Al-Mustansiriya School in Baghdad

Al-Mustansiriya School in Baghdad: -

 Nothing remains of the memory of the Abbasid Caliph Al-Mustansir Billah except for his immortal school known as Al-Mustansiriya, which is considered one of the oldest Islamic universities and one of the greatest civilizational works carried out by the Abbasid Caliphate in its last days, and fate would have it to remain the only trace of which some parts of it remain to this day from the institutes of knowledge  Abbasid in Baghdad, despite its many and different character.

 The author of this civilizational work is the Abbasid Caliph Abu Jaafar al-Mansur al-Mustansir Billah bin Muhammad al-Zahir, who took over the caliphate on the day of his father’s death on (14 Rajab 623 AH = July 11, 1226 CE), and he rose through it with the best advancement, and he was like his father just wanting to restore to the nation some of its morals that  He disappeared under the grip of injustice, tyranny, lust for rule and tyranny, and if his father had stayed in the caliphate for nine months and fourteen days, during which he followed the laws of justice and benevolence, and from his determination to implement and his sincerity in pursuing them, he made the great historian Ibn al-Atheer say: If it is said that he did not  The caliphate will follow after Umar bin Abdul Aziz, the same would have been said:  He returned from the stolen money in the days of his father and accepted him a lot ...

 And if the fate did not allow him to let people see the fruits of his planting, then his son continued the path and followed the beatings.  So in Baghdad it was called that whoever had a need or a darkness to read about, his need would be fulfilled and his grievance revealed.

 The Caliph Al-Mustansir Billah had a tendency to goodness, and a desire to establish useful facilities such as archways, khans, connectivity, guesthouses, etc., and his succession lasted 17 years but a month.  He died on (20 Jumada al-Thani, 640 AH = 5 December 1243 AD).

 Create a school

 The Al-Mustansir Billah Al-Abbasid Caliph began building the school in Baghdad on the coast of the Tigris in the year (625 AH = 1227 AD), and it was built and constructed by the professor of the Caliphate House Muhammad bin Al-Alqami, and what he spent on it amounted to 700 thousand dinars, and it was opened for study on (5 of Rajab 631 AH = 6  From April 1233 AD) and it was a memorable day in which a great celebration was held on this occasion, during which the Abbasid Caliph Ali Muhammad ibn Al-Alqami and his brother Ahmad, the two who oversaw its construction, took off a lot of money and two thousand heads of sheep were slaughtered, and sweets were made in rows, and a great tablecloth was erected in the school’s plate.  It has various rows and different colors of fine foods, which the attendees ate and carried to all the paths of Baghdad.

 Al-Mustansiriya is a major university

 This great school was concerned with the study of the sciences of the Qur’an, the Prophet’s Sunnah, jurisprudence, medicine and mathematics in a way never before. Caliph Al-Mustansir allocated a special building to the study of Islamic jurisprudence, in which the four fiqh schools are studied together for the first time in the history of Islamic schools, and he made medicine a special building, then he added  To the schools of jurisprudence and medicine two other houses: a house for the Qur’an and a house for the Sunnah, and thus the Caliph al-Nabih gathered the four jurisprudential schools of thought, the sciences of the Qur’an, the Prophet’s Sunnah, medicine, Arabic, mathematics and statutes and made them in one place consisting of multiple buildings called Al-Mustansiriya, and before that independent schools were built for each branch of  Those branches;  Medicine is taught in independent schools away from the schools of hadith, which are also independent of the role of the Qur’an.

 The Caliph Al-Mustansir Billah made a good year to study jurisprudence with its four schools of thought in one school. Hardly ten years have passed since the inauguration of Al-Mustansiriya.  Even the righteous king Najm al-Din Ayyub established the Salihiya school in Cairo in the year (641 AH = 1243 AD) to teach the four schools of thought. Then the wife of the Caliph Al-Mustasim, the last Abbasid caliph known as “Bab Bashir” built the Bashiriya school in the year (649 AH = 1251 AD) on the western side of Baghdad and made it  They stood on the four schools of thought on the basis of the Al-Mustansiriya School, and it was opened for study on the 13th of Jumada al-Akhira in the year 653 AH. Then, schools that followed this approach in teaching jurisprudence with its four schools were established.

 Administrative system

 The administration of the Al-Mustansiriya School was administered by a headmaster who was chosen from among the senior officials of the state, assisted by a number of assistants, led by the supervisor, who was like the financial controller or the financial inspector, the clerk and the storer, and a number of employees worked to serve the teachers and students, and Abd al-Rahman al-Tikriti was the first to assume the position of the head of al-Mustansiriya School.  ;  Where it was appointed on the ninth day of Rajab year (631 AH = 1233 AD).

