How to Build Something That Lasts 1,200 Years
Fatima al-Fihri created the world's first university with inheritance money.
859 CE. Fez, Morocco.
Fatima al-Fihri stares at her father's fortune. Mohammed al-Fihri, a successful merchant who migrated from Tunisia, just died. The inheritance is enough to secure Fatima's future for life. Buy property. Acquire jewelry. Live comfortably.
Most wealthy women would take the safe path.
Fatima looks at her community of Kairouan immigrants settling in Fez and sees something else: people who need a place to worship, to learn, to preserve their knowledge. A growing population with no permanent institution to serve them.
She makes a decision that will seem insane to everyone around her.
She's going to use her entire inheritance to build something that will outlast them.
She has no formal construction experience, no expertise in building institutions design. But she's going to oversee every detail personally.
For two years, from 857 to 859, she builds the main buildings of Al-Qarawiyyin Mosque. While she fasts daily throughout the entire construction process, Fatima manages architects, negotiates with suppliers, buys additional land to expand the project.
Her vision is to create something permanent. Something that will serve her community for generations.
The stakes couldn't be higher.
She's either building lasting legacy or wasting a family fortune.
Institutions die by their own design.
December 2018. Sears Holdings files for bankruptcy after 132 years in business.
March 2020. The coronavirus pandemic kills Hertz, JCPenney, and Brooks Brothers, companies that had survived the Great Depression, two world wars, and multiple recessions.
Today, the average lifespan of a Fortune 500 company has collapsed from 61 years in 1958 to just 16 years. Businesses are dying faster than ever, and it's getting worse.
And it’s due to their own design.
They build for quarters, instead of centuries. They optimize for immediate returns instead of longevity. Their foundations crumble. Knowledge walks out the door with departing employees. Customer relationships evaporate when competitors offer better deals. Succession destroys continuity.
Most executives think this is just Joseph Schumpeter’s "creative destruction". The natural order of business evolution, but they're wrong.
The Institution That Refused to Die
It's 1258 CE. The Mongols just obliterated Baghdad, the intellectual capital of the Islamic world. Libraries burned. Universities collapsed. Centuries of accumulated knowledge turned to ash. But 1,500 miles west in Fez, Morocco, the scholars at Al-Qarawiyyin kept teaching. Students kept learning.
Here’s the chaos they survived:
Political Upheaval:
The Almohads conquered Fez after a long siege in 1145–1146. Historical sources report a story claiming that the inhabitants of Fez, fearful that the "puritan" Almohads would resent the lavish decoration of the mosque, covered the beautiful Almoravid decorations with plain plaster.
Economic Disruption:
Multiple dynasties rose and fell. Idrisids, Almoravids, Almohads, Marinids, Saadians. Each brought different economic priorities. Al-Qarawiyyin developed funding models that transcended individual rulers.
Colonial Occupation:
In 1912, Morocco became a French protectorate. The French implemented changes from 1914-1947, but the institution bent the knee while maintaining its essential functions.
Technological Revolution:
From handwritten manuscripts to printing presses to digital libraries. The library recently underwent refurbishment, pioneered by female architect Aziza Chaouni, who worked to renovate the library and give it a face-lift.
Through twelve centuries of chaos, Al-Qarawiyyin kept operating. Kept educating. Kept preserving knowledge.
How did they pull this off?
Engineering Institutional Immortality
I've analyzed Al-Qarawiyyin's operational patterns across 1,200 years, and three principles emerge that explain their longevity. These are engineering specifications for building organizations that outlast their founders.
Principle 1: Adaptive Core Preservation
Al-Qarawiyyin mastered the art of changing everything except their core mission: preserve and transmit knowledge.
When people wanted to learn new ideas, they added new subjects. When political pressures mounted, they emphasized different aspects of their curriculum. When economic conditions shifted, they diversified their funding sources.
Modern businesses make the opposite mistake.
They change their mission every quarter while preserving outdated operational methods.
Al-Qarawiyyin focuses on preserving your core purpose, evolve everything else.
Principle 2: Knowledge Preservation Systems
Al-Qarawiyyin emphasized preserving knowledge by collecting books, teaching methodologies, institutional practices, and cultural knowledge. They created systems that captured expertise regardless of who possessed it.
Think about your organization:
What happens when your most experienced employee quits? How much knowledge walks out the door with departing staff?
Al-Qarawiyyin solved this problem 1,000 years before modern knowledge management existed.
Principle 3: Stakeholder Integration Architecture
Al-Qarawiyyin became essential infrastructure for their entire ecosystem.
Students got world-class education
Scholars got access to manuscripts and intellectual networks
Local community got religious and cultural services
Political leaders got legitimacy through association with prestigious institution
Economic ecosystem benefited from influx of international students and visitors
They were integrated in their community. When any group tried to eliminate Al-Qarawiyyin, other stakeholders defended it.
Modern companies often focus on shareholder value while ignoring stakeholder integration. Al-Qarawiyyin shows how serving multiple constituencies creates resilience that compounds over centuries.
The Immortality Question
Organizational immortality is achievable through design.
The framework exists. The precedent demonstrates its effectiveness. The question is whether modern leaders have the vision to implement these principles.
Most don't.
They're trapped in quarterly thinking, optimizing for immediate returns while their foundations erode. They confuse activity with progress, mistake short-term profits for long-term value creation.
Some leaders understand that building institutions creates competitive advantages that compound across decades. They recognize that knowledge preservation, stakeholder integration, and governance flexibility generate returns that dwarf quarterly earnings optimization.
Al-Qarawiyyin can be characterized as a reflection of the people of Fez. Its origins as a public endowment, and its location at the very heart of the old city illustrate how integrated it is in the culture of Fez.
Becoming essential infrastructure transforms organizations from market participants into market makers. Al-Qarawiyyin shaped North African intellectual civilization for centuries.
Al-Qarawiyyin shows us what's possible when leaders choose legacy over immediate gratification. Their 1,200-year track record speaks for itself.
The frameworks are proven. The principles are replicable. The only question is whether you're building an organization or building an institution.
The decision will determine whether your company celebrates its centennial or becomes another casualty of institutional fragility.
After 1,200 years, Al-Qarawiyyin is still teaching this lesson:
When you build for the ages, the ages notice.