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The very nature of muslim learning throughout the classical and medieval periods was an intensely direct contact between the teacher and the student, with oral transmission constituting the predominant approach. The teacher occupied, as a consequence, a greater position of authority while the need to get in touch with him thus indispensable for the student. The situation encouraged the student to build the permanent relationship even in the event that the teacher resided in a town, far from his residence. The academic journey (rihlah ‘ilmiyah), by which a student traveled to reside for a long time with a learned man in a city, was a common feature of the time. Ibn Khaldun describes this well as follows:


A scholar’s education is greatly improved by traveling in quest of knowledge and meeting the authoritative teachers (of this time). The reason is that human beings obtain their knowledge and character qualities and all their opinion and virtues either through study, instruction, and lecture or through imitation of a teacher and personal contact with him.
Another striking characteristic of muslim learning in the early period was that concerned with memorization which was regarded as the main task of the student. The mastery of knowledge was determined by extent of one’s memory. This evaluation of memory corresponds with a nature of religious knowledge which must not merely be understood for personal purposes, but also be transmitted as precisely as possible to others. Memorization was at first applied to the study of the qur’an which is “considered by Muslims literally to be the word of God, its accurate memorization in one or more of the seven conventional recitational forms is the first step in mastering the religious sciences. In other words, “Mnemonic domination (malaka t-hifd), the memorization of a key text just as qur’an is memorized, is also the starting point for the mastery of religious science.”