Learning · a Light

The Seljuk state paid students to study, from 1065

Nizam al-Mulk, vizier to the Seljuk sultans, began building the Nizamiyya of Baghdad in 1065 and opened it in 1067. What was new was not teaching, which had always happened in mosques, but the funding: a permanent endowment, a waqf, paid the professors a salary, gave students stipends and lodging, and maintained a library, so that a poor student could study without a patron. He founded sister colleges in Nishapur, Isfahan, Basra and other cities. Al-Ghazali held the chair in Baghdad. The model, an endowed college with salaried teachers and funded students, spread across the Muslim world and is one of the ancestors of the modern university.

Nizam al-Mulk · Baghdad, 1065 CE