David Herlihy proposed ‘‘that we seek to evaluate, and on occasion even to measure, the psychological and economic investment which families and societies in the past were willing to make in their children’’ and suggested an alternative to both the ‘‘theory of discovered childhood [in Europe],’’ as introduced by Philippe Ariès and the notion of Lloyd DeMause that the historical evolution of child—parent relations in general formed a continuous and irreversible process of progress.This article shows that although we lack some of the archival sources that are essential for reconstructing the real lives of children in the premodern Mediterranean Muslim world, we are still able, with the ‘‘investment’’ criterion in mind, to assess attitudes toward children, at least in some defined periods of time and geographical regions.
MS. The Bodleian Library, Oxford, Or. 133, fol. 40a. I wish to thank my friend and colleague Dr Jacqueline Sublet for drawing my attention to this miniature. On al-Balkhi, known in medieval Europe as Abulmasar, and his writings, see Fuat Sezgin, Geschichte des arabischen Schriftums, IV (Leiden: Brill, 1978), 156-7. According to D. S. Rice, Kitab al-bulhan, dated 1399 AD, much later than al-Balkhi’s life time, was composed and illustrated by ‘Abd al-Hasan Ibn ‘Ali Ibn al-Hasan of Baghdad. For more details on the compilation and its author see D. S. Rice, ‘‘The Seasons and Labors of the Months in Islamic Art,’’ Ars Orientalis 1 (1954), 1-7, especially 2-3.
2.
Simon Schama, The Embarrassment of Riches: An Interpretation of Dutch Culture in the Golden Age (London: Fontana Press, 1991), 541-4. My thanks go to my friend Dick Bruggeman who recommended this book to me.
3.
According to Islamic law, a man is entitled to have sexual relations, and therefore beget children, with his own female slave, or slaves.
4.
During the eruption of 1460, al-Biqa‘i lost four of his family members. At least three of his sons died later. See Li Guo, ‘‘Al-Biqa‘i’s Chronicle: A Fifteenth Century Learned Man’s Reflection on His Time and World,’’ in The Historiography of Islamic Egypt (C. 950-1800), ed. Hugh Kennedy (Leiden, Boston, and Köln: Brill, 2001), 131. On al-Biqa‘i’s chronicle see Guo, ibid., 126-32.
5.
Ibrahim b. ‘Umar al-Biqa‘i, Izhar al-‘asr li-asrar ahl al-‘asr, ed. Muhammad Salim b. Shadid al-‘Awfi (Cairo: Hajar, 1993), III, 118-9. Cf. Li Guo, ‘‘Tales of a Medieval Cairene Harem: Domestic Life in al-Biqa‘i’s Autobiographical Chronicle,’’ Mamluk Studies Review I (2005): 101-21, especially 117.
6.
Al-Biqa‘i, ibid., III, 355-6 and Note 1 on 356.
7.
Al-Biqa‘i, ibid., III, 355-6. On childhood rites according to Islamic law, see Muhammad b. Bakr Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya, Tuhfat al-mawdud bi-ahkam al-mawlud (Bombay: Sharafuddin, 1961), 15-58, 87-124. See also: Harald Motzki, ‘‘Das Kind und seine Sozialisation in der islamischen Familie des Mittelalters,’’ in Zur Socialgeschichte der Kindheit, ed. J. Martin and A. Nitschke (Freiburg and Munich: K. Alber, 1986), 412-7; A. Giladi, ‘‘Saghīr,’’ Encyclopaedia of Islam, New edition [E.I.2], VIII, esp. 824- 5; Id., Children of Islam: Concepts of Childhood in Medieval Muslim Society (Houndmills and London: Macmillan, St Antony’s Series, 1992), 35-41; Th. W. Juynboll and J. Pedersen, ‘‘‘Akīka,’’ E.I.2, I, 337.
