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Can a
society that alleges respect for human dignity shut its eyes to
child rights? Though Arab governments master the rhetoric of
defending and protecting childhood, the reality of childhood in the
Arab world is too cruel to beautify by speeches. How can we speak of
the right to life white the infant mortality rate of Arab children
is higher than in Bangladesh? How can we speak of education when
there are more than ten million Arab children deprived of it
(fifteen million according to some sources)? Can we ignore
malnutrition in the Arab world, and overlook the twenty million
handicapped children, only 25% of whom receive any care? Can we not
be affected by the great discrepancy between Arab children in the
countries of "black gold" and their siblings in the Arab shanty
towns? How can. we deal with the rights of children without touching
on the absence of opportunities for food, medical care, and
education, and on such adult crimes as familial and social
domination, discrimination according to gender, and economic
sanctions which affect children most of all and rarely affect the
rulers?
This is not an attempt to escape from the living
reality to the "cultural," but rather an endeavor-to entrench the
enlightenment cultural capital of people, which is one of the main
tools for escaping such a swamp, with the belief that the solution
will not come down from the sky nor the palace of the ruler. It is a
matter that concerns all individuals in society. In this way the
convergence of collective consciousness constitutes one of the means
of defending child rights.
Methodological
Premises
Enlightenment
ideas remind us of the relation between beauty and the human
subconscious: they cannot be enjoyed except by an admirer who can
and wants to experience some sort of pleasure in tackling them.
Therefore, these ideas cannot take their due status by arbitrariness
or come about by violence. In the same vein, a prisoner of
presuppositions cannot breathe the whiff of freedom within the
intricacies of progress if he cannot reorder the cultural reservoir
which brought about and entrenched these presuppositions. For twenty
years I have believed in the necessity of the exploration of the
"self," its riches and disgraces, as an indispensable passageway to
self-liberation.
However the attempt to explore remains
danger-ridden and surrounded by the fences of other forms of
treating history and indigenous culture. The first of these dangers
is the feeling of the superiority of the past over the present. The
second is of opportunistic intellectuals on this feeling, under the
pretext of defending the identity. The third is counter posing to
the latter approach a nihilistic vision commanding that the whole
lot should be-buried history.
Away from these approaches, the writer tries to
compose a tetra-logy to link the private and the public; the past,
the present and the future. This tetra-logy consists of: 1) Child in
the Arab Islamic culture.
2) Human Rights in Arab Islamic culture.
3) Citizenship in the Arab Islamic history.
4) Rights and Freedoms in the Nahda
Thought (1).
It is not an encyclopedic work; it only aspires
to open windows onto new horizons. It is neither an attempt at a
modern understanding of religion nor a human rights interpretation
of our heritage. For 1 am not, by any means, a supporter of
verifying a certain matter by establishing the presence of a certain
quotation on it, whether by the Prophet Mohammed or "Uncle Marx."
Moreover, 1 have no desire to establish anything
except that, like other histories, Arab history is a non-romantic
process, and is the outcome of certain intellectual and social
struggles which produced valuable as well as regretful results that
form a necessary lesson and an indispensable cognitive accumulation,
and constitute a part of our contemporary struggle. 1 also aspire to
prove that the future needs to transcend the past in the way that
international critical thought defines transcending philosophy, Le.,
not to negate it by the scratch of a pen.
In this tetra-logy, the term "Arab Islamic
culture" covers the cultural cognitive, religious, and popular
spheres. Thus, in the survey of history and the history of thought,
the following coexist: al-Sa'alik (the Vagabonds) and the Hanifites,
Ghillan al Demashky and the Murjeites, Ibn al Rawendy the atheist
and al-Hallaj the Sufi, Abu Bakr al-Razi the philosopher and Abu
Nowwas the profligate, Abu Haneifa the official jur4rudent and the
Kharidjites.
The methodological starting points are the
following:
1) My sincer belief that human rights are
universal in the full sense of word, as is the concept of progress
that rose in the East which no single serious researcher can call
Eastern. Although the term “human rights” is oh Western origin, it
is -like computers- no more restricted to the ones who invented it.
The question, in my opinion, is not how many Arabs witnessed the
preparation or the signing of the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights, but rather the answer to a simple and naive question: do
these rights fulfill actual needs and requirements of out peoples,
or does our society have a greater need to master the arts of
amputating hands, legs, and necks in reverence of an old legal
tradition?
2) Since 1980, when 1 started my early critical
writings about our heritage, I have been examining the major
struggles within this heritage between the supporters of reason and
the supporters of imitation; between temporal knowledge and
ancestral wisdom; between the supporters of the dominant and the
obsolete and the pioneers of renovation.
