Ottoman Education System: Mekteb, Madrasa and Enderun

The Ottoman education system was a layered structure stretching from the sıbyan mektebs, where children received their first lessons, to the madrasas that trained scholars and the Enderun that trained administrators. According to the TDV Encyclopedia of Islam, from the late eighteenth century onward Western-style schools such as engineering schools, rüşdiyes, idadis and the Darülfünun were added to this education system.

Quick Summary

Elementary education began in the sıbyan mektebs, usually between the ages of four and six.
Orhan Gazi founded the first madrasa in İznik in 1331.
The Sahn-ı Seman of Mehmed II and the Süleymaniye madrasas of Suleiman the Magnificent were the peak of education.
The Enderun prepared talented youths recruited through the devshirme for state service.
The Imperial Naval Engineering School opened in 1775, and the Darülfünun-ı Şahane in 1900.
The madrasas were closed in 1924 with the Law on the Unification of Education.

The levels of education
Sıbyan mektebs
Madrasas
The Enderun
Western-style schools
Compulsory education
The language of instruction
Frequently asked questions

How Was the Ottoman Education System Structured?

Education began in the sıbyan mektebs opened at the neighborhood level. Some of the children who learned reading, writing and basic religious knowledge there went on to the madrasa. The madrasa was the institution that trained müderrises, kadıs and muftis for the Ottoman learned hierarchy (ilmiye). The Enderun section of the palace, meanwhile, was a separate school that trained administrators and commanders for the state.

Most of the mektebs and madrasas that formed the backbone of this education system survived on waqf revenues. The upkeep of the buildings, the salaries of the teachers and the needs of the students were covered from the revenues specified in the endowment deeds. We explained how this order worked in our article on the waqf system. You can also watch the video below on the subject.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VoilkFCcu6Q

Sıbyan Mektebs: Elementary Education

The Âmin Alayı and Starting School

The sıbyan mekteb was the first step of the education system. According to the TDV Encyclopedia of Islam, the age for starting at the sıbyan mektebs was between four and six. In Anatolia children were mostly sent to school at the age of four. In Istanbul they started at five or six.

For children starting school, ceremonies called the âmin alayı, the bed’-i besmele cemiyeti or the mektep cemiyeti were held. Children of school age were collected from their homes and returned to the school in a crowded procession. Hymns were sung and prayers were said in the courtyard.

What Was Taught in the Mekteb?

On the eve of the Tanzimat, the sıbyan mektebs taught the Qur’an, writing, basic religious knowledge (ilmihal) and arithmetic, starting with the alphabet primer. History and geography were later added to the program. According to the encyclopedia, in 1846 these four-year schools also taught tajwid, Turkish and treatises on ethics. Students were also taught the thuluth and naskh scripts.

Who Were the Mekteb Teachers?

The teachers of the sıbyan mektebs were usually madrasa graduates. Most of them also served as imams or muezzins in mosques and mescids. In schools for girls, lessons were given by elderly women who knew the Qur’an and had read the basic treatises. According to the encyclopedia, in 1868 a teacher-training school for sıbyan teachers (darülmuallimin-i sıbyan) was opened in Istanbul.

Madrasas: Higher Education in the Ottoman Empire

From İznik to the Süleymaniye

At the top of the education system stood the madrasa. According to the encyclopedia, the first madrasa of the Ottoman beylik was the İznik Madrasa, founded by Orhan Gazi in 1331. The first müderris of this madrasa, also known as the İznik Orhaniye, was Davud-i Kayseri, a scholar trained in Egypt. We discussed this period in our article on the expansion of the beylik under Orhan Gazi.

From the founding of the state until 1451, eighty-four madrasas were built. Thirty-seven of them were founded in the reign of Murad II. Fifty-three were in Anatolia, twenty-nine in Rumelia and two in Jerusalem.

The Sahn-ı Seman, completed in 1470 within the Fatih Complex, consisted of eight madrasas. Behind them stood eight Tetimme madrasas. A century later, in the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent, the Süleymaniye Complex was built (1550–1557). The complex contained four madrasas, a medical madrasa, a hospital and a school of hadith (darülhadis).

