Islamic madrasa education system

Timeline

1. 1000–1100Khurasan · IranIn the Seljuk era, independent madrasas maintained by waqf endowments emerged, separating religious education and legal training from mosque lecture halls and forming an institutional prototype with fixed faculty, curricula, and buildings.
2. 1100–1350Baghdad · IraqThe Nizamiyya madrasas patronized by Nizam al-Mulk established a system of Sunni jurisprudence and theology education; the model quickly spread to Damascus, Isfahan, Cairo, and elsewhere, becoming the standard institution of higher learning in the Islamic world.
3. 1320–1600Cairo · EgyptThe Mamluk sultanate vigorously built madrasas, with institutions such as al-Azhar becoming centers of Sunni scholarship; the Ottoman Empire inherited and expanded the madrasa network, training religious scholars and administrative personnel.
4. 1600–1800Istanbul · TurkeyWith the rise of European-style schools and secular universities in modern times, traditional madrasas gradually adjusted their curricula and introduced modern disciplines, completing a partial transformation into modern educational systems amid the 19th-century colonial and reform waves.