The more we probe into some peoples culture, the
more we discover the backgrounds of its perspective on the major
humanist concepts such as equality, liberty, and tolerance, and die
more we feel the importance of tracing, the roots of die tree of
freedoms and rights in all human cultures, considering its
contribution to the cultural formation of Francis Bacon and
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, or -- if it did not do that directly - its
capacity to enrich and develop what they have produced. In respect
to rights, as with the sciences, accumulation is the necessary
condition for the generation of knowledge. And although al-Khawaresmy
did not invent the computer, algebra had its indirect contribution
to this invention.
3) Exploring die different aspects of history is
not a problem, but one of the most important contemporary cultural
problems is holding to the past as the master of the present, and
the de reading of 'this Past, at the "me time that critical and
inductive perspectives are wanting. Hence was our insistence on
rehabilitating the factors of the Eastern renaissance: innovation
and reason as uncompromising adversaries of imitation and copying,
the humanism of, the "Us"; denouncing the cancellation of the "In to
the benefit of the social or doctrinal "Us"; and the emphasis on the
first lesson of the epoch of Western enlightenment: "treating
history as an event, not a judge." (2)
Thus this endeavor does not seek, or consider as
one of its tasks, to search for support or authority for this or
that article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights or of the
Bukhari collection of prophetic traditions. It aspires to delve into
a cognitive jungle whose nectar bas contributed to, the production
of the cultural honey of humanity. For, in my opinion, the passive
break with the past is a reaction to its hallowing which allows the
supporters of sanctification of the past to monopolize the
discussion of an essential component of the human personality: the
civilizational factor and dimension, i.e., the giant moments in the
cultures and experiences of peoples, and their role in inter-civilizational
interaction, in contradistinction to that identity which comprises
female circumcision, the despotism of Bani Uthman, and clannishness
as basic factors of specificity.
The Pre-Islamic Arab Society
People have
noticed - for thousands of years according to our knowledge -that
children need tranquility, protection, love and play. However, many
old societies have laid over these considerations, or through them,
some practices that annulled their content. For example, fear that a
foe would en girl-child has led some tribes to sacrifice their
children to the gods or bury their girl-children alive to protect
the group's honor. Also, we find among combatant groups some
traditions of dishonoring their enemies through their children and
wives.
Although the
parental instinctive impulse has always reflected a love which can
reach an excessive level of possessiveness and protectiveness, human
beings have known some tribal and religious ideologies which
associated children with the group and its interests and beliefs
even more than with this instinctive impulse.
There are many accessible texts about the status
of children in the pre-Islamic Eastern~, cultures in - Egypt, Iraq'
Syria, Lebanon, and Palestine. However, this article will limit
itself to the period which extends from immediately before Islam to»
the time of Arab/Islam-de flourishing, considering that those four
centuries still, to date, have their extensions in minds and
traditions -- and even in laws -- in more than twenty Islamic
countries.
The definition of a "child" in any culture is
linked to the elements of duties and rights, whether directly or
indirectly. In the Arabic language, we find that the definition of a
"child" is related to the "tender and soft body and the little of
anything" as stated in the Lissan al-Arab (The Arab's great
dictionary) and the Mohkam (the Exact) dictionaries (3). Abul
Haytham, the linguist, gives a concrete definition: "The boy is
called a child from the moment he is born until he ejaculates."(4)
Guardianship was turned to the lineage of the
father because traditions stipulate that the child is reared in the
house of the father (or whoever takes his position if he is
deceased: his son, father or brother) until the child can fully
exercise the activities, duties and rights of the tribe and family.
(4). In pre-Islamic times, Arabs founded orphanages for children
whose fathers were lost, dead or killed in war. Tribes' chiefs and
notables supervised the upbringing of those children and supported
them from a solidarity fund made up by donations from notables and
the spoils of war, as was the case, for example, with the orphans of
Ghatfan.
The Arabs concern with children could be shown,
as Dr. Adel Gassem al Bayaty mentions,- by the fact that "when they
reconciled and joined in alliance after a war, they' used to
exchange rearing children as a symbol of goodwill and also as
hostages to be used against anybody who would break the
reconciliation and the alliance. This proves the depth of their
affection towards children, for their alliances were not assured by
money, or any other worldly goods, for in that case someone might
have betrayed the terms of the alliance. Children, however, were the
firm tie which bound them to the alliance and kept them away from
treachery. Therefore, anyone who treacherously harmed his hostage
children was severely punished -- killed." (6) The Arabs of
Dawmatil Jandal used to sacrifice a child every year to the
planet Venus, which was represented by a statue of a naked child.