Arabic-Islamic sources from the Middle Ages occasionally reflect warm relationships between fathers and their daughters in spite of many expressions of preference for male offspring. An illustration of such relationships is to be found in al-‘Iqd al-farid by the Andalusian encyclopaedist Ibn ‘Abd Rabbihi (d. 939 or 940). In a subsection dedicated to the love of children, Mu‘awiya b. Abi Sufyan, the founder of the Umayyad dynasty of Caliphs (r. 661-680 AD) is cited as designating his daughter ‘‘the apple of my eye’’ and justifies his emotional investment in her by praising the role of women in family life: .... ‘‘[I]t is women who nurse the sick, lament the dead and relieve sadness.’’ See Nadia Maria El-Cheikh, ‘‘Mourning and the Role of the Na’iha,’’ in Identidades Marginales, ed. Cristina De La Puente (Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas, 2003), 395. See also Avner Giladi, ‘‘Gender Differences in Child Rearing and Education: Some Preliminary Observations with Reference to Medieval Muslim Thought,’’ Al-Qantara XVI (1995), 291-308; id., ‘‘‘The child was small . . . not so the grief for him’: Sources, Structure, and Content of al-Sakhawi’s Consolation Treatise for Bereaved Parents,’’ Poetics Today 14 (1993): 367-86, especially 382-5.
12.
On the special difficulties involving the study of attitudes, modes of thought, and feelings in European historical societies see Stephen Wilson, ‘‘‘The Myth of Motherhood’ a Myth: The Historical View of European Child-Rearing,’’ Social History 9 (1984), 198; Barbara H. Rosenwein, Emotional Communities in the Early Middle Ages (Ithaca NY and London: Cornell University Press, 2006), 191-203.
13.
Hocine Benkheira, Avner Giladi, Catherine Mayeur-Jaouen, and Jacqueline Sublet, La famille en islam après les sources arabes (Paris: Les Indes Savantes, forthcoming), Introduction; Judith E. Tucker, ‘‘The Arab Family in History: ‘Otherness’ and the Study of the Family,’’ in Arab Women: Old Boundaries, New Frontiers, ed. J. E. Tucker (Bloomington and Indianapolis, IN: Indiana University Press, 1993), 195-207, especially 202; Abdelwhab Bouhdiba, Sexuality in Islam (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1985), 212-30; Jane Khatib-Chahidi, ‘‘Milk Kinship in Shi‘ite Islamic Iran,’’ in The Anthropology of Breastfeeding: Natural Law or Social Construct, ed. Vanessa Maher (Oxford and Providence: Berg, 1992), 109-32, esp. 123-4.
14.
English translation by Arthur J. Arberry, The Koran Interpreted ( London: George Allan and Unwin, 1980), II, 113.
15.
English translation by Arberry, ibid., II, 216.
16.
See also Avner Giladi, Infants, Parents and Wet Nurses: Medieval Islamic Views on Breastfeeding and Their Social Implications ( Leiden, Boston, and Köln: Brill, 1999), 14-5.
17.
Muhammad b. Jarir al-Tabari, Jami‘al-bayan ‘an ta’wil ay al-qur’an (Beirut: Dar al-Fikr, 1988), XIII, 15 (commentary on 46/15). For a more detailed description of the hardships involved in pregnancy, see Isma‘il Ibn Kathir, Tafsir al-qur’an al-‘azim (Beirut: Dar al-Ma‘rifa, 2004), 1449 (commentary on 46/15).
18.
‘Abdallah b. Ahmad al-Nasafi, Tafsir al-Nasafi (Beirut: Dar al-Kitab al-‘Arabi, 1982), III, 280 (commentary on 31/14); al-Hasan b. Muhammad b. al-Husayn al-Qummi al-Naysaburi, Ghara’ib al-qur’an wa-ragha’ib al-furqan (Cairo: Mustafa al-Babi al-Halabi, 1967), XXI, 50 (commentary on Qur’an 31/14); Isma‘il Haqqi al-Burusi, Ruh al-bayan (Beirut: Dar Ihya’ al-Turath al-‘Arabi, 1985), VII, 78 (commentary on Qur’an 31/ 14); VIII, 473 (commentary on 46/15).
19.
Ibrahim b. ‘Umar al-Biqa‘i, Nazm al-durar fi tanasub al-ayat wa al-suwar (Hyderabad: Da’irat al-Ma‘arif al-‘Uthmaniyya, 1980), XV, 164 (commentary on Qur’an 31/14).
20.
Ibid., XVIII, 145-6 (commentary on 46/15).
21.
Leila Ahmed, ‘‘Early Islam and the Position of Women,’’ in Women in Middle Eastern History: Shifting Boundaries in Sex and Gender, ed. Nikki Keddie and Beth Baron (New Haven, CT and London: Yale University Press, 1991), 58-73, especially 58-59; Bouhdiba, Sexuality in Islam, 212-30.
22.
