Fatima al-Fihri a Moorish Woman Founded The World’s Oldest University

 

“Fatima al-Fihri was young when her family moved to what is now modern-day Morocco. After her father’s death, the young, Muslim woman of color used her inheritance to build a mosque for those in her community to both learn and practice their faith”

Source: The World’s Oldest University Was Not Only Founded By A Woman Of Color, It’s Located In Africa

 

“The oldest standing university on earth is in Morocco. Known as Al-Qarawiyyin, the university was founded in 859 AD by a young princess from Tunisia, Fatima al-Fihri. The university has been recognized by UNESCO and the Guinness World Records as the oldest existing, continuously operating university, as well as, the first institution to issue educational degrees.”

Source: The oldest university is in Africa, and was founded by a woman

 

Al-Qarawiyyin is the oldest university in the world

“Education was universal in Muslim Spain, while in Christian Europe, 99 percent of the population was illiterate, and even kings could neither read nor write. The Moors boasted a remarkably high literacy rate for a pre-modern society. During an era when Europe had only two universities, the Moors had seventeen. The founders of Oxford University were inspired to form the institution after visiting universities in Spain. According to the United Nations’ Education body, the oldest university operating in the world today, is the University of Al-Karaouine of Morocco founded during the height of the Moorish Empire in 859 A.D. by an Arab woman named Fatima al-Fihri.”

Source: History: How African Muslims “Civilized Spain”

 

The oldest university is in Africa

“Fatima Al-Fihri migrated with her family in the early ninth century from Qayrawan in present-day Tunisia to the city of Fez in Morocco. This was during the rule of Idrees II, an extraordinary ruler and devout Muslim. Fez at that time was a bustling metropolis of the “Muslim West” (known as al-Maghrib), and held the promise in the people’s imaginations of fortune and felicity. Having become one of the most influential Muslim cities, Fez boasted a rich combination of religion and culture, both traditional and cosmopolitan. This was the city, on the left bank of the River Fez, where Fatima’s family settled and she eventually married. After much toil and struggle in humble beginnings, the family of Fatima was eventually blessed with prosperity. Her father, Mohammad bin Abdullah Al-Fihri, had become a hugely successful businessman. After the deaths of Fatima’s husband, father, and brother in short succession, Fatima and her only other sibling, Mariam, received a sizable inheritance which assured their financial independence. It was in this latter period of their lives that they distinguished themselves. Having received a good education, the sisters in turn hastened to dedicate all of their wealth to benefiting their community. Observing that the local mosques in Fez could not accommodate the growing population of worshipers, many of whom were refugees from Islamic Spain, Mariam built the breathtaking and grand Andalusian Mosque in 245AH/859CE.”

Source: Fatima al-Fihri: Founder of World’s Very First University

 

Mosque of al-Qarawiyyin — TripAdvisor

“Fatima al-Fihri was a Muslim woman from Tunisia who founded the first known university more than 1,000 years ago: the University of al-Qarawiyyin in Fez, Morocco. Guinness World Records acknowledges it as the oldest existing and continually operating educational institution in the world . . .”

Source: The true story of Fatima al-Fihri, the founder of the world’s first known university

 

Books of the Qarawiyyin library — TRT World

“Al-Fihri established the concept of a university as we know it today. Her idea for an educational hub that provided opportunities for advanced learning spread throughout the world in the Middle Ages, resulting in the founding of Europe’s oldest institutions in the following centuries, including the University of Bologna (founded 1088) and the University of Oxford (founded around 1096).”

Source: The true story of Fatima al-Fihri, the founder of the world’s first known university

 

Moorish Princess Zaida of Seville, an Ancestor of the current Queen Elizabeth

Zaida of Seville (c. 1070 – 1100) Mistress of: King Alfonso VI of Castile. Tenure: c. 1091 – 1100. Royal Bastards: One – Three. Fall From Power: None; she married him.

“In her letters to Al-Mansur, Elizabeth I, over a period of 25 years, continually described the relationship between the two countries as “La buena amistad y confederación que hay entre nuestras coronas” (“The great friendship and cooperation that exists between our Crowns”), and presented herself as “Vuestra hermana y pariente según ley de corona y ceptro” (“Your sister and relative according to the law of the Crown and the Scepter”)” 

Source: Shakespeare Studies, Volume 31  edited by Leeds Barroll, Susan Zimm…

Alphonso VI, white Christian king, who was so often beaten by Yusuf, took a Moorish wife, the lovely Zayda, who was the mother of his favorite son, Sancho.”

Source: Nature Knows No Color-Line: Research into the Negro Ancestry in the White Race By J. A. Rogers, Pg. 60 Chapter Spain & Portugal

“Genealogist Harold B. Brooks-Baker, publisher of Burke’s Peerage, Britain’s guide to the nobility. It is little known by the British people that the blood of Mohammed flows in the veins of the queen,” Brooks-Baker wrote to British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher at the time. Brooks-Baker connected Queen Elizabeth to Muhammad via Zaida of Seville, a Muslim princess from the 11th century who converted to Christianity and became King Alfonso VI of Castile’s concubine. However, it’s not clear if Zaida was actually related to Muhammad or not. Abdelhamid Al-Aouni, the historian who penned the article for Al-Ousboue, believes there is a connection, too. Using Zaida as his lynchpin, he traced Elizabeth’s genealogy back 43 generations all the way to Muhammad. The purported connection “builds a bridge between our two religions and kingdoms,” he tells The Economist.”