The idea of sacrificing animals was one of the first signs of
discarding such practice. There are many stories similar to the
story of Abraham and the sacrificing of his son Ismail, the latest
of which is the story related to Al-Hutai'a and his sacrificing of a
wild cow instead of his son.
In poetry, we can find splendid expressions of
the affection towards children, as for examples the following verses
by Hattan Ibn al-Mu’alla:
Our children are our hearts walking on earth
If the wind blows on them, my eyes would know no
rest.
Or the pride poem of Amr Ibn Kalthoum:
When a boy of ours reaches ablactate
The mighty fall on their knees for him.
Like the boy-child, the girl-child enjoyed a high
status in many tribes. Also, we eau find rich poetic material
dealing with the intimate relationship between fathers and
daughters. Probably the best expression of such a powerful motion
eau be found in the poetry of Malek Ibn al Raib. Once he was leaving
for travel and his daughter stopped him, saying that she was afraid
his travel would last too long or that death would separate them so
he wept and said (7):
When my daughter wept from deep sorrow with a
grieved heart,
And from the pain of separation she shed her
tears,
That almost wounded where they crossed,
Or left what they passed over scarred,
Fearing that her father might die,
Or that he would find new home elsewhere,
I told her: stop! Your, tears have cut into my
heart.
Many a time daughters' tears have excruciated
hearts.
Would God ward off what you fear until 1 return.
Arabs allowed girls to dance as they allowed
boys. It is related that al-Zobair Ibn Abdel Muttaleb used to let
his daughter dance and say:
My daughter is noble and highborn.
She would not deny the needy fire or tinder.
There were also tribes and towns that surnamed
the parents after either their daughters or sons, such as Yathreb
where parents were surnamed after their first child regardless of
sex.
Early
Islam
The
Koran prohibited killing children for whatever reason, and stated:
“And kill not your children for fear of poverty. We provide for them
and for you. Surely, the killing of them is a great sin” (al-Isra-verse
31).
The Koran also censured the practice of burying
girl-child alive by some tribes, stating: “And then the female
infant buried alive shall be asked” (al Takweer, verses 8-9)”
Many sayings of Prophet Mohammad emphasize
justice between children- boys and girls, elder and younger. For
example the Prophet said: “Equate between your children in
expenditure as you like them to equate between you in filial
devotion and kindness”. (Al-Tabari). Anass related that a man was in
the presence of Mohammad and a son of his arrived, so the man kissed
him and made him sit on his lap. Then a daughter of the man arrived
and he made her sit in front of him. The Prophet told him: "Would
you not equate between them?" (8)
The Koran enhanced the notion of the equality of
children regardless of sex or age, and thus it stated: "And when the
news of the birth of a female child is brought to any of them, his
face turns black and he becomes grieved. He hides away from the
people because of the evil he was told. Should he keep her with
disgrace or should he bury her in the earth. Indeed, wrongful is
their judgment." (Al-Nahl, verses 58 - 59.) Linking the sex of the
child to the will of God, the Koran states: "He bestows female
children upon whom He wills, and bestows male children upon whom He
wills." (Al-Shura, verse 49.) The order in this verse has made some
Muslims regard the birth of a female child before a male child as a
good omen.
As al-Zobair used to dance and sing with Prophet
Mohammed when a child, the Prophet himself used to play with
children. Jaber Ibn Sumrah narrated that the Prophet once saw some
boys racing and ran with them, and that he used to let boys ride
with him on his camel and jest with them to make them happy (9). Dr.
al-Shatty cites the following prophetic saying: "He who has a child
should act childishly with," explaining that this means that parents
should "be humble, friendly and genial in word and in acts with
their children. And the child means both the boy and the girl."(10)
It is also related that one of the governors under the, Caliph Omar
Ibn al-Khattab visited him and found him, Lying on his back while
his children played around him. The governor criticized Ibn al-Khattab
for tolerating the children’s play, The Caliph asked him: "How are
you with your family? " The governor answered: "When 1 enter the
house everyone be comes silence" The Caliph said: "You are deposed.
You are not kind to your family and children, so how would you be
kind to the nation of Mohammed!" (11)
The first thing to be noticed about the Prophetic
sayings which reflected the spirit of that age and of the Koran is,
that they stressed the humanness of the relationship between the
child. and the adult, and prohibited any injustice that could be
committed against the child in the name of the sacred or otherwise
(Indeed lost are they who kill their children, from folly, without
knowledge"- al-An'am, verse 140), for children according to the
Koran are the "ornament of life."
