Madrasas and Education in the Seljuk World

A madrasa was a place for advanced study, especially Islamic law and the religious sciences. In the eleventh to thirteenth centuries, students learned through lessons with individual scholars, discussion in mosques and schools, and travel to teachers whose reputations drew pupils from other cities. Endowed colleges added classrooms, libraries and lodging to these relationships. Madrasas existed before the Nizamiyya network, but Nizam al-Mulk’s endowments made them more visible across Iran, Iraq and Anatolia and gave legal scholars more supported places to teach.

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The Baghdad Nizamiyya

Nizam al-Mulk, chief minister to the Great Seljuk sultans Alp Arslan and Malik Shah, endowed madrasas in cities across the realm. Baghdad’s Nizamiyya, the best-known of them, opened on the east bank of the Tigris in September 1067. Its complex included rooms for teachers and students, lesson halls, a mosque, a library, sleeping quarters, a dining hall and a bath. The arrangement combined study with the daily needs of scholars who came to live in Baghdad.

The foundation’s income came from property as well as the founder’s initial gift. Its waqf, an endowment whose revenues were assigned to continuing purposes, included land, a nearby market, shops and a bathhouse. The foundation deed specified that the income support teaching in the Shafi‘i school, one Sunni school of Islamic law, and named positions such as a professor, preacher, librarian, Qur’an reciter and Arabic teacher. It also provided for assistants, copyists, caretakers and other staff. Rents and business income thus helped pay for instruction, books, accommodation and the upkeep of the complex.

The school’s first appointment shows how a foundation depended on people as well as buildings. Nizam al-Mulk had chosen the Shafi‘i jurist Abu Ishaq al-Shirazi to lead teaching, but al-Shirazi did not attend the opening ceremony. Ibn al-Sabbagh delivered the first lesson instead. After al-Shirazi joined the college, his standing drew students; the Baghdad Nizamiyya’s reputation grew through the scholars who taught there. Nizam al-Mulk also founded colleges in other cities, including Nishapur, Balkh, Isfahan and Merv. They shared his patronage and support for Shafi‘i scholars, while each depended on local teachers and endowments.

Lessons, reading and legal reasoning

At a lesson, students could sit in a circle around a teacher. A session might begin with recitation from the Qur’an or Hadith, reports about the Prophet’s words and actions, before the teacher explained a text. The Baghdad Nizamiyya’s curriculum included Qur’anic studies, Hadith, Shafi‘i jurisprudence, legal method, theology, Arabic, arithmetic and inheritance calculation. Fiqh, or jurisprudence, applied religious sources to questions of conduct and law; the study of legal method examined how scholars derived rulings from those sources.

Students learned by listening, reading, memorising and testing arguments. In disputation, two scholars or students presented different answers to a question and defended their reasoning before a teacher and audience. A case might turn on the wording of a contract, the credibility of a witness or the shares due to heirs. Repeated practice helped a student apply a legal school’s principles to concrete disputes. Friday afternoons at Baghdad’s Nizamiyya were also used for Hadith dictation, sermons and public speaking.

A student’s authority came through study with recognised teachers. An ijaza, meaning permission or license, could authorize someone to transmit a particular text or to teach law and issue legal opinions. A master granted it to a student he considered qualified; the college itself did not issue a universal graduation credential. Students who hoped to teach could assist a master as a tutor, reviewing lessons with other pupils, before receiving the teacher’s authorization. These personal ties linked a scholar’s teaching to the next generation. Some students later used their training in careers issuing legal opinions or serving as judges.

Libraries supported this work by making reference texts available to teachers and students. The Nizamiyya’s librarian managed its collection, and copyists helped produce manuscripts for use. A book could anchor a lesson, while the teacher’s explanation and students’ questions supplied the oral exchange around it. A college’s library and resident teacher therefore gave scholars a reason to stay in one city, even as learning also depended on books and teachers elsewhere.

Learning across cities and settings

Abu Hamid al-Ghazali’s education illustrates how a scholar’s training could span several centers. He began advanced study of jurisprudence in Tus, travelled to Jurjan, then went to Nishapur around 1080 and studied at the Nizamiyya there under the prominent theologian al-Juwayni. After al-Juwayni’s death, al-Ghazali joined Nizam al-Mulk’s scholarly circle. In 1091, the vizier appointed him to teach at Baghdad’s Nizamiyya, where he taught for four years, until about 1095. His path joined local instruction, study with a leading master, and a later teaching post at a major endowed college.

Madrasas formed one part of a wider teaching landscape. Students learned in mosques and scholars’ homes; Hadith students travelling to hear transmitters could lodge in mosques or merchant inns. Philosophy, medicine and other subjects were often studied with individual teachers outside a college’s formal lessons. For children, elementary instruction could combine Qur’an memorisation with reading, writing and arithmetic. A kuttab, a basic school, offered one setting for that early learning. Advanced legal study and elementary instruction thus addressed different stages and purposes.

Foundations in Anatolia

In thirteenth-century Anatolia, patrons established colleges for local scholarly communities. The Sırçalı Madrasah in Konya was built in 1242–43 by Bedreddin Muslih for scholars and students following the Hanafi school, another Sunni school of Islamic law. Its inscription identifies that purpose. The building had an open courtyard, covered galleries along three sides and two iwans, vaulted halls opening onto the courtyard. Its Hanafi affiliation offers a clear contrast with the Shafi‘i teaching specified in Baghdad’s Nizamiyya endowment.

Kayseri’s Huand Hatun complex placed a madrasa beside a mosque, tomb and bathhouse. Its patron, Mahperi Khātūn, was mother of the reigning Seljuk sultan Kaykhusraw II. The mosque inscriptions name her and date its construction to 1238; the madrasa is part of the complex, though the scholarly study of its inscriptions does not give a separate date for that building. Together, these foundations show how instruction was rooted in urban neighborhoods, supported by individual patrons and shaped by the scholars and legal traditions each community chose to serve.