Islamic knowledge (ʽilm) and its transmission refer to long-standing traditions that have changed over time within and between different strands of Islamic thinking. Some examples of these strands of Islamic thinking are Sufis with a focus on spiritual practice often combined with an emphasis on textual knowledge. Further, there are Islamic scholars who stress the importance of fiqh (jurisprudence), ḥadīth (traditions of the prophet), or philosophy. Finally, more recently, there are Salafīoriented scholars with their neglect of tradition (taqlīd) and attempted return to the early Islamic period (salaf aṣ-ṣāliḥ) while frequently giving substantial weight to the Ḥanbalī madhhab (school of law). These strands have evolved into translocal networks from an early point in history, fostered through teacher–student relations that developed within institutions of knowledge transmission: mosques, fortifications including mosques and schools, Qur’ānic schools, colleges teaching various disciplines of Islamic knowledge, Sufi lodges (zāwiya) often including schools as well, or more recently, Islamic institutes or Islamic universities.

Various doctrines and institutions have developed different conceptions of Islamic knowledge and sometimes even different hierarchies between the disciplines for its transmission. Furthermore, periods of exclusive initiation into knowledge alternate throughout Islamic history with periods of popular dissemination of Islamic knowledge to vast parts of the Muslim populace, giving rise to transformations concerning the performance of authority, modes of knowledge transmissions, and finally, the composition of the textual repertoire building the corpus of knowledge. Nevertheless, no matter how much these conceptions may vary, to attach great importance on seeking and transmitting religious knowledge is one of the shared duties and a central element of all Islamic strands of doctrine and practice. This has led to the development of various kinds of institutions dedicated to religious knowledge transmission. The oldest institution in this context might be the mosque.

Three outstanding Medieval institutions of higher education can be found in Africa that enfolded a transregional scholarly influence: al-Qarawiyyīn (founded 859) in Fez (Morocco), al-Azhar (founded 988) in Cairo (Egypt), and az-Zaitūna (built around 856 as a mosque, which during the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries expanded to an institution for higher education) in Tunis (Tunisia).