Qarawiyīn in Rabat: A Modern Re-formation

Announced by the University of Pittsburgh

ACGIS Guest Lecture with Asma Sayeed

In 2015, a Moroccan royal decree mandated the reorganization of Qarawiyīn, a renowned institution of Islamic learning centered in Fes. Henceforth, Dār al-Ḥadīth al-Ḥassania (DHH), located in Rabat, would be considered a part of Qarawiyīn. This re-structuring represents more than just a de-coupling of an institutional name from its place-based history. This talk will explore the significance of the royal decree in the context of modern Islamic higher learning and through an exploration of the history of Dār al-Ḥadīth. As I argue, the re-organization is best understood not as a radical break from the past but rather the natural outcome of long-term trajectories in Islamic higher education in Morocco.

Asma Sayeed is Associate Professor in the NELC Department and Co-Director of the Islamic Studies program at UCLA. Her primary research interests are in early and classical Muslim social history, the history of Muslim education, the intersections of law and social history, and women and gender studies. She is author of Women and the Transmission of Religious Learning in Islam (Cambridge, 2013) and a number of other publications on women’s religious learning and Islamic education. Her current book project analyses contemporary developments in Islamic higher education through a case study of Dār al-Ḥadīth al-Ḥassania in Rabat, Morocco.