The Library

1. Do you know where the oldest university still running was built? Not Europe.
2. Fez, Morocco. Al-Qarawiyyin, founded in the year eight fifty-nine, two centuries before Oxford.
3. It was founded by a woman, Fatima al-Fihri, with money she inherited. She fasted until it was finished.
4. Its library still holds a ninth-century Quran on camel skin. A woman architect restored it in twenty sixteen.
5. Why do you think nobody taught you her name?

04). Fez, a courtyard of green tiles, arches and a fountain; a library of manuscripts. A woman in a long robe (Fatima al-Fihri) walks the arcade; a chest of coins opens on the tiles and the arches rise stone by stone around her; a date-stone stamps 859. Inside, a ninth-century Quran on a lectern. Then a modern woman architect with a scroll and a hard hat.