On another level, Prophetic sayings vary, greatly
as regards, the way of raising children. On one hand, there are
sayings that grant the child a margin of independence and freedom,
and on the other hand there are those that delineate the way of
upbringing -- step by step, and stage by stage -- commanding that
the child should be obliged to practice the worship rituals, and
favoring imitation to judgment and compulsion to choice, expressing
the totalitarian ideology which took shape, gradually reaching its
zenith in the epochs of degeneration.
We could find some very advanced remarks on
children's education and how adults should treat them, as for
example Ali Ibn Abi Taleb's words emphasizing the importance of time
in child-rearing: "Do not rear your children on your customs, for
they are created for different times than yours." And also what is
narrated about Mu'awiyeh, Ibn Abi Sufian when he got angry at his
son Yazid and sought the advice of al-Ahnaf Ibn Qais who answered
him: "They are the souls of our hearts and the bone of our back. We
should be to them like soft ground and shady sky. If they ask you
something give them, and if they are angry appease them, for they
give you their sincere affection and do love you to their utmost.
You should not be heavy-handed with them, or they will become weary
of your life and hope for your death".
Children's
Pain and Divine Justice
Surveying
the status of the child leads us to discern the social and cultural
differences between societies. In this regard it is noteworthy that
the most important debates and struggles in die history of Arab
Islamic society were over the issues of tormenting children and
divine justice on one hand and the freedom of the child and the
concept of responsibility on the other. Examining the historical
intellectual struggles, we can notice the significant place occupied
by the issue of children’s pain and its purpose as understood by the
different Islamic sects and trends.
Since the
second century (AH), several opinions have come to prominence in
answer to the important question--- if the child is not responsible,
what is the divine purpose in making him suffer pain? The orthodox
trends answered that God could torment children, and if he did it
would be just, basing their answer on the Koran verse: "No calamity
befalls on the earth or in yourselves but is written before We bring
it into existence. Verily, that is easy for Allah." (al-Hadid, 22.)
However, the Mu'tazellite rationalists denounced this notion. al-Nazzam
argued that in essence God cannot commit evil and cannot do
injustice to anybody, adding that "Allah cannot blind somebody who
sees, or sicken a healthy person, if He knows that eyesight and
health is better for them." (12) While al-'Allaf argued that, "Allah
is capable of doing both good and evil, but He does not do evil and
does not want to because of its ugliness". And 1 on another level,
Bishr al-Mutammer said, that, "Allah created neither might nor
weakness, neither death nor life, neither health nor sickness. Such
indications arc the doings of the bodies where they exist." (13).
Ibn Hazim answered al-Mutammer by saying, "Know that this profligate
has excluded half the world from God's creation".
Abdullah Ibn Eissa expressed the opinion of many
of the Kharidjites on children's pain by saying, "Lunatics,
beasts, and children under the age of puberty do not feel pain from
whatever afflicts them, for Allah does not de injustice to anybody."
(14) The holders of this opinion relied on the verse: "And they say
that it is from Allah, but it is not from Allah" (Al-'Imran, 78).
And, needless to say, the rationalist atheistic trend went into the
battle, where Ibn al-Rawendy devoted his book "al-Tadeel Wal
Tajweer" (Modification And Falsification) to discussing the
sickness, pain and poverty that afflict those who are not
responsible and the people of good deeds, where, as al-Khayatt
narrated, he wrote, "He who sickens his slaves is not wise in what
he does to them, nor is lie their guardian, nor merciful with them,
and the same applies to he who impoverishes and afflicts his
slaves."
The Rafedites (Shiites) were divided
between saying that the child suffers pain by the direct action of
God, by the instrumentality of material means, by the act of God in
some instances, and by other causes in others. The last is the
opinion of the Imamites.
The different positions of the Mu'tazelites
can be- summarized as follows:
1) Children suffer pain. God is the causer of
pain. God does not recompense pain but He will not punish children
in the hereafter.
2) Children suffer pain. God is the causer of
pain. It is intended as a warning lesson for adults. God recompenses
children for the pain they suffered, because He is not unjust.
3) Children suffer pain. God is the causer of
pain. Without pain children would be better, but God is not obliged
to do what is better.
4) Children's pain is the making of nature, not
the act of God.
5) Injuries and pain can occur to children by the
act of God, because they are figurative and not actual. This is the
opinion: of Wassel Ibn 'Atta'a, and Qasem al-Demashky. .
On the other hand, the Kharidjites were
divided between two opposing opinions:
1) God judges a child by the deeds of his
parents. What afflicts the child is because of the parents. It is a
warning lesson for adults.
2) The child is not judged. The child is not
related to his parents' deeds. The child does not suffer pain
because Allah is not unjust In case the child suffers pain, God will
recompense him for this.