Grades and Courses in Ottoman Madrasas

Madrasas were ranked as “twenties,” “thirties,” “forties,” “fifties” and “sixties” according to the daily wage, in akçe, paid to the müderris. Names such as Hariç, Dahil, Sahn and Süleymaniye were also part of this ranking. According to the encyclopedia, the Süleymaniye represented the highest point reached in education.

Some of the courses were sciences such as arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and philosophy (hikmet). Rhetoric, logic, theology (kalam) and Arabic grammar were counted as the instrumental sciences. According to the encyclopedia, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries subjects such as mathematics, engineering and medicine were also on the program. Students who successfully completed their education were granted an icazet (license).

In the Ottoman education system, what mattered was not which madrasa a student attended but which teacher he studied with. That is why the icazetnames placed special emphasis on the chain of teachers. Senior students who had reached the level of receiving an icazet were called danişmend. The madrasa rooms called hücre were usually given to these students.

When Were the Madrasas Closed?

During the years of the Second Constitutional Era, efforts to reform the madrasas became serious. Under the Şeyhülislams Musa Kâzım and Mustafa Hayri Efendi, the Commission for the Reform of Madrasas (Islah-ı Medaris Komisyonu) was established. According to the encyclopedia, with the Law on the Unification of Education (Tevhid-i Tedrisat) of 3 March 1924, the madrasas were transferred to the Ministry of Education. Thirteen days after the law was published, all madrasas were closed.

The Enderun: The Palace School

According to the TDV Encyclopedia of Islam, from the mid-fifteenth century onward the Enderun was the most important official institution of the education system outside the madrasa. This school, where mainly civil and military administrators were trained, was founded to supply manpower to the central and provincial Ottoman bureaucracy. According to the encyclopedia, it was formed in the Edirne Palace in the time of Murad II and acquired its real organization in the reign of Mehmed II.

Because the state ruled peoples of different religions, languages and cultures, this school was based on culture and discipline rather than blood ties. Children recruited through the devshirme first learned Turkish and Islamic manners while living with Turkish families. They were then trained as acemi oğlanları (novice boys) in the Edirne, Galatasaray and İbrahim Pasha palaces. The talented ones were admitted to the Enderun. The details of this order can be found in our article on the devshirme system.

Education at the Enderun was based on seven levels: the Great and Small Chambers, the Falconers’ and Campaign wards, the Larder and Treasury chambers, and the Privy Chamber (Has Oda). In the first chambers, youths of about fifteen took lessons in Islamic culture, Turkish, Arabic and Persian. They also trained in wrestling, running, jumping and archery. Those who could not complete their education were distributed to military units in a procedure called çıkma.

How Were Western-Style Schools Opened?

The Engineering Schools

According to the encyclopedia, the army’s technical weakness in the Russian war that began in 1768 played a major role in the opening of the first school in the modern sense. The need for trained personnel made a naval engineering school inevitable. The school’s opening date is usually given as 1773. According to French archival documents, however, the Imperial Naval Engineering School (Mühendishane-i Bahri-i Hümayun) opened on 29 April 1775, in the reign of Abdülhamid I.

Colored 19th-century print of Ottoman and Russian soldiers clashing, from the wars that reshaped the Ottoman education system

We described the general course of these wars in our article on the Ottoman-Russian wars. The second school was the Imperial Land Engineering School (Mühendishane-i Berri-i Hümayun). According to the encyclopedia, it was opened in Hasköy in 1795 as one of the most important institutions of Selim III’s Nizam-ı Cedid reforms. It took as its models the military and engineering academies of France and Vienna.

We discussed the political background of these innovations in our article on the sultans and reform movements.

Rüşdiyes, İdadis and the Mekteb-i Sultani

The movements that prepared the ground for the opening of the rüşdiyes began toward the end of the reign of Mahmud II. According to the encyclopedia, the Council of Public Works (Meclis-i Umur-ı Nafia), established in 1838, proposed opening secondary institutions above the sıbyan mektebs. The first rüşdiye opened in Istanbul in 1847. By the end of the Tanzimat, eight of the twenty-five rüşdiyes in Istanbul were for girls.

