Fatima al-Fihri

800 – 880

Fatima al-Fihri was a Muslim woman of North African origin who founded the University of Al-Qarawiyyeen in Fez, Morocco in 859 CE — widely recognized as the world's oldest continuously operating university. Born to a wealthy merchant family from Kairouan (modern Tunisia), she used her inheritance to establish the mosque and university complex that would become a center of Islamic and African scholarship.