"When one thinks of medieval Muslim institutions of learning,

one is apt to be visited by images of bearded sages, impeccably turbaned, pouring over tattered tomes into the wee hours of the morning, pondering the subtleties of the latest intellectual fad, or attacking the doctrines of their opponents with reed pens emboldened by scripture and dipped in lethal logic. This is only natural, given that the achievements of the Ghazalis, Ibn Taymiyahs, Ibn Rushds and countless others are what draw us to the subject of Muslim education to begin with. Yet, to see the products of this system only in their mature form is to miss an important aspect of what these premodern Muslim institutions were really up against and what, therefore, they should be credited with having achieved. For, while it may be difficult to imagine a staunch Ibn Taymiyah failing to carry out a homework assignment, or a calm and sensitive al-Ghazali engaged in a clandestine spit-ball fight during hadith dictation, or a punctilious Ibn Rushd playing hooky for days on end, virtually all of those who emerged as the great scholars of Islam began their careers as young boys in privately endowed elementary scholars. [1] And in this capacity, they were prone to all the frivolity and rambunctiousness normally associated with youth. If their teachers and their childhood alma maters were to succeed in their educational mission, they would have to develop clear and concrete policies to deal with disciplinary and countless other challenges. [2]

-Sherman Jackson, "Duty and Discipline in a Medieval Muslim Elementary School: Ibn Hajar al-Haytamî's Taqrîr al-Maqâl," Studies in Muslim Education in Honor of Professor George Makdisi ed. D. Stewart, S. Toorawa and J. Lowry (Great Britain: E.J.W. Gibb Memorial Trust, 2004), 18.