The sciences that had previously flourished in our nation were in their final throes. Medicine, for example, had reached a state of severe decline, so much so that the Mansouri Hospital, which five centuries earlier had held great prestige in medical treatment, had, by the middle of the fifteenth century, become a ruined place. Patients would visit it, as observed by the German traveler Ebers, to seek the remnants of the Sultan who had built it for healing. They would touch his turban to cure headaches and touch his robes for relief from intermittent fevers. Many women would bring young children, some of whom could not yet speak, to untie their tongues. They would take them to a wide black stone there, squeeze green lemon juice over it, and then rub another small stone on this part until the juice turned pink. They would then have the children lick it, causing them to cry out in pain, and their mothers would comfort them. Their cries would subside, and their mothers would believe their tongues had been untied.

Other sciences fared little better than medicine. Although some other centers of learning continued to teach sciences, unlike Al-Azhar, a student at the Qarawiyyin University in Fez would study "Fara'id, arithmetic, quadratures, two crafts, two astrolabes, the four sciences: mathematics, geometry, astronomy, and physics, applied arithmetic, principles of music, surveying, adjustment, correction, jurisprudence, proportions, magic squares, numerical principles, astrological principles, geometry, dissection, information, comparison, jurisprudence, and others." This would have been good, were it not for the fact that the books that dealt with these sciences were old, and nothing new had been added to them.

The state of the Sufis was also poor. Most of them had strayed from the truth of religion, and their actions were filled with superstitions, exploiting the ignorant masses who believed in the sainthood of the mad and the miracles of the righteous.