Universities in the Islamic World VS Universities in the Western World
History shows slavery helped build many US and UK universities. Eg. Yale, Harvard, Georgetown, Columbia, Princeton, Oxford, Cambridge, Bristol, Glasgow.
Professor Craig Steven Wilder from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in his book, Ebony and Ivy, tells us fascinating accounts of the founding of major American universities, all rooted in the barbaric slave trade.
In the UK, the University of Bristol estimates about 85% of the wealth used to found it depended on the labor of slaves. Glasgow University gained up to 200 million pounds ($260 million) from slavery. The University of Cambridge gained “significant benefits” from the transatlantic slave trade. The research in 2019 highlighted the considerable investments made by Cambridge colleges in companies heavily involved in slave trading. The legacy of slavery for hundreds of years also has helped Oxford University maintained its position as one of world’s richest and most prestigious academic institutions.
The above facts remind us of Theft of History by Jack Goody where he argues that the west has “stolen history” from the rest of the world. Therefore, we must be proud of our own tradition. Unlike the universities in the western world, al Qarawiyyin University, the first university in the world was founded by a Muslim woman, Fatimah al-Fihri and financed through Waqf proceeds not SLAVE TRADING.
Further reading https://www.apmreports.org/epi…/2017/09/04/shackled-legacy