Sayings attributed to the Prophet Muhammad in this regard are in some cases presented at the opening of sections on good manners any Muslim should adopt-adab-or in chapters on birr (reverence, piety) and sila (bond, relationship). See, for instance, Sahih al-Bukhari (Beirut: Dar Ihya’ al-Turath al-‘Arabi, 1958), VIII, 2 ff. (‘‘Kitab al-adab’’); Sunan Ibn Majah (Beirut: Dar al-Fikr, n.d.), II, 1206-8 (‘‘Kitab al-adab’’); Sunan al-Tirmidhi (Istanbul: Çağri Yayinlari and Dar Sahnun, 1992), IV, 309-14 (‘‘Kitab al-birr wa al- sila’’).
23.
See, for instance, Muhammad b. al-Walid b. Khalaf al-Turtushi, Birr al-walidayni (Beirut: Dar al-Kutub al‘Ilmiyya, 2005); ‘Abd al-Rahman b. ‘Ali Ibn al-Jawzi, Kitab al-birr wa al-sila, ed. ‘Adil ‘Abd al-Mawjud and ‘Ali Mu‘awwad (Cairo: Maktabat al-Sunna), 1993.
24.
See, for example, Sahih Muslim (Beirut: Dar Ihya’ al-Turath al-‘Arabi), 1955-1972, I, 89; Sahih al-Bukhari, VIII, 2; Sunan al-Tirmidhi, IV, 310.
25.
See, for instance, Qur’an 17/23-24.
26.
See, for example, Sahih Muslim, I, 91; Sahih al-Bukhari, VIII, 4, 5; Sunan al-Tirmidhi, IV, 312.
27.
Sulayman b. Ahmad al-Tabarani, al-Mu‘jam al-awsat, ed. Mahmud al-Tahhan (Riyad: Maktabat al-Ma‘arif), 1995, VII, 375. English translation: Isma‘il ‘Abdul Razack and ‘Abdul Jawad al-Banna, Women and Family in the Sunnah of the Prophet (Cairo: Al-Azhar and Dar al-Kutub, n.d.), 15, as cited in Aliah Schleifer, Motherhood in Islam (Cambridge: The Islamic Academy, 1986), 52-3.
28.
Ibn al-Jawzi, Kitab al-birr wa-al-sila, 62-3. Cf. Schleifer, Motherhood in Islam, 7.
29.
Ibn al-Jawzi, ibid., 59. Cf. Schleifer, ibid., 8.
30.
See, for instance, reports cited by Abu Hamid Muhammad al-Ghazali in Ihya’ ‘ulum al-din (Cairo: Mu’assasat al-Halabi, 1967), II, 33. Cf. Bouhdiba, Sexuality in Islam, 214-5.
31.
How important the question of the sanctity of children’s lives was regarded by the Qur’an, we learn from sura 6, verse 151 where the prohibition against infanticide appears immediately after that against polytheism and the command to ‘‘do good to parents’’: ‘‘Say: ‘Come, I will recite what your Lord has forbidden you: that you associate not anything with Him, and to be good to your parents, and not to slay children because of poverty; We will provide you and them’’’ ... (Translation: Arberry, The Koran Interpreted, I, 168).
32.
For references to the relevant verses, see Avner Giladi, ‘‘Children,’’ in Encyclopaedia of the Qur’an, ed. Jane Dammen McAuliffe, I (Leiden: Brill, 2001), 301-2.
33.
Abu Bakr Ibn Abi al-Dunya, Kitab al-‘iyal, ed. Najm ‘Abd al-Rahman Khalaf (al-Mansura: Dar al-Wafa’, 1997), Chapters 2-14, 27-35, especially 4, 6-9. A great number of reports on these themes can be found in the canonical collections of hadith. See, A. J. Wensinck, A Handbook of Early Muhammadan Tradition (Leiden: Brill, 1960), 43-4 (s.v. ‘‘Child, Children’’).
34.
Muhammad Ibn Sahnun, Kitab adab al-mu‘allimin, ed. Muhammad al-‘Arusi Matawi (Tunis: Dar al-Kutub al-Sharqiyya, 1972); ‘Ali b. Muhammad al-Qabisi, al-Risala al-mufassila li-ahwal al-muta‘allimin waahkam al-mu‘allimin wa-al-muta‘allimin, in Muhammad Fu’ad al-Ahwani, al-Ta‘lim fi ra’y al-Qabisi (Cairo: Maktabat al-Khanji, 1945).
35.
