqh and Hadith. Both went on to found mosques in Fez. Fatima founded al-Qarawiyyin and Maryam founded al-Andalus. Al-Qarawiyyin library suffered a large fire in 1323-AD. Fatima Al-Fihri was married but both her husband and father died shortly after the wedding. Her father left his wealth to both Fatima and her sister Maryam, his only children, who used it to establish mosques and institutions of Islamic learning in today’s Morocco.
Great Mosque of Kairouan, Tunisia
The history of the the Great Mosque of Kairouan in Tunisia is spread over a millennia. It is the oldest Muslim place of worship in Africa as it was founded in the year 670-AD.
Kairouan flourished under the Aghlabid dynasty in the 9th century. Despite the transfer of the political capital to Tunis in the 12th century, Kairouan remained the principal holy city of Maghrib. Its rich architectural heritage includes the Great Mosque, with its marble and porphyry columns, and the 9th-century Mosque of the Three Gates. This ancient mosque is an architectural time portal. The magnificent structure — the oldest Muslim place of worship in Africa, illustrates the mixed influences of pre-Islamic, Roman and Byzantine architecture.
The city of Kairouan, Tunisia, has long been the Maghreb’s most ancient and holy city, a key gathering place for Arabo-Muslim civilization. The Great Mosque, also known as the Uqba Mosque, is at the heart of the city’s heritage. Standing at the nexus of 15 different thoroughfares, in the center of the country between the mountains and the sea, it is considered the fourth holiest site in Islam after Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem.
The structure is part of an expansive complex, the mosque itself covering 10,800 square meters (115,660 square feet). Outside, there is a decorated flagstone courtyard and towering, three-story minaret, reminiscent of Roman lighthouses. At 32 meters (104 feet), it remains one of the city’s highest structures. The mosque’s architecture reflects features of pre-Islamic and Eastern Islamic art, as well as later Roman and Byzantine influences. The design has served as a model for many other Maghreb mosques.
The mosque was originally constructed by a general named Uqba ibn Nafi (also written as Sidi Okba) as a Friday prayer mosque, used for communal prayers on the Muslim holy day. Though the structure built by Uqba no longer exists, the mosque we see today is sometimes still called “Mosque of Sidi Uqba” or simply Uqba Mosque.
The mosque was rebuilt at least twice in the 8th century, and then again in the 9th century, when Prince Ziyadat Allah-I, the Aghlabid governor, demolished most of the existing structure and rebuilt the mosque in sturdier materials of stone, brick, and wood. The surviving version includes a dome -- borrowed from Roman and Byzantine architecture -- and supporting buttresses, added in the 13th century. The mosque sits in the city’s historic walled district of the Medina. The structure is beautiful to look at, both during the day and at night, when the minaret is aglow with lights.
Kairouan is the most ancient Arabo-Muslim base of the Maghreb (670 AD) and one of its principal holy cities. Capital of Ifriqiya for five centuries, it was a place of outstanding diffusion of Arabo-Muslim civilization. Kairouan bears unique witness to the first centuries of this civilization and its architectural and urban development. The medina contains some remarkable monuments including the Great Mosque, an architectural masterpiece that served as a model for several other Maghreban mosques, the Mosque of the Three Doors that represents the most ancient existent sculpted facade of Muslim art. The Basins of the Aghlabids, an open-air reservoir formed by two communicating cisterns that date back to the 9th century, constitute one of the most beautiful hydraulic ensembles conceived to provide water to the town. The Zawiya of Sidi Sahib shelters the remains of the companion of Prophet Mohammed, Abou Zama El-Balawi.
With the Great Mosque, the Mosque of the Three Doors, and the Basin of the Aghlabids, not to mention the numerous archaeological vestiges, Kairouan bears exceptional witness to the civilization of the first centuries of the Hijra in Africa.
Kairouan is one of the holy cities and spiritual capitals of Islam. Next to the Great Mosque, the first place of worship founded in the Maghreb only 38 years after the death of the Prophet, is the Zawiya of Sidi Saheb where the remains of Abu Djama, one of Prophet’s companions, are kept. The historic ensemble of Kairouan, with its central part and its suburbs, has been conserved, without alteration.
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