Founded during the reign of Charles I of Spain, it was originally a seminary operated by Catholic monks of the Dominican Order. Later, the institution received a university charter by Pope Paul III’s papal bull.
Cambridge is the second-oldest university in the English-speaking world and the world’s fourth-oldest surviving university.
There is no clear date of foundation, but teaching existed at Oxford in some form in 1096 and developed rapidly from 1167, when Henry II banned English students from attending the University of Paris.
Over the centuries, the University of Al-Karaouine became a key spiritual and educational center in the Muslim world.
Bukhoro became one of the leading centers of learning, culture, and art in the Muslim world, its magnificence rivaling contemporaneous cultural centers such as Baghdad, Cairo, and Cordoba.
Though the exact date and location of the world’s first formal educational institution are likely lost to time, the first schools likely popped up in several places in the 2nd, 3rd, and perhaps 4th Millennia B.C.E., including Egypt, Mesopotamia, India, and China.
