Children of Islam: Concepts of Childhood in Medieval Muslim Society (St Antony's Series)

Preface The studies collected in this volume are the fruit of research carried out in recent years. They started as a doctoral dissertation on al-Ghazali's educational thought at the Hebrew University under the supervision of Professor Hava Lazarus-Yafeh and Professor Aharon F. Klein berger, to whom I am greatly indebted.Although in his many writings al-Ghazali dealt mainly with questions of 'higher education' and the methods of preparing young believers for the ~iifi way of life, he dedicated a chapter in his magnum opus -1/:tyii' 'ulum al-din -to childrearing and child education in addition to many shorter references to children, childhood and parent-child relationships. Al-Ghazali's thought in this area, particularly the ways in which he used, elaborated and interwove Hellenistic ideas into an Islamic worldview (see Chapter 4) attracted my attention and urged me to learn more of concepts of childhood and attitudes towards children prevalent in medieval Muslim society. I then discovered that children and childhood are dealt with by medieval Muslim writers not only from the ethical-pedagogical but also from the legalistic, the theological and the medical points of view, and that they are referred to in many works of belles-lettres and poetry (see Introduction). On the other hand, it soon became clear that these rather rich materials were almost totally ignored by orientalists and that nothing parallel to Family History and History of Childhood, developed by historians of the West (much under the influence of Philippe Aries's L'Enfant et la viefamiliale sous l'ancien regime, first published in Paris in 1960, 1 ) existed within the framework of Islamic Studies.Two years in Oxford, as an Israeli Fellow at St Antony's College and Senior Associate Member of the Middle East Centre gave my research a great impetus. The rich collections of printed books and manuscripts at the Bodleian Library, as well as the libraries of the Oriental Institute, the Middle East Centre and the Department of Social Anthropology, and the unstinting help of the staff of these institutions enabled me to survey various medieval Arabic sources in search of material on children and childhood and to become acquainted with the research IX X Preface going on in the relevant areas of ancient and medieval history of the West as well as in anthropology. Some libraries and collections of manuscripts outside Oxford, such as the British Library, the Library of the SOAS, the Library of the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine, London, and the Library of the Selly Oak Colleges in Birmingham (holding the Mingana Collection of Oriental Manuscripts) were also very useful and helpful.During this time, moreover, I had the opportunity to exchange ideas with some great scholars and to enjoy their attention and interest. Particularly inspiring and supportive were Professor Albert Hourani, who accompanied the research through its most important stages in Oxford, encouraged me to publish it and later so kindly read and commented on the whole draft, Professor Franz Rosenthal, the late Professor Michael Dols, Dr Patricia Crone and Dr Lawrence Conrad. Them, my wife Tamar and children Inbal, Amoz and Ohad, my good Oxonian friends Julie and Colin Lynes and Luke Treadwell, and Mike Bilson I should like to thank for their visible and invisible shares in this work. My thanks are due also to my friend Dick Bruggeman, and particularly to Mrs Marion Lupu for their help in editing and improving my English style, help which has been given with so much dedication and good will. Also, I appreciate very much the financial support given to my research first by St Antony's College and The Wellcome Trust, and during the last two years by the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities.The justification for the structure of this volume, originally planned as a monograph, is twofold: first, the conviction that History of Childhood in Islam is still in its infancy and that this research, having taken almost the first steps in the field, has left so many sources untouched, makes the idea of a monograph at this stage too pretentious. It leaves only one reasonable way to tackle the subject now-namely, to deal with some of its specific and well-defined aspects. And secondly, the fact that earlier versions of five out of eight of the following studies have already been published does not decrease the potential usefulness of this volume. On the contrary, the papers, having been published in journals of different interests-from Oriental Studies through Judaica to History of Medicine -by being gathered under one roof, as it were, can become available to scholars of various fields who might find the subject of interest. This book is the fruit of the first comprehensive research, carried out within the framework of Islamic studies, on childhood in medieval Muslim society. It deals with the images of children, with adults' attitudes toward them, and with concepts of childhood as reflected in legal, theological, philosophical, ethical and medical writings as well as works of belles lettres. The studies included in this volume are based on the historical-philological methodology enriched by a comparative approach toward the subject. Thus, findings of social historians, particularly historians of family and childhood in societies outside the domain of Islamic civilization as well as those of anthropologists working on Middle Eastern societies all have been taken into account while analyzing the medieval Arabic sources Front Matter....Pages i-xii Introduction: History of Childhood in Islam....Pages 1-15 Front Matter....Pages 17-17 Tuḥfat al-Mawdūd — an Islamic Childrearing Manual from the Fourteenth Century....Pages 19-34 On Taḥnīk — an Early Islamics Childhood Rite....Pages 35-41 Front Matter....Pages 43-43 Al-Ghazālī on Child Education....Pages 45-60 Corporal Punishment in Medieval Islamic Educational Thought....Pages 61-66 Front Matter....Pages 67-67 Infants, Children and Death in Medieval Muslim Society....Pages 69-93 Ṣabr (Steadfastness) of Bereaved Parents: A Motif in Medieval Islamic Consolation Treatises and its Origins....Pages 94-100 Infanticide in Medieval Muslim Society....Pages 101-115 Conclusion....Pages 116-119 Back Matter....Pages 120-176 This book is the result of the first comprehensive research, carried out within the framework of Islamic Studies, on childhood in medieval Muslim society. It deals with the images of children, with adults' attitudes towards them, and with concepts of childhood as reflected in legal, theological, philosophical, ethical and medical writings as well as works of belles lettres. The studies included in this volume are based on the historical-philological methodology enriched by a comparative approach towards the subject. Avner Gilʻadi. Includes Bibliographical References And Index.