The University of Damascus

 

 Once famous for its courses of religion, law,, and medicine, Damascus is the twentieth century center of Syria's intellectual life.

Damascus with its madrasas and its famous school of medicine (al-Bimāristān an-Nūri) had been a well-known university center as far back as the 15th century. At the beginning of the first World War, the Ottoman government set up a more modern type of higher education with schools of medicine and law. The national university was established in Damascus in 1924. To this was latter added a section in Aleppo which subsequently became a university in its own right.

Jacques Ghislain de Maussion de Favières. Damascus, Baghdad: Capitals and lands of the caliphs. Translation to English by Edward J. Banks. Librairie orientale (Dar el-Mashreq), Beirut, Lebanon. 1972.