Source: Is Queen Elizabeth Related to the Prophet Muhammad?

Britain’s Queen Elizabeth meets with Jordan’s King Abdullah, in Buckingham Palace London Tuesday November 15, 2011.(AP Photo/ Lewis Whyld/Pool)

“Zaida, a Muslim princess living in 11th-century Seville, is one of the most extraordinary ancestors of the British royal family. Zaida’s bloodline reached the English shores through her engagement to Alfonso VI, king of León-Castile. From their offspring descended Isabel Pérez of Castile, who in the 14th century was sent to England to marry Edmund Duke of York, son of King Edward III of England. Their grandson, Richard, Duke of York, led a rebellion against King Henry VI which developed into the Wars of the Roses. Richard’s second son Edward took the throne in 1461. Thus the legacy of Islamic Spain – better known as al-Andalus – found its way into the Plantagenet royal court.”

“This lineage has been of recent interest both in the UK and in the Middle East, as it purportedly proves a family relationship between Queen Elizabeth II and the Prophet Muhammad himself. Respected experts and commentators such as Burke’s Peerage and Ali Gomaa, the former Grand Mufti of Egypt, have suggested that Zaida was the offspring of al-Muʿtamid, ruler of Seville and a descendant of the daughter of the Prophet, Fāṭima and her husband ʿĀlī. As a member of the Hashemite family, the descendants of Fāṭima and ʿĀlī, the Queen would count as relatives, among others, the supreme leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, or the Aga Khan IV, Prince Shah Karim Al Hussaini, a close friend of the current Royal family.”

Source: Meet the Muslim princess Zaida, Spanish ancestor of the British royal family

“The claim gained little attention in the West over the subsequent decades. But Assahifa Al-Ousbouia, a weekly Arabic-language newspaper in Morocco, called attention to the theory again this week by publishing a family tree that claimed to trace the Queen’s lineage from Abu al-Qasim Muhammad ibn Abbad, the first independent ruler of Seville in what was then the territory of Al-Andalus in Spain. According to the chart published in Morocco and translated by the British press, Muhammad ibn Abbad is a great-grandchild of the Prophet Muhammad, who died in 632 in what is now Saudi Arabia. The line between the Prophet Mohammad, ibn Abbad and Elizabeth II thus links the current monarch with the founder of one of the three monotheistic religions, according to the newspaper. Historians have suggested that the connection is possible but not entirely irrefutable. Marriages between Spanish and British royals have been common throughout the centuries, and both the British and Spanish royal families descend from Queen Victoria. Brooks-Baker appears to have connected the Queen to the prophet through a princess named Zaida, a grandchild of ibn Abbad who converted to Christianity and became the concubine of King Alfonso VI of Castile.”

Source: THE QUEEN OF ENGLAND IS A DESCENDANT OF THE PROPHET MUHAMMAD, NEWSPAPER CLAIMS

According to reports from Casablanca to Karachi, the British monarch is descended from the Prophet Muhammad, making her a cousin of the kings of Morocco and Jordan, not to mention of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s Supreme Leader. Her bloodline runs through the Earl of Cambridge, in the 14th century, across medieval Muslim Spain, to Fatima, the Prophet’s daughter. Her link to Muhammad has previously been verified by Ali Gomaa, the former grand mufti of Egypt, and Burke’s Peerage, a British authority on royal pedigrees.”

Source: Is the caliph a queen? Muslims consider Queen Elizabeth’s ties to the Prophet Muhammad

According to the family tree, she is descendant from the Prophet’s daughter, Fatima. According to the Economist, much of the purported link revolves around a Muslim princess called Zaida, who fled an attack on Seville in Muslim Spain in the 11th century and found refuge in the court of Alfonso VI of Castille. There, “she changed her name to Isabella, converted to Christianity and bore Alfonso a son, Sancho, one of whose descendants later married the Earl of Cambridge,” the Economist said. However, the report notes that Zaida’s own origins are not without debate. “Some make her the daughter of Muatamid bin Abbad, a wine-drinking caliph descended from the Prophet. Others say she married into his family,” the report said.”

Source: Is Queen Elizabeth descended from the Prophet Muhammad? New study revives old claims tracing the British monarch’s lineage back 43 generations to the founder of Islam

QUEEN ELIZABETH’S COUSIN

In December 2017, Princess Michael came under fire for what critics regard as either extreme bigotry or a sign that she’s woefully out of touch: she wore a racist, blackamoor brooch to a luncheon attended by Meghan Markle, Prince Harry’s American fiancé, who is of biracial descent.”

Source: This Royal Cousin Is So Embarrassing Even Queen Elizabeth Is Fed Up With Her

QUEEN ELIZABETH’S COUSIN blackamoor brooch

“Princess Michael of Kent, a first cousin to Queen Elizabeth II, caused quite a social media stir last Wednesday (December 20) when she was photographed wearing what many called a “racist brooch” on her coat. The Princess was on her way to a Buckingham Palace lunch attended by Prince Harry’s fiancée, Meghan Markle – a child of a white father and African-American mother. The brooch in question was a blackamoor-style brooch that depicted an African figure. Blackamoor-style brooches are widely considered offensive, and the Princess was accused of being racist and out of touch by many on Twitter and Facebook.”

Source: QUEEN ELIZABETH’S COUSIN APOLOGIZES FOR “OFFENSIVE” BROOCH INCIDENT