859 – University of Al-Karaouine, Fes, Morocco, originally was a mosque founded in 859 by Fatima al-Fihri, a Muslim woman. It developed into one of the leading universities for natural sciences. This university is considered the oldest continuously-operating degree-granting university in the world by the Guinness Book of World Records.

972 – Al-Azhar University, Cairo, Egypt, is the world’s second oldest surviving degree-granting institute.

Nizamiyya: This series of universities was established by Khwaja Nizam al-Mulk in the eleventh century in what is now present-day Iran. The most celebrated of all the Nizamiyya schools is Al-Nizamiyya of Baghdad, established in 1065 in Dhu’l Qa’da and that remains operational in Isfahan.

1088 – University of Bologna, Italy, was the first higher-learning institute established in the ‘West’ in 1088.
1096 – University of Paris, France.
1096 – University of Oxford, England.
1150 – University of Montpelier, France.
1209 – University of Cambridge, England.