al-Tarbiya fi Usur ma qabl al-Islam wa badahu
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- Islamic University of Madinah
al-Tarbiya fi Usur ma qabl al-Islam wa badahu (Education in Pre-Islamic Eras and Thereafter) is an academic historical treatise by Abbas Mahjoub, assistant professor at the College of Da'wah at the Islamic University of Madinah, examining the evolution of educational systems across ancient civilizations, pre-Islamic Arabia, and the Islamic world.
Divine Pedagogy and Ancient Civilizations
The treatise opens by grounding early education in divine instruction recorded in the Quran, beginning with the creation of Adam—whom God taught the names of all things—and continuing with the story of Cain and Abel, where a raven demonstrated how to bury the dead. It traces the primitive transition of educational roles from informal familial imitation to institutionalized learning in early human societies.
Mahjoub surveys educational models across ancient nations:
- Ancient China: Schooling expanded from village rooms and temples into hierarchical levels, culminating in civil service examinations at the imperial Hanlin Academy in Beijing, where candidates underwent rigorous thirteen-day assessments in ethics, literature, and philosophy across thousands of individual examination cells.
- Pharaonic Egypt: Instruction served civic, vocational, and religious functions, with tiered schooling and prominent centers such as the ancient university at Heliopolis (On).
- Ancient India: Education was initially restricted to the Brahmin caste before gradually widening, emphasizing mental discipline, self-control, and moral training.
- Greece and Rome: The work contrasts the austere, state-directed militarism of Sparta with the civic, cultural, and philosophical instruction of Athens. Roman schooling progressed from practical familial training in rhetoric and law to structured rhetorical academies.
- Christian and Jewish traditions: Early Christian education relied on parables, moral instruction, and Socratic questioning before falling under monastic and church domination until the late eleventh century. Jewish pedagogy remained domestic and communal, teaching scriptural traditions and basic skills.
- Sasanian Persia: Societal rigidities, social stratification, and Zoroastrian beliefs defined Persian learning without an overarching theoretical pedagogy.
Pre-Islamic Arabia
In pre-Islamic Arabia, education was primarily natural and tribal, rooted in imitation (taqlid wa-muhakat), oral transmission, and tribal lore. Arab youth acquired martial crafts, hunting, horsemanship, genealogy (ansab), physiognomy (firasah), and celestial lore (al-anwa'). Moral and social values were reinforced through parental testaments—such as the counsels of Umama bint al-Harith and Aws ibn Haritha—as well as gatherings at seasonal literary fairs like Suq Ukaz, Majanna, and Dhu al-Majaz.
Development of Islamic Education
The treatise outlines the institutional and methodological progression of Islamic education across historical epochs:
- The Prophetic Era and the Early Caliphate: Mahjoub notes that only seventeen men and a few women in Quraysh were literate at the inception of Islam. The house of al-Arqam ibn Abi al-Arqam operated as the first informal center of learning, followed by the Prophet's Mosque in Medina upon the Hijrah. The Quran served as the core pedagogical text. Early teaching remained centered around the reciters (qurra'), prior to the systematic emergence of jurists and specialized scholars.
- The Umayyad Era: Educational venues expanded to include teaching circles (halaqat) in major mosques and elementary schools (katatib). The curriculum broadened from Quranic recitation to include Hadith, Arabic grammar, historical narratives (maghazi), and poetry. Regional pedagogical approaches emerged across the Hijaz, Iraq, Egypt, and al-Andalus.
- The Classical Abbasid and Middle Periods: The rise of madrasas institutionalized advanced schooling, notably al-Nizamiyya in Baghdad established by Nizam al-Mulk, the Mosque of al-Mansur, al-Azhar, and al-Madrasa al-Nuriyya in Damascus. Mahjoub highlights the theoretical formulations of educational thinkers including al-Mawardi, al-Khatib al-Baghdadi, and Abu Hamid al-Ghazali.
- Later Decline: By the sixth and seventh centuries AH, educational thought contracted due to sectarian factionalism, governmental control over appointments and curricula, and an increasing reliance on commentaries and abridgments that persisted into modern times.
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