 The school system

 The senior sheikhs and imams of knowledge in Iraq, the Levant, Egypt and others were chosen to teach in Al-Mustansiriya, and others who obtained a high attribution, or who had ended up with the leadership of knowledge, or known for research and deep study, and these teachers assisted excellent teaching assistants.  As for the students, he was scrutinizing their choice from among the bright students, and each of the jurisprudence schools had a teacher assisted by four teaching assistants, and in the section devoted to each sect, the sheikh sits on a carpeted bench, and he wore a black suit and to his right two instructors, and on his left the same to return what the Sheikh dictates from  lessons.

 The means for the lesson

 The school was equipped to assist students in studying and learning, and to help teachers to explain and clarify.  He attached the school to a full-fledged library donated by the Caliph Al-Mustansir to it, and it contained eighty thousand books in addition to what was loaded on it after that.

 The school included a hospital where medicine is taught.  Where the theoretical study is coupled with application and treatment of disease cases, and conducting examinations and experiments.

 Full-time study and collection

 Caliph Al-Mustansir Ali suspended his school and a large endowment.  So that those in charge of it and those enrolled in it are devoted to studying and collecting, the burdens of life will not distract them from continuing the search, nor will they be distracted by thinking about a livelihood from pursuing the collection.  Food is distributed cooked daily to its students who are fixed in the school, in addition to what was prepared for them from mats, lamps, oil, paper, ink and pens, and in the summer cold water was provided to them and in winter hot water, and the administration and teaching men distributed large quantities of bread, meat and vegetables to them.  And their guests are sufficient, in addition to the gifts and gifts they received.

 The lands and wastes that the school was endowed generated enough income to advance it and carry out its mission, until it was said: The value of what was endowed on it is worth a thousand dinars, and that the imports of these endowments amounted to seventy thousand shekels of gold per year, and those in charge of the Mustansiriya endowment were paid every year.  A month, cash salaries of gold dinars differ according to their homes and their destiny.

 Al-Mustansiriya study

 Teaching remained in Al-Mustansiriya School for four centuries since it was opened in the year (631 AH = 1233 AD) until the year (1048 AH = 1638 AD), and if that interrupted periods of interruption, the first was during the Mongolian occupation of Baghdad in the year (656 AH = 1258 AD), and the study there was a little disrupted.  Then it became active again;  Where the study was resumed in the year (656 AH = 1259 AD), and the study continued to be carried out regularly after the fall of Baghdad for about a century and a half.

 Then the study was suspended in it and in other Baghdad schools.  Because Tamerlane destroyed Baghdad twice, the first in 795 AH = 1392 AD, and the other in the year (803 AH = 1400 AD);  Where Tamerlane eliminated Baghdad’s schools, corrupted its scholars, and took with him to Samarkand many writers, engineers and architects, and Baghdad also deserted a large number of scholars to Egypt, the Levant and other Islamic countries, and in this fierce attack, Al-Mustansiriya lost its library of thousands of books and became a relic after an eye.  The study remained suspended after the conquest of Tamerlane for about two centuries until it was opened for study in the year (998 AH = 1589 AD), but it did not last for long, so it returned and closed its doors in the year (1048 AH = 1638 AD).

 The revival of Al-Mustansiriya

 After the study in Al-Mustansiriya stopped, it was used for other purposes.  So she sought a hospice, a house for tolls and taxes, a house for travelers, and a residence for the soldiers of one of the battalions, and the hand of negligence extended to it.  Much of its splendor and splendor were lost, parts of its buildings disappeared, and the matter remained in this way of neglect and forgetfulness, until the Iraqi Directorate of Antiquities was able to put its hand on the building and take care of it and restore its splendor and beauty to it, and it was opened for visit as an effect in the year (1380 AH = 1960 AD).

 From the sources of the study:

 Ibn Al-Atheer - The Complete History - Dar Sader - Beirut.

 Muhammad Al-Khudary - Lectures on the History of Islamic Nations - The Great Commercial Library - Cairo - 1959 AD.

 Nagy Maarouf - History of Al-Mustansiriya Scholars - Dar Al-Shaab - Cairo - 1975 AD.

 Salim Zabal - I am Al-Mustansiriya - Al-Arabi Magazine - Issue 65 - (1383 - 1964 AD).

 Written by researcher Ahmed Tamam