AL-MUSABBIHI
(Al-Amīr al-Mukhtār ʿIzz al-Mulk Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn Abiʾl Qāsim ʿUbayd Allāh ibn Aḥmad ibn Ismāʿīl ibn ʿAbd al-Azīz al-Ḥarranī al-Musabbiḥī al-Kātib)
The Palace of Wisdom is said to be the first official non-religious academy or university in the Islamic World—it seems the Christian world as well. It taught the sciences including astronomy, logic, philosophy, mathematics, as well as history, theology, languages and medicine. Note that women were educated also, albeit separately. And this was under a Caliph who was a fundamentalist. This quotation is frequently used to demonstrate that the recent trend of some Islamic fundamentalism—the Taliban for example—toward keeping females in ignorance is not a Muslim tradition and has not traditionally been interpreted as a mandate of the religion until recently. Note that the same male “professors” who taught the men, also taught the women. So just as women could be in the presence of male close relatives, teachers were provided the same exception, unlike the interpretation of the Taliban and other fundamentalist Muslims who would not allow women to be taught be men if at all.
Al-Amīr al-Mukhtār ʿIzz al-Mulk Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn Abiʾl Qāsim ʿUbayd Allāh ibn Aḥmad ibn Ismāʿīl ibn ʿAbd al-Azīz al-Ḥarranī al-Musabbiḥī al-Kātib, commonly known simply as al-Musabbihi (Arabic: المصبحي), was a Fatimid historian, writer and administrative official. He is known to have authored some 40,000 pages of manuscripts dealing with an array of topics, including history, psychology, law, grammar, sexology and cooking. Akhbār Miṣr, a contemporary chronicle of Egyptian history and news, was among al-Musabbihi's well-known works. However, like the vast majority of al-Musabbihi's works, only fragments of Akhbār Miṣr survived; most of his writings disappeared not long after his death.
