Fatima al-Fihriya (800–880)
Born 800 CE, died 880 CE.
Fatima bint Muhammad al-Fihriya al-Qurashiyya (Arabic: فاطمة بنت محمد الفهرية القرشية), known in shorter form as Fatima al-Fihriya or Fatima al-Fihri, was an Arab woman who is credited with founding the al-Qarawiyyin Mosque in 857–859 CE in Fez, Morocco. She is also known as Umm al-Banīn ("Mother of the Children"). Al-Fihriya died around 880 CE. The al-Qarawiyyin Mosque subsequently developed into a teaching institution, which became the modern University of al-Qarawiyyin in 1963. Her story is told by Ibn Abi Zar' (d. between 1310 and 1320) in The Garden of Pages (Rawd al-Qirtas) as founder of the mosque. Since she was first mentioned many centuries after her death, her story has been hard to substantiate and some modern historians doubt her existence.
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