Sunnis, Ismaili Shiites
and Asha'irites were of the opinion that
the fate of children is in God's hands: if He wishes he torments
them, and if He wishes otherwise he does, and if He inflicts pain
and disease on a child it is just of Him and for a purpose of His.
al-Ash'ary said, "the life of everybody contains both graces and
ordeals. There are ordeals that should be withstood, such as the
calamities of disease and malady, and the calamities which befall
one's children and money or the like. And there are those which
should not be tolerated such as disbelief and all other sins." (15)
Elsewhere he added, "if some one asks whether God will cause pain to
children in the hereafter, he should be answered. God could, and if
He does that, then it is just." (16) Although the external sense of
this official stance is concordant with the notion of the omnipotent
God, this simplistic theme, as Nasr Hamed Abu Zeid wrote, ascribes
"all the manifestations of injustice and evil to the divine will as
it is considered the prepotent will." (17) For their part,
physicians divested the causality of children's pain of any
dimension beyond the "nullity or deficiency of the functions of the
organs, aches in the organs, or the turbulence of the mood." (18)
The keenness of the different trends, each
according to its viewpoint, on linking the concept of justice to
childhood, shows the emphasis on the principal of child protection
in Eastern cultures. This protection, which exceeds its limits for
the ancestors with their tendency towards possessiveness and forcing
children to reproduce the parents' image, is evident in the
agreement of temporal and religious knowledge in the sixth article
of the contemporary Convention on Children's Rights, e.i., the
inalienable right of every child to life. In contradistinction to
the position of ancient Greek philosophy and medicine on the right
to life of the psychologically or physically disabled, according to
the positions that reached us from the epoch of the Arab Islamic
flourishing, none of the symbols of secular knowledge (philosophers,
physicians, writers, etc.) or of religious scd6larship (Christian,
Jewish, and Islamic) has tolerated any exception that would allow
for the disposing of children's right to life.
Responsibility and Freedom
The issue
of responsibility (of and towards the child) constitutes one of the
basic elements of the inter-Islamic controversy on the child, his
legal status and doctrinal position. For on this issue of
responsibility depend what is known as the religious succession (the
child of a Muslim father is Muslim) on one hand, and the legal
status of the child on the other.
Opposite to
the predominant idea about the self-evidence of the child's
belonging to the same religion as the father's, we could read even
in such conservative writings as al-Tawdih Liltankih
(Exposition for Emendation) what follows (19):
Juvenility, though a natural state of human
beings al the outset of theirs lives, is considered a contingency
because it is not an exigency of the essence of humanity -- the
essence of humanity does not require juvenility. By contingencies
barring competence we mean the same, a state that is not inescapable
and nullifies competence. And because Gad -bas created :the human
being to undertake the burdens of His orders and to recognize Him,
thus in accordance He should create people in a state that is
conducive to achieving the goal of creation, that is to be from the
beginning of their lives judicious, competent and able. Juvenility
is a condition which negates these capacities, therefore it is
considered a contingency barring competence.
We should not be surprised by the opinions of
some Islamic sects which granted children the freedom to choose
their belief, when the Koran states: 'There is no compulsion in
religion." Perhaps the Ajaridah of Kharidjites was the first
and most outspoken of these sects, for it is established that they
maintained that "when a child reaches puberty, he should be called
on to embrace Islam, and he is not judged as a Muslim before." (20)
Also, Ibn Hazm narrated that they said, we do not coerce children
before puberty, nor forsake them. But we respite them until they
declare their Islam after puberty." (21)
Early Sunnis held that children "should
not be punished, and performing worship rituals is not incumbent
upon them. For some of them, practicing religious rituals is a must
as a way of precaution." (22) This matter contradicts a flood of
sayings and admonitions with which so many books dealing with al-kaba'er
(the grave sins) overflow.
