Popular learning in Arab civilisation

In the chapter "The popular movement in Arab civilisation", Shakib Arslan presents the spread of education among ordinary people after it had been confined to a particular class. This is a description in the author's own terms, based on a general history rather than on a detailed study of each school. ¹

He mentions that the schools in Basra, Kufa, Baghdad, Cairo, and Cordoba were open to students from different classes. He mentions that some caliphs paid stipends to poor students, that the people of the protected covenant (dhimmis) administered some schools, and that many students of Cordoba were Christians. ¹

He holds that the movement rested on a measure of tolerance in the time of the Umayyads and the early Abbasids. He describes al-Ma'mun's translation of the books of Ptolemy and the astronomical sciences that followed it. ¹

A further source is needed: the reports of endowments, of teachers who were not Muslims, and of the Christian students of Cordoba need original sources.