If someone asked me to converse with one woman from the past for an hour, it would undoubtedly be Fatima Al-Fihri.
The conversation would be as follows:
It is 859 AD. I sit across from Fatima Al-Fihri, a visionary woman beyond her time and founder of the first-degree awarding university in the world.
As the hour goes on, I get to know Fatima, the woman, the leader and the academic. I listen to her recount the struggles she faced while building the university: the struggles of a woman of colour in a society that wishes to cage and confine her. I ask her about her reservations, the nagging thoughts that may have held her back, and how she rose above them. I ask her how she found the will to fast every day since the construction of the mosque-turned-university began. In my inquiry, I hope to find the key to her selflessness that drove her to build an institution that imparts knowledge to people of all faiths and social strata.
And in turn, I tell her that ‘The University of al-Qarawiyyin’ is recognised by Guinness World Records as the oldest center of higher education and home to the world’s oldest library. I tell her that her struggle mattered; her story counted. That she inspired me. Her insurmountable conviction in social work pushed me to work within my community to improve the lives of the impoverished, unsheltered and marginalised. That while her contribution to her community was tremendous, it motivated me to not be discouraged and continue working on a micro-level in the hope of making a change in whatever way possible.
The University of al-Qarawiyyin.
Lessons We Can Learn From Her Struggle
In more ways than one, the story of Fatima Al-Fihri is an inspirational story of striving against social norms, creating educational opportunities, and working toward a cause. It is very much a story that needs to be told in today’s age, at a time when there is a hyper-focus on the institution of Education and, more importantly, on the disparities it sustains and perpetuates. Modern education, as argued by many, is used to reinforce social norms and cultivate and reproduce social, intellectual, and economic inequality through its focus on indoctrination and submission to authority.
This inevitably creates a vast divide among the social classes as Upper- and Middle-class pupils are steered towards higher-paying jobs and higher positions while the working-class pupils are pushed towards low paying jobs.
Indeed, the worst kept secret of capitalism is the inequality it perpetuates through the institution of education. A secret exposed multifold as a global pandemic rages through the world. It is in these turbulent times that we must extract the most critical lesson from Fatima Al-Fihri’s story: being born into social convention is not our fault, but being proactive in changing the system, in our relative capacities, is a choice we can make.
Mahrukh Murad is a Pakistani writer. She aspires to harness the creative streak in human nature and embody it in her work. Her poetry has previously been published in TeenInk, The Waggle magazine, The Pangolin Review, Rigorous Magazine, Pleiades Magazine. Her articles have been featured on The Nation and The Aman Project.