One of the most expressive texts on the
relationship between growth, need and reason is what al-Jahez
narrated about a wise man who was asked, 'When did you begin to
reason?" He answered, "The moment 1 was born." When the wise man
noticed that his inquirers did not approve of his answer, he added,
"I cried when I was in fear, sought food when 1 was hungry, sought
the breast when I needed, and was quiet when 1 was appeased.. that
was the range of my needs, and whoever recognizes the measure of his
needs - if he is given or denied them - needs no more reason." (23)
Responsibility towards the child can be divided
into the responsibility incumbent upon his parents and the
responsibility of the state. The early Islamic Caliphate - at least
in the capital - offered a sort of allowance for children, which
grew into a more comprehensive health and economic protection in the
eras of flourishing. The highest form of social insurance was a
salary decreed for every Muslim infant born in the land of Islam who
reaches ablactate. After that decree people hasten to wean their
infants in order to collect the salary, and thus Omar Ibn a]-Khattab
said: "Do not rush your children to ablactate, we decree [a salary]
for every Muslim newborn." (24)
For most jurisprudents, custody means the
upbringing and nurturing of the child, as well as carrying out all
the necessities of his life from birth until he becomes able to
dispense with the assistance of his mother in procuring his
necessary needs. The Koran thus spoke of custody: "The mothers shall
breastfeed their children for two whole years, that is for those who
desire to complete the term of suckling, but the father of the child
s1tail bear the cost of the mothers food and clothing on a
reasonable basis. No person shall have a burden laid on him greater
than he can bear, No-mother shall be harmed on, account of her
child, nor father on account of his child. And on the heir is
incumbent the like of that [which was incumbent on the father]."
(al-Baqara, verse 332.)
There is not one Prophetic saying that specifies
the custody of a child after the guardianship of his mother ends.
Al-Sahfei said that the child should stay with his mother until he
reaches seven years of age, then the child should be given the
choice between the parents, and this is the highest of
interpretative judgments concerning the right of the child. Malek
supports this opinion in one of two narratives related about him.
Abu Haneifa was of the opinion that the child should be turned over
to his father or to his paternal lineage (this is the judgment
followed by the Syrian, the Egyptian, and most of the Arab
countries' legislators). However, in another instance, Malek linked
the right to custody to the sex of the child: the girl should remain
with her mother until she gets married, and the boy should be with
the father until he dispenses with his assistance. In devotion to
their totalitarian reputation, the disciples of Ibn Hanbal hold that
the choice should be made by the ruler. Ibn Taimiyah narrates a
story about two parents who contended for their child and litigated
with the ruler. The ruler gave the boy the choice and he chose the
father. The mother told the ruler: "Ask him for what reason he chose
his father!" When the ruler asked him the boy said: "My mother sends
me everyday to the religious scholar and the scholar beats me. And
my father lets me play with the boys." And so the ruler ordered that
the boy should be entrusted to his mother (25).
Regarding the responsibility of the child, there
is a generally accepted division into two phases: first, the stage
where, the child cannot make proper judgments (the pre-discernment
phase), which extends from the child's birth until he turns seven.
During this stage, the child cannot be punished for any religious
responsibility; there is only a civil responsibility for his wealth
lest others would be harmed. The second stage is the "discernment
phase," where the child eau make some judgments. It extends from
seven years of age until puberty. The child in this stage is
responsible for undertaking the duties related to harming others but
not to those of a contractual nature. The child is not to be
punished nor obliged to practice religious rituals. For some,
practicing religious rituals is necessary as a precautionary
measure, but the Prophetic sayings which mention such an obligation
are dubious, inconsistent, and contradict the Koranic principle
denouncing any compulsion in religion (26).
There is no Koranic verse which orders that a
child should be disciplined by beating. There are some dubious
Prophetic sayings that have been sanctioned as jurisprudential rules
whereby is a near consensus among traditionalists that the father,
the grand father, the custodian, the elder brother,
the tutor (whether a school teacher or a trade master) have
the right to discipline the child by beating. There is another
opinion which argues that the child cannot be beaten by anybody
other than his father or guardian except by their permission.
Believing that punishment should be the means of
discipline of the last resort, Ibn Sina (also known as Avicenna)
wrote (27):
"It is necessary to start by edifying the child
and accustoming him to the best of virtues starting from ablactate,
before the ill-favored habits - which are difficult to eradicate if
they become deep-rooted in the soul of a child - are infused. But
if it is necessary to resort to punishment, one should be cautious,
for the child should not at first be treated with violence but with
gentleness, and then desire should be mixed with fear. At times
frowning or what scolding is required should be used, and at some
other times praise and encouragement are more viable than scolding,
and this is according to each individual case. However, if the
resort to beating has become incumbent, the educator should not
hesitate to make the first strokes painful.
The same opinion is held by Ibn al-Jazzar in his
"Handling and Managing Children." Both emphasize the link between
the methods of upbringing and the different personality of each
child.
