University of al-Qarawiyyin

The white minaret of the Qarawiyyin Mosque rises over a carved courtyard pavilion in the old medina of Fez, Morocco. The mosque was completed in 859, and tradition credits its founding to Fatima al-Fihri, a merchant's daughter. It opens this gallery because Guinness World Records and UNESCO both call it the oldest continuously operating degree-granting institution in the world. The claim depends on definitions: for most of its history it was a mosque school, and Morocco brought it into the national state university system only in 1963.