The idadis, equivalent to high schools, were opened to prepare students for the military and civil higher schools. Preparations for the first civilian idadi began in the 1873–1874 school year. We described how these schools were named in our article on the name given to high-school-level schools.

The Galatasaray Mekteb-i Sultanisi, by contrast, was a secondary school opened in 1868 on the model of the French education system. According to the encyclopedia, the French wanted instruction to be in French. Ottoman statesmen insisted on Turkish, and in the end the proposal was accepted on condition that some subjects be taught in Turkish.

Teacher-Training Schools and the Darülfünun

To train teachers for the rüşdiyes, the Darülmuallimin opened on 16 March 1848 in the Fatih district of Istanbul. The first director of this three-year school was Ahmed Cevdet Pasha. To train women teachers, the Darülmuallimat was founded in 1870.

The idea of establishing an institution of higher education separate from the madrasa arose in the mid-nineteenth century. According to the encyclopedia, in 1863 Grand Vizier Fuad Pasha began public lectures in the completed rooms of the building. The Darülfünun-ı Osmani opened with a grand ceremony on 20 February 1870.

The Darülfünun-ı Şahane, which forms the basis of today’s Turkish university, opened on 31 August 1900. The opening was timed to coincide with the 25th anniversary of the accession of Abdülhamid II. The institution began teaching with faculties of literature, science and theology.

Was Education Compulsory in the Ottoman Empire?

In 1824 Mahmud II issued an imperial decree concerning elementary education. According to the encyclopedia, the decree required above all the teaching of essential religious knowledge. Teachers were to have the children read the Qur’an and teach them tajwid and ilmihal according to their aptitude.

In the Tanzimat period the rules of the education system became stricter. According to the encyclopedia, an instruction published in 1846 announced that those who did not send their children to school after the age of six would be punished. A notice in 1868 also obliged everyone to send their six-year-old children to school. The General Education Regulation (Maarif-i Umumiyye Nizamnamesi) of 1869 set the age of compulsory attendance at seven for boys and six for girls.

Under Abdülhamid II, ibtidai (primary) schools were opened. In official language the term sıbyan mektebi was replaced by mekatib-i ibtidaiyye. Even so, the places in mosques where children were taught the Qur’an continued to be called sıbyan mektebi among the people.

What Was the Language of Instruction?

There was no single language in the Ottoman education system; the type of institution was decisive. In the madrasas, Arabic morphology and syntax were among the basic instrumental sciences. At the Enderun, Turkish, Arabic and Persian were taught. According to the encyclopedia, in 1846 the program of the sıbyan mektebs also included Turkish.

In the nineteenth century the importance of Western languages grew. The regulations of the Galatasaray Mekteb-i Sultanisi were published in Turkish, French, Greek and Armenian. This school aimed to educate the children of subjects of different religions together.

Frequently Asked Questions

What was the first Ottoman madrasa?

According to the TDV Encyclopedia of Islam, it was the İznik Madrasa founded by Orhan Gazi in 1331. Its first müderris was Davud-i Kayseri.

At what age did children start the sıbyan mekteb?

They usually started between the ages of four and six. Four was common in Anatolia, and five or six in Istanbul.

Who studied at the Enderun?

Talented youths recruited through the devshirme who stood out among the novice boys studied there.

What was the first modern school in the Ottoman education system?

It was the Imperial Naval Engineering School. According to the TDV Encyclopedia of Islam, French archival documents give its opening date as 29 April 1775.

When did the Darülfünun open?

The Darülfünun-ı Osmani opened in 1870, and the Darülfünun-ı Şahane, the basis of today’s university, in 1900.

When were the madrasas closed?

The Law on the Unification of Education was enacted on 3 March 1924; the madrasas were closed thirteen days later.

Conclusion

The Ottoman education system was a deep-rooted order stretching from the sıbyan mekteb to the madrasa and the Enderun, sustained largely by waqfs. From the late eighteenth century onward, military needs gave birth to the engineering schools. With the Tanzimat came the rüşdiyes, idadis, teacher-training schools and the Darülfünun. The two orders lived side by side for a time; with the closure of the madrasas in 1924, education was gathered under a single roof.