[Salman]

* It contains not a single world-class university.

No. There is one. The University of Fez (Morocco) is the oldest in the world. It was where Fibonacci studied mathemetics back in the 1200's.

They still have a serious mathemeatics department.

[Hildy]

Isn't Morocco really considered more Northern Africa?

[Cicero]

It takes more than a mathematics department to make a great university, although that's a good start. You need the basic arts and sciences as well, history, world literature, the classics, philosophy--you name it.