On educational thought in medieval Islamic culture, which represents scholars’ intellectual investment in children, see Sebastian Günther, ‘‘Be Masters in That You Teach and Continue to Learn: Medieval Muslim Thinkers on Educational Theory,’’ Comparative Education Review 50 (2006): 367-88.
36.
Muhammad b. Mahmud al-Asrushani, Jami‘ahkam al-sighar (Cairo: Dar al-Fadila, n.d.).
37.
See above, Note 7.
38.
See Giladi, Children of Islam, 4-5.
39.
Ahmad Ibn al-Jazzar al-Qayrawani, Kitab siyasat al-sibyan wa-tadbirihim, ed. Muhammad al-Habib al-Hila (Tunis: al-Dar al-Tunisiyya li-al-Nashr, 1968); ‘Arib b. Sa‘id al-Qurtubi, Kitab khalq al-janin watadbir al-habala wa-al-mawludin, eds H. Jahier and N. Abdelqader (Alger: Ferraris, 1956); Ahmad b. Muhammad b. Yahya al-Baladi, Kitab tadbir al-habala wa-al-atfal wa-al-sibyan wa-hifz sihhatihim wa-mudawat al-amrad al-‘arida lahum, ed. Mahmud al-Hajj Qasim Muhammad (Baghdad: Dar al-Rashid, 1980).
40.
R. Etienne, ‘‘Ancient Medical Conscience and the Life of Children,’’The Journal of Psychohistory 4 (1976): 131, 144, 152-3; D. Alexandre-Bidon and Monique Closson, L’Enfant à l’ombre des cathédrales ( Lyon: Presses Universitaires de Lyon, Éditions du CNRS, 1985), 10-2.
41.
Giladi, Children of Islam, 69-93; idem, ‘‘‘The Child was Small . . . not so the Grief for him,’’ 367-86; idem, ‘‘Islamic Consolation Treatises for Bereaved Parents: Some Bibliographical Notes,’’ Studia Islamica 81 (1995), 197-202.
42.
A. Giladi, ‘‘Saghīr,’’ E.I.2, V, 821-7.
43.
Al-Ghazali, Ihya’, II, 66. See also Basim F. Musallam, Sex and Society in Islam (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 22-6.
44.
Musallam, ibid., 25-6.
45.
See Abu ‘Abd al-Rahman al-Sulami, Dhikr al-niswa al-muta‘abbidat al-sufiyyat, ed. Mahmud Muhammad al-Tanahi (Cairo: Maktabat al-Khanji, 1993), 29-30 and 37 where Nusiyya bint Salman complains that God has found her unsuitable for His service and therefore made her give birth and look after a child. See also, Avner Giladi, ‘‘Birth Control,’’ The Encyclopaedia of Islam, 3rd Edition, IV, 108-13.
46.
George Makdisi , The Rise of Colleges: Institutions of Learning in Islam and the West (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1981), 1-34.
47.
Makdisi, ibid, 19; J. M. Landau, ‘‘Kuttāb,’’ E.I.2, V, 572-5; H’Mida Ennaifer, ‘‘Mulahazat hawla al-kuttab fi al-ijtima‘al-islami al-qadim,’’ Revue de l’Institut des Belles Lettres Arabes 58 (1995), 107-18.
48.
Adam Sabra, Poverty and Charity in Medieval Islam: Mamluk Egypt, 1250-1517 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 80-3; Yaacov Lev, Charity, Endowments, and Charitable Institutions in Medieval Islam (Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 2005), 85-95.
49.
‘Abd al-Rahman Ibn Khaldun, al-Muqaddima, ed. M. Quatremère (Paris: Didot, 1858), III, 260. English translation by Franz Rosenthal, The Muqaddima: An Introduction to History (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1967), III, 300-1.
50.
E. Levi-Provençal , ‘‘Un document sur la vie urbaine et les corps de métiers à Séville au début du XIIéme siècle: Le traité d’Ibn ‘Abdun,’’Journal Asiatique (avril-juin 1934), texte arabe, 23 (215).
51.
‘Abd al-Qadir b. Muhammad al-Nu‘aymi, al-Daris fi ta’rikh al-madaris (Beirut: Dar al-Kutub al‘Ilmiyya), 1990.
52.
Jonathan Berkey , The Transmission of Knowledge in Medieval Cairo: A Social History of Islamic Education (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992), 28, 47, 70, 203.
53.
