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At the time Muhammd Ali seized control of Egypt, schooling was dominated by the Kurrab, also called a Maktab. It was was a type of primary schooling with an Islamic foundation. It was not a Egyptian tradition, but a type of schooling prevalent throughout the Arab and wider Muslim world for centuries. At a Kuttab, boys, and only boys, learned the basics of reading, writing, grammar, and Islamic theology. There were variations, but in some Kuttabs, secular subjects might be presented. 【Asimov and Bosworth, pp. 33–34.】 But usually were not and when actually presented was a minor part of the program. You can see the Kuttabs outside the Al Azhar Mosque in Cairo--meaning the one of the most prestigious places in the entire Arab world (figure 1). Which is part of the reason, the Arab world became a scientific black hole. We are even unsure about math. The method employed a Muslim cleric teaches a group of boys arranged in a circle on the ground. This did not require a actual building. The teacher usually had a stick which was used to command attention. Only one book--the Holy Koran. The boys learned by memorized and reciting Koranic verses. Learning in the Kuttab is not involve questioning or experimentation, problem solving or learning-by-doing. This was basically the educational system which dominated the Arab world for centuries, part of the reason that the Arab world declined when the West began to thrive when the West began to rise wih the Renaissance. The Kuttabs were basically founded and supported by local mosques, but the only students that attended were those from families that afford to pay fees. This is why literacy rates and education in general was so limited in the Arab world. Notice that this was not something imposed upon the Arabs by the Europeans, in fact they were not even colonized until the (16th century) and the colonial power was fellow Muslims -- the Ottoman Empire. This level of education the vast majority of Arabs received, and Egypt was the most advanced of all the Arab lands. Until well into the 20th century, Kuttabs were the prevalent means of education in the Arab and much of the Islamic world.
Asimov, M.S. and Clifford Edmund Bosworth. (1999), The Age of Achievement Vol 4, (Motilal Banarsidass: 1999).
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