are the figures given by a writer who made the columns
of the Karueein fifteen hundred, about treble their present
number.1
In the early days of Mohammedan rule in this country
Fez was a highly favoured city, the seat of learning
and the Empire’s pride. When Kairwan and
Academic Cordova were lost, it received their learned
Reputation.
and devout refugees, * becoming famous as
the Baghdad of the West, already the Imperial metropolis,
self-satisfying, self-contained, where letters flourished,
and where the most elegant of dialects was spoken.2
Thither came large numbers of students attracted by its
educational advantages, f Its libraries were extensive,
if its teachings were not deep, t and though what was
taught there might seem of small account in our days,
it was then esteemed wonderful.
In the middle of the sixteenth century even Christian
seekers after knowledge were to be found in Fez, and
in 1535 Clenardus (Cleynaerts) went there to
European study, but already its academic glories had
Students. J
passed, the scholars were few, and the libraries
6 After one of their intestine struggles, eight thousand families of
Andalucian Moors took refuge in Fas Jadeed, another party finding their
way to Ceuta.3
-f The extinct Madarsat el A’alam was built in 1320,4 the school
attached to the Andalus mosque in 1321,5 that of the Attarin in 1323,8
and that of the Karueein in 1373. Ali V. (the “ Black Sultan”) built
“ the school of Abu Yusef” at the close of his reign 1348; V the
Sharrdtin madarsah was erected by Mulai er-Rasheed in 1671, and another
by Abd Allah V. cir. 1757,8 probably the Madarsat el Wad.0 Some of
the former Madarsahs, though retaining the name, are now no more than
ordinary mosques.
| The best list of the MSS. remaining in Fez, though incomplete,
was obtained by M. Ordega, and contributed by Prof. Basset to the
“ Bull. Corresp. Afr.,” Algiers, November and December, 1882. It gives
two hundred and forty names.
1 P u e r t o , p . 6 12 . 2 A b d e l W a h e e d , p . 2 6 1 . 8 D o z y , v o l. ii., p. 76.
* E n -N a s i r i , v o l. iv ., p . 54. 5 Radd e l Kartds, p . 570. 6 E n -N a s i r i , v o l. ii., p . 54.
7 E n-N a s ir i , v o l. ii., p . 86. 8 E n-N a.si .r i , v o l. iv ., p . 9 1. 9 E z -Za 'ia n i , p . 22.
had all but vanished : * although occasional auctions
of books, for the most part religious, still took place at
the Karueein, sales were rare, and purchasers indifferent, f
When in the beginning of the eighteenth century “ A li
B e y ” tried to find out what remained,1 all he could
come across was a room in the Karueein Mosque,
wherein a collection of ancient manuscripts was rotting
away, and another full of clocks and various instruments,
of which no one knew the proper use.2 Among the
latter were European terrestrial and celestial
Scientific
globes, then about a century old. Euclid Attainmentà.
existed in great folio volumes, unread. Ptolemy’s
cosmography was the latest studied, and Aristotle’s
physics. Sufficient astronomy was understood to take
the time by the sun with rude astrolabes constructed
for each latitude. With mathematics there was but a
slight acquaintance, and with geography even less.
Chemistry was unknown, but some notions of alchemy
existed. Anatomy was banished, and the ideas of medicine
extant were the most rudimentary.
The luxury of prosperity had brought on its attendant
vices, which never fail to induce ruin, and to use the
language of Chenier, in his work on Morocco, s 'EM
“ Fez, the school of sciences and manners,
soon became the sink of every vice.” 3 Now but a skeleton
remains of what was once so flourishing, and save in
its commerce and traditions, Fez has little to distinguish
it from, or render it more remarkable than, the other
capitals. In these points it undoubtedly takes the lead,
* Yet it is recorded on the authority of Erpenius (Van Erpe), that in
1613 there were 32,000 vols. in the Fez Library.4 Mohammed XVII.,
however, distributed many among the kddis, in 1760.
j A translation' of his account from the Latin of 1556 (Louvain) was
published in Ghent in 1845 by Prof. Néve.
1 p. 66. 2 p. 177. See Prof. R é n e B a s s e t ’ s list, Alger, 1883.
3 Vol. i., p. 73. k G . B . C a r t a in Man. Univ. Geog.; G r a b e r g , p, 17 7 .