André Raymond, ‘‘Le Fonctionnement des écoles élémentaires (maktab) au Caire d’après des documents de waqf,’’ in L’Orient au cœur en l’honneur d’André Miquel, ed. Bruno Halff et al. (Paris: Maisonneuve and Larose, 2001), 273-81; Ulrich Haarmann, ‘‘Mamluk Endowment Deeds as a Source for the History of Education in Late Medieval Egypt,’’ Al-Abhath 28 (1980), Arabic text, 43 (line 438), 45 (lines 582, 584, 588), 46 (lines 600, 601).
54.
Giladi, ‘‘Gender Differences in Child Rearing,’’ 301-2.
55.
Shams al-Din Muhammad b. ‘Abd al-Rahman al-Sakhawi’s al-Daw’ al-lami‘fi a‘yan al-qarn al-tasi‘ (Beirut: Maktabat al-Hayat, n.d.), XII, for instance, 7, entry no. 33; 8, entry no. 41; 9, entry no. 47; 10, entries no. 49, 51, 52, 54; 11, entries no. 55, 57. See also, Carl F. Petry, The Civilian Elite of Cairo in the Later Middle Ages (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1981), 8-14; Huda Lutfi, ‘‘Al-Sakhawi’s Kitab al-Nisa’ as a Source for the Social and Economic History of Muslim Women during the Fifteenth Century A.D.,’’ The Muslim World 71 (1981), 104-24, especially 119-21; Jonathan Berkey, ‘‘Women and Islamic Education in the Mamluk Period,’’ in Women in Middle Eastern History, ed. Keddie and Baron, 143-60.
56.
The huge collection of responsa from North Africa and al-Andalus edited in the fifteenth century AD by Ahmad b. Yahya al-Wansharisi, under the title al-Mi‘yar al-mu‘rib wa-al-jami‘al-mughrib ‘an fatawa ‘ulama’ ifriqiya wa-al-andalus wa-al-maghrib (Beirut: Dar al-Maghrib al-Islami, 1981), contains tens of Fatawa on various questions connected to children, including, of course, child education. See, for instance, II, 267, 269; VII, 36, 83, 156, 183, 237, 238, 239, 240, 241, 242, 243, 244, 245, 246, 247, 248, 249, 250, 251, 252, 254, 255, 256, 257, 259, 261.
57.
See, for example, Ahmad b. Mughith al-Tulaytuli, al-Muqni‘fi ‘ilm al-shurut (Beirut: Dar al-Kutub al‘Ilmiyya, 2000), 134-6.
58.
David Herlihy, ‘‘Medieval Children’’ in idem, Women, Family and Society in Medieval Europe: Historical Essays, 1978-1991, ed. A. Molcho (Providence and Oxford: Berghahn Books, 1995), 231-4.
59.
Amira al-Azhary Sonbol, ‘‘Adoption in Islamic Society: A Historical Survey,’’ in Children in the Muslim Middle East, ed. Elizabeth Warnock Fernea (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1995), 58-59. Cf. Shlomo Dov Goitein, A Mediterranean Society: An Abridgement in One Volume, rev. and ed. Jacob Lassner (Berkeley, Los Angeles, CA, and London: University of California Press, 1999), 434. See also A. Giladi, ‘‘Orphans,’’ Encyclopaedia of the Qur’an, III, 603-4; Mahmud Yazbak, ‘‘Muslim Orphans and the Shari‘a in Ottoman Palestine According to Sijill Records,’’ Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 44 (2001): 123-40; M. S. Sujimon, ‘‘The Treatment of the Foundling (Al-Laqit) According to the Hanafis,’’ Islamic Law and Society 9 (2002): 358-85.
60.
Muhammad b. Abi Bakr Ibn Khallikan, Wafayat al-a‘yan wa-anba’ abna’ al-zaman, ed. Ihsan ‘Abbas (Beirut: Dar Sadir, 1968-1972), IV, 113-21, especially 116. Cf. Lev, Charity, Endowments, and Charitable Institutions, 50-1.
61.
Herlihy, ‘‘Women, Family and Society,’’ 219.
62.
Ibid.
63.
Pilippe Ariés , Centuries of Childhood ( Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1986 ), especially 395-9.
64.
Lloyd DeMause , ‘‘The Evolution of Childhood,’’ in The History of Childhood, ed. L. DeMause (New York, NY: Psychohistory Press, 1974), 1-71, especially 51-4.
