The story Fes tells about itself begins in 859, when a woman named Fatima al-Fihri — daughter of a wealthy merchant from Kairouan — used her inheritance to found what would become both a mosque and the oldest continually operating university on the planet. UNESCO and the Guinness World Records both recognise al-Qarawiyyin in those terms. It is older than Bologna (founded 1088) by more than two centuries.

The mosque itself, occupying a substantial block of Fes el-Bali around Place Seffarine, remains closed to non-Muslim visitors — its prayer hall has been in continuous Muslim use since 857. What changed in 2016 is that the historic library, restored under the direction of Moroccan-Canadian architect Aziza Chaouni, reopened to the public. The collection holds manuscripts up to twelve centuries old.

Students taught here over the centuries include the historian Ibn Khaldun, the philosopher Ibn Rushd, and the cartographer al-Idrisi. For non-Muslim travellers, the experience is circumambulation rather than entry: glimpses of the courtyard through Bab al-Ward and Bab Boutouil, then the library on Place Seffarine for the inside view.