This paper examines the process of founding a western institution, namely a university, in an environment belonging to a different type of civilization. The host of this western institution of learning belonged to another civilization; actually, this civilization possessed deeply entrenched academic traditions and institutions of its own that made the transfer process much more than a simple process of appropriation. This was an Islamic civilization and the initiators of this modern institution of learning were the Ottoman administrators and intellectuals; a fact that left its mark as the distinctive features of this process.

The Ottoman administrators and intellectuals who formed the leadership of the Islamic world also aimed at the formation of a modern Ottoman culture built on a harmonious synthesis between the Islamic and Western cultures. Their keenness to create their own version of modernization was very clear from the beginning where they coined a new word for the institution they were about to establish. For the modern institution of higher education known in the West as a university, they coined the term darülfünun, i.e. ‘house of sciences’. As, from the very beginning, they had set about founding this new institution on their own resources, it was never a simple or straightforward process.

The reform measures the Ottoman intellectuals and administrators decided to adopt in the attempt to bridge the gap with Europe resulting from the industrial revolution included the foundation of a modern university as a completely new institution rather than the simple transformation of the existing pre-modern educational institutions. At the same time, this new project formed part of the French educational system that the Ottoman administrators had adopted as their model. Public educational policy ensured that public education should be divided into primary, secondary and higher education and that it should be state funded. This became possible only with the centralisation of the state administration.

Besides examining the various aspects of the foundation of a darülfünun within the general context of Ottoman modernisation, this paper will also aim at throwing some light on an important and pioneering experiment involving both the Islamic world and Western culture. This study challenges the conventional opinion, which maintains that the longtime elapsed –almost half a century- to establish the full-fledged Ottoman university was due to the opposition of those who were against reform policies and did not welcome the modernization of centuries old Ottoman educational system.