Al-Mustansiriya School is a living witness to great education, construction

Baghdad (IraqiNews.com) – Al-Mustansiriya School in Baghdad, with its geometric and botanical decorations, is a rare masterpiece that was constructed in 1233.

It is considered one of the most important scientific and cultural places from which thousands of students of science graduated over the time when Baghdad was a destination for students of science.

Through the generations, this edifice still tells us about the greatness of a nation and its history in every sense of the word.

The Iraqi State Board of Antiquities and Heritage (SBAH) worked on maintaining the Al-Mustansiriya School to remain a living witness to the greatness of the building and the educational achievement.  

“Employees and workers of the engineering department worked on maintaining the Al-Mustansiriya School for successive and different periods to preserve its architectural style and its Islamic, engineering and botanical decorations,” Director of the Department of Maintenance, Engineering and Preservation of Antiquities, Iyad Hassan Abd Hamza, said.

“Maintenance works made it an important cultural and heritage edifice in central Baghdad, visited by the public, foreign and Arab delegations visiting Iraq for tourism, and delegations attending conferences or seminars,” Hamza elaborated.

Hamza confirmed that the Department of Maintenance, Engineering and Preservation of Antiquities carried out the first maintenance of the Al-Mustansiriya School in 1940, returning it to its original condition after unplanned markets and encroachments were removed to become an Islamic museum.  

The second maintenance was carried out in 1973 and continued until the last maintenance works on Baghdad Project as the Capital of Arab Culture.

Tour guide Faliha Hassan said that the Al-Mustansiriya School was built on an area of ​​4836 square meters overlooking the shore of the Tigris River next to the Caliphate Palace.

“The Al-Mustansiriya School has a library that includes an organized group of knowledge sources. The Caliph brought 450 thousand books and 80 thousand volumes from different parts of the world to this library,” Hassan explained.   

“The Caliph also appointed librarians for the library that has a stationery store, and it is available to everyone to do researches, or to view or borrow books,” Hassan clarified.

Hassan also emphasized that the Al-Mustansiriya School is considered the oldest Islamic university as students came from different cities in Iraq and Islamic countries such as Lebanon and the Levant.

Hassan mentioned that students who study in the Al-Mustansiriya School are the elite, and the duration of study was 10 years.

Hassan elaborated that the Al-Mustansiriya School used to teach different sciences such as the Qur’an sciences, the Prophet’s Sunnah, schools of Islamic jurisprudence, grammar, Islamic inheritance jurisprudence, animal benefits, philosophy, mathematics, pharmacy, medicine and health science.

Hassan added that graduates of the Al-Mustansiriya School used to be appointed in state offices.