MAKTABS – ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS

In the Ottoman Empire, education was not a task of the state until the 19th century. Until this time, institutions which offered education, as well as other public buildings and public goods, were commissioned and maintained by endowments (waqfs) of individuals, state notables, merchants, craftsmen and other citizens. The central spot in cities and towns were mosques next to which benefactors, depending on the magnitude of their waqf, also commissioned accessory buildings for public good, which almost always included the maktab.

The number of preserved vakufnamas (deeds of endowment) in Bosnia and Herzegovina which contain data on charity activity for the benefit of maktabs is not small; however, they only testify of part of waqfs over the centuries-long Ottoman period.

In almost all the vakufnamas which pertain to building maktabs, regardless of the social status of the benefactor, the purpose of this good deed is described as providing schooling to poor children and orphans (yetimler, yetâma, fukarâ). This formula suits the purpose of the waqf very well, and it was certainly one of the reasons why benefactors included it in vakufnamas. It expresses mercy to the children who could not afford private education. Indeed, there were many children who attended private maktabs or studied with private teachers. Actually, besides the maktabs which were founded and maintained from waqf resources, wealthy individuals form the circles of learned people opened private maktabs to teach youth in them, and responded to invitations by well-off families to privately instruct their children. On the other hand, public, waqf-funded maktabs were available to everybody. They were attended by most children, and the cited provision of vakufnamas did not allow the environment to neglect poor children and orphans. Waqf-funded maktabs made it possible for every child to acquire basic religious knowledge.

Despite all the significant findings obtained so far, there are still many open questions about education in the Ottoman period, and one of them pertains to the curricula in maktabs. Vakufnamas where the benefactors defined what children should be taught in their maktabs list: Qurʼan-Karim and edeb upbringing). In all Muslim societies, reading the Qur'an is a fundamental subject in the elementary schools, since children should learn how to read the Book. Edeb is a term which, in the context of knowledge and education, covers the basics of Islamic law (edebi-şerî'at), full performance of religious duties (edebi-hizmet) and knowledge of what the man as a creation of God needs for sake of the Maker. Thus, edeb encompasses all other parts of knowledge which should be taught to children to make them capable of living in the Muslim society.

Benefactors who commissioned maktabs almost regularly assigned the role of a teacher (mualim) to a person who performed the tasks of imam in the mosque where the maktab was opened. It shows that the teacher was supposed to have the same education as the imam, who was the first and the most responsible officer in the waqf since he led believers in prayers in the mosque. In general, the position of a teacher in the elementary school required madrasa education.

Within such broadly prescribed tasks (Qurʼan-Karim and edeb), the curriculum was carried out by the teacher according to his knowledge and abilities. Some maktabs offered education which prepared young people for the continued schooling in madrasas and were well-known by it. Gazi Husrev-beg maktab in Sarajevo was an example of such schools. It can be assumed that such maktabs included the one in the neighborhood of Čokadži hadži Sulejman (Jedileri) in the 18th century, when the job of a teacher was held by hafiz Mahmud-effendi who was “better than other contemporaries in all the areas of knowledge”, who “solved any problem in the science that others could not solve” and who “wrote some booklets in mathematics“. At the same time, after his service as a mualim (teacher) in one of Sarajevo maktabs, Mehmed-effendi Čajničanin became a lecturer in a madrasa and then Sarajevo mufti. These examples reveal that renowned religious academics taught in some maktabs. The level of teaching in the maktab was largely determined by the teacher himself. As a rule, the teacher was responsible before parents and citizens in general, particularly before the manager of the waqf, who could suspend a teacher from duty if it turned out that the latter did not fulfill expectations defined in the vakufnama.

From the early Ottoman period it was a custom that a school for given needs was opened in a separate building which was not part of the complex of a mosque. Vakufnama of hadži Osman-aga, a son of Hadži Muharem, reveals that in 1786 this benefactor opened such a school in Sarajevo, at Baščaršija. It was attended by boys who were apprentices in downtown shops. Since they could not attend the school in their neighborhood together with other pupils because of their job, the school in the downtown allowed them to acquire elementary education in a regular way. This is how the benefactor hadži Osman defined characteristics which a teacher in this school was supposed to have: “When the time comes to appoint the teacher, during my life or after my death, let a person be found who is educated and responsible in terms of religious regulations, a person who respects sources of the religion. And the teacher should not be succeeded by his descendants; rather, out of people who applied, the person who is able to teach should be chosen in the presence and with participation of mutevelija (waqf manager).”

Maktabs were funded by the resources of the waqf they belonged to. The vakufnama determined teachers' salary; even when the job was assigned to the person who was the imam of the mosque, salary for each job was determined. Since, over time, waqfs' resources decreased or they were threatened, their survival often depended on donating funds by annexing smaller waqfs which were founded by citizens. It reflects a great role of citizens – benefactors in keeping alive waqf institutions in general, as well as maktabs. It can be well illustrated on the example of renewing Sarajevo after the destructive attack of Austrian army led by Eugene of Savoy. According to an official document drafted in 1706, 32 teachers in Sarajevo were then left without any income because maktabs they used to work for had been destroyed. Vakufnamas of the time are evidence of citizens' charitable activities. Mosques were the first to be renewed and they were followed by maktabs, primarily in the neighborhood where the benefactor lived. According to vakufnamas, both from Bosnia and Herzegovina and from other parts of the Ottoman Empire, it was a widespread custom to give charity first to one's own neighborhood. If there was no need for it, benefactors allocated their resources where they were necessary. With respect to maktabs, it should be noted that citizens contributed to the organization of educational opportunities in their environment – with their waqfs they supported schools for which they estimated that the waqf would allow or improve their work.

One of the widest spread forms of charitable activity for the benefit of maktabs was allocating the waqf revenues, entirely or partly, for teachers' salaries. This good deed ensured income for teachers, which was particularly important at the time when the salary they received from the primary waqf lost value due to changed economic circumstances. Some benefactors assigned the teacher with a task in their waqf, typically the job of manager, which ensured an additional income for him.

Some benefactors provided that part of the waqf resources should be donated to children who attended the maktab, e.g. in the form of winter clothes. Care for the pupils was most often shown by giving free bread in a given period of the year, particularly during the Ramadan. There are also examples of allocating waqf resources for acquisition of heating fuel and mats for maktabs.

Benefactors' care for educational life in the environment they lived in was related to their belief that literacy itself is part of Islamic faith. Therefore, a believer is bound to provide conditions for children to acquire knowledge which prepared them for life in faith and learn moral values which were supposed to shape their personality. Indeed, the purpose of education is for a community to have responsible citizens.

Source:

• Çam, Mevlit & Rahman Ademi (Ed.): Bosna-Hersek Vakfiyeleri 1-4. Vakıflar Genel Müdürlüğü Yayınları, Ankara, 2016.

Reference:

• Filan, Kerima, “Prosvjetni život u Sarajevu osmanskog doba: dobrotvorno djelovanja građana u 18. i 19. stoljeću u korist mektebaˮ, Historijski pogledi 7 (2022): 7-38.