Islam and Science – The Madrasa System

December 22, 2017Science & Faith

The decline of the rational sciences in Islam is attributed by some writers to the fact that the madrasa system which flourished after the founding of the Nizāmiyya Madrasa in Baghdad by Nizām al-Mulk. in 459/1067 favoured the study of theology and law. But the study of the rational sciences in Islam was always undertaken independently, and the theological studies were not usually undertaken under the same teachers or at the same institutions. Astronomy and mathematics were pursued mostly in the observatories, within a community of mathematicians and astronomers, where a specialized library was available and observational instruments were in constant use. The medical sciences were studied, as they should be, in the medical school of a bīmāristān (hospital). The other sciences were studied under individual renowned scientists, most often patronized by the rulers, to whom students travelled from the far realms of Islam. The existence of these individual renowned teachers constituted what may be called a college of professors within a certain large city or a region.

Let us not forget also the libraries and the academies, like Dār al-Hikma in Baghdad, which were devoted to research and to the study of the rational sciences. Most of the madrasas, on the other hand, were established by persons in power or by pious and wealthy individuals who endowed a part of their wealth to a waqf which supported the school. The purpose was always religious, and the studies were naturally mainly those of law and theology. It can be said therefore that the madrasa was mainly a college of theology and law, and it was, according to recent studies, the forerunner of the college system in Western universities. But the universities which appeared in the West and which comprised several colleges for theology, law, arts and sciences, and medicine, did not develop in Islam in the same period. This is due to the fact that the madrasas which were supported by the waqf system, and with them the study of law and theology, continued to exist without interruption, whereas the centres for the study of the rational sciences, which were dependent on the strength and the prosperity of the state, deteriorated and ceased to exist with the decline of the Islamic states, and for this reason scientific knowledge did not keep in line with the quick advances of science in Europe after the Scientific Revolution. In the period preceding this revolution it was possible to speak about the achievements of Muslim scientists and compare them to those of medieval Europe. Advances in both areas were parallel and there was not a significant difference between them. But after the new discoveries of Copernicus, Galileo and Newton and the fall of the old systems of knowledge, the university in the West became the centre of the new scientific activities. For the Scientific Revolution which took place in Europe to have happened in Islam at the same time, there would have to have been in existence at that time in history an efficient system of communications between members of the scientific communities in both cultural areas. But such a system did not exist; there were no Islamic universities which comprised all branches of knowledge, and the Islamic scientific community was almost non-existent. It was only in modern times that universities on the model of the European ones started to appear in the Islamic countries. Some of the older universities, such as al-Azhar, which followed the madrasa system and were devoted to the study of Islamic law and theology, have only recently introduced science, engineering and medicine into their curricula.

Having thus established the link between the decline of Islamic science and the decline of the Islamic lands both in political power and material wealth, the question which remains to be answered is: what are the factors behind the decline of the Islamic lands? And although the discussion of this subject lies in the domain of political and economic history, and not in the scope of the history of science, yet we shall summarize what we think are the major factors in the decline in the next few notes.