There is "an advanced educational opinion, held
by many physicians, that concentrates on non-violent methods in
4reating children, as for example using gentleness, frowning,
encouragement and praise, and does not prescribe any thing beyond
verbal scolding. Physicians since Abu Bakr al-Razi have emphasized
the necessity of taking me of children during the period of their
Progress towards puberty, which in our contemporary terminology is
called adolescence. It suffices here to cite the opinion of Ibn Sina:
The greatest attention
should be given to taking care of the child's manners, so that he
grows up right. And that is by protecting him lest lie is afflicted
by severe anger, fear, grief or amnesia. One should at all times
discern what the child likes and longs for to bring it near to him,
and what he hates to put aside from him. There are two benefits in
this: one for the child's soul - to grow up from childhood with good
manners that become a part of his character -and the other for- his
body, for in the same way that shabby manners bring about bad
temperament, if these manners are of one's character they entail bad
temperament... Thus, rectifying manners secures the health of both
the soul and the body (28).
The Right to
Care
In
Arabic medieval writings, one finds an important place given to the
child's right of care by physicians, philosophers, and a number of
jurisprudents. It is known that Abu Bakr al-Razi was the first to
separate pediatrics and gynecology, while the child had been always
studied and dealt with in relation to the mother. Thus the attempts
of dealing with the child by himself began. The first of these
attempts was the treatise of Abu Bakr al Razi on pediatrics around
the year 900 AD, which is available today in Hebrew, Latin, English,
and Italian, although the Arabic original is lost.
Also, among the most important writings is the
book, "Handling and Managing Children," by the physician Ahmad Ibn
al-Jazzar al-Qairawany. We find also that in that period
instructions for care started with the embryo: pregnant women were
instructed to sing for their babies and to caress their bellies. Ali
Ibn Habal al-Baghdady advised pregnant women to "avoid severe
exhaustion and long stay in baths. Delicate sports are beneficial,
and the pregnant woman should enjoy the breezes of air, delights,
promenading and all that gratifies the soul and enlivens the spirit.
If a disease befalls a pregnant women, she should be treated with
care, and she should avoid hemorrhage and diarrhea." (29)
Gharieb Ibn Sa'ad devoted a chapter of his "The
Creation of the Embryo and the Handling of Pregnant Women and
Newborns" to the care of the mother and its, impact on infants. He
warned of anything that might annoy the pregnant women, and he
prohibited them from fasting: "Pregnant women should not get hungry
and should not be obliged to fast for that harms her and the unborn
young."
Addressing the issue of psychological health
care, Ibn al-Jazzar stated (30) that a child "should not cry a lot
or else he could be afflicted by 'apolempisia.' So [the child]
should be quieted in the manner mentioned earlier, and by anything
that is known to divert his attention and stop him from crying, as
for example by carrying him in the arms gently and delicately and
moving him, and also by making, nice sounds for him and chanting
nice tunes. This is so because pleasant sounds delight the soul, and
thus if a pleasant tune is chanted for children - giving them
pleasure - they hush, calm down and sleep quickly. Also, a child
should be brought the things which are known to make him happy, and
he should be brought together with his peers. A child should be
guarded against things with loud voices and against scary faces that
frighten children as for example faces with veils on them, and also
against horrific things, for all of that and the like make the child
acquire a stern look."
Ibn Sina held that "in order to refine the temper
[of a child] two things are imperative. One is gentle rocking and
the other is the music and intonation customary for inducing
children to sleep. According to the child's predilection, he should
be prepared for sports and music, one for his body and the other for
his soul." (3 1)
Physicians have made comments regarding walking,
talking, running, sleep, as well as other educative advice. Thus,
for example, we find Ibn Sina advising that the child should be in
the company of well-behaved children because he acquires, a lot from
his peers, and emphasizing the importance of children's mingling
(32):"Conversing helps broaden the mind and makes the
incomprehensible clear, because each [child] speaks- of die sweetest
of what he saw and the sweetest of what he heard, and the oddity of
his words is a cause for wonderment and thus a cause for memorizing,
and also a reason for others to talk. Also, their companionship
refines their manners and animates their spirits."
Scholars have differed regarding the age at which
children should begin their education; some, like al-Abdary,
specified it at seven, and some others left it for parents to
decide. Also some scholars define the years of education and others
leave it open. Regarding the choice of vocation, al-Razi and al-Qayrawany
emphasize the necessity of developing the dispositions of the child
and of respecting his choices. The latter wrote: "When the child
reaches twelve, lie should be satisfied coning what he needs of
education and knowledge." (33) Ibn Sina, however, had a different
opinion: "Not every vocation that a child might desire is suitable
and convenient, [the suitable vocation] is that which corresponds
and to his character. And thus the guardian of the child should
study his character, examine his faculties and intelligence, and
accordingly decide on a vocation for him."
