Historical Schools in the Levant: Education and Scholarly Organization in the 1st and 2nd Hijri Centuries

Abstract

The Levant witnessed a prominent position at the time of the Islamic conquest and the establishment of the Islamic entity, due to its vital geographical location and its political and military influence, a chapter of its profound historical depth predated Islam and continued with it. The consolidation of Umayyad rule in Damascus made the Levant the center of the Islamic state in a period close to the present time, which made it the seat of political decision and a wide field for the spread of scientific and intellectual activity, where scholars, narrators, jurists, and reciters from various parts of the Islamic world gathered.

From the first decades of the Islamic conquest, education in the Levant took its initial course from within the great mosques, which served as centers for guidance and education and houses of Islamic sciences. Then, the scientific movement did not cease to develop during the second century AH in a remarkable way, with the increase in the number of scholars, the multiplicity of study circles, and the expansion of fields of knowledge, which led to the emergence of scientific organization.

More clearly, whether in terms of teaching methods, the status of scholars, or the nature of the sciences taught, as relative political stability and the support of caliphs, princes, and the general public contributed to strengthening the scientific environment and organizing it, making the Levant one of the most important centers of science in the Islamic world.

Hence the importance of studying the topic of "Schools in the Levant: Scientific Education and Global Organization during the First and Second Centuries AH" as an attempt to reveal the nature of the educational movement in this early stage, to trace the emergence of scientific institutions and their organizational frameworks, and to explain teaching methods and scientific curricula, and to analyze the impact of these organizations on the formation of a Levantine scientific elite that had a prominent role in consolidating and disseminating the religious sciences, and in linking the Levant to the scientific movement in the Hijaz, Iraq, and other Islamic regions.