George Makdisi's The Rise of Colleges: Institutions of Learning in Islam and the West (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1981: 10) says: "with the advent of the madrasa, the institution inclusive of the foreign sciences began to fade away, becoming extinct by the XIIth century." In fact, the status of teaching rational sciences in the Arab/Islamic Middle Ages was not as clear-cut as in this quote and requires more elaborate and specific studies. When considering the history of teaching mathematics in Arab/Islamic countries, many issues must be closely examined, some of which will be discussed by highlighting similarities, developments and contrasts, and by attempting to provide answers to a number of questions: Did mathematics have the same status in the organization of knowledge before the twelfth century and after? In which type of institutions was mathematics taught? Who were the teachers of mathematics, what status did they have in academe? Which mathematics subjects figured in the curricula? What textbooks, tools and methods were used to teach mathematics? Our undertaking will be illustrated by a case study involving a student and a teacher of mathematics from the eighteenth century: Mahmud Maqdish (Tunisia).