Читать книгу A Dictionary of Islam. Being a cyclopedia of the doctrines, rites, ceremonies, and customs, together with the technical and theological terms, of the Muhammadan religion онлайн

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Students in mosques are generally supported by the people of the parish, (each mosque having its section or parish), who can be called upon for food for all the inmates of a mosque every morning and evening. Not unfrequently mosques are endowed with land, or rents of shops and houses, for the payment of professors. Mr. Lane speaks of a mosque in Cairo, which had an endowment for the support of three hundred blind students. The great mosque al-Azhar, in Cairo, is the largest and most influential seat of learning in Islām. In 1875, when the present writer visited it, it had as many as 5,000 students gathered from all parts of the Muḥammadan world.

In India almost every mosque of importance has its class of students of divinity, but they are not established for the purposes of general education, but for the training of students of divinity who will in time become the Imāms of mosques. Some of the Maulawīs are men held in great reputation as Arabic scholars, but they are, as a rule, very deficient in general knowledge and information. Whether we look to India, or Persia, or Egypt, or Turkey, the attitude of Muḥammadanism is undoubtedly one in direct antagonism to the spread of secular education.