All scholars emphasize the necessity of
amusement, play and entertainment for children. Imam al-Ghazaly
supported this general view of philosophers and physicians. In his
"The Revival of the Religious Sciences," he wrote that "after
finishing his studies [the child] should be permitted to play nice
games to ease off the fatigue of studying, and he should not be
fatigued by play. Denying a child play and exhausting him
by incessant studying debases his heart and nullifies his
brain and embitters his life, making the child try every intrigue to
escape studying."
Physicians, along with a number of religious
scholars, concede that the most important phase of upbringing îs the
first seven years. In his "Spiritual Medicine" Ibn al-Jozy writes:
"The best conditioning is that which takes place in childhood.
Otherwise, if the boy is left to grow up with a certain character,
its rectification will be difficult." This opinion is shared by Imam
al-Ghazaly, Ibn al-Jazzar, and Ali Ibn Abbas al-Majoussy.
In the time of Omar Ibn al-Khattab, -elementary
schools were founded, and (according to several narratives) the
treasury used to remunerate the tutors and the students. Later,
elementary schools became widespread; some of them were established
by philanthropists for poor children and orphans, and some were
founded by the al-Daywahji mentions the existence of segregated and
mixed elementary schools (34).
Instruction was entrusted to both men and women.
Ibn Hazm al-Andalussy mentioned that he had been a student of women,
who taught him the Koran, poetry,' calligraphy, and sciences till
the age of twenty. There were prominent women instructors as, for
example, al-Shaffa'a Bint Abdullah alAdawiyah, Karima Bint al-Miqdad,
Um-Kalthoum Bint Uqba and 'Aisha Bint Sawad. Mawlat Abi Imamah was
known to teach women voluntarily in the mosque of Hams. With the
civilizational deterioration of the Arabs and Muslims, mixed schools
started to disappear, and prominent women came to supervise
all-women associations for the education of poor and handicapped
women in Baghdad, Najaf, Damascus and Cairo.
Preliminary
Conclusions
It
might be easy to reduce the Arab Islamic experience using
expressions such as "the rules of Shari'a" and "the position of
Islam," but in this case we would not only be negating the
accumulated wealth of the Islamic experience, but also the richness
of the products of the struggle between it and the secular
experience in the Islamic countries. This article provided evidence
that the right to difference was the locomotive of ideas and the
dynamo of enlightenment: al-Ghazaly was not ashamed of drawing on
the heretical physicians in his comments on socialization, and
likewise Ibn Sina appropriated some of the positions of Abu Haneifa
and al-Shafei. Although some fanatics find fault with Arab
pediatrics because it introduced music to hospitals as well as
story-tellers to entertain children, it is a source of pride to
every Arab today that the infirmaries treatment by music and by
entertainment with story-telling.
It is
certain that this article would frustrate anyone who had awaited a
comprehensive historical reading of the contents of the UN
Convention on Child Rights, or else what is the meaning of progress?
And although there were some leaps here and there, is it possible to
compare a condition where the judgment of slave-girls before the law
is different than that of free women to a world where all forms of
slavery (through trade, capture in war or inheritance) has been
abolished? And can we forget that the door of independent judgment
had been closed centuries before the opening of the human rights
file?
Our culture made its contributions to the attempt
to answer to the needs of the child and the requirements of the
child's development and care as did others. It sanctioned a number
of child rights that could not but be a source of pride for ail of
humanity, and to a great extent it succeeded in this because it
opened its heart to the knowledge of Greece, Rome, Persia, India and
China, without fear, and tried to assimilate their treasures without
bigotry.
If there is a task to be shouldered,, it would be
to escape the logic of comparison which loses all its meaning when
situated beyond time and place, and to embrace the logic and spirit
of our times, in order to answer the fundamental questions that
face., us and respond to the existential challenges that confront
us, in the manner of the renaissance tree which knew how to absorb
from the waters of history and contemporaries and how to be enriched
by the fertilizers, of the great human cultures in order to produce
new fruits for new generations.
Notes and
References
1.
The tetra logy is published by the Cairo Institute for Human Rights
Studies (1995-1997) and the Arab Commission for Human Rights for the
last one.
2. Haytham Manna , Alkam, al-Noqta
Publishers, Paris, 1994.
3. Ibn Manzour, Lissan al-Arab (The
Arabs' Tongue), Sadder Publishers, Beirut See: Child.
4. Ibid.
5. Haytham. Manna , Intaj Alinsan Sharkil
Mutawasset, al-Usba, al-Kabila, alDawla (The Production of Man
in the East of Mediterranean: Agnat, Tribe and State), al-Nidal
Publishers, Beirut, 1986. p. 53.
6. Dr. Adel Jassem al-Bayaty, alToffoula Wa
Mashqhiduhq al-Mutaghaira Fil Turath Wal Adab (Childhood and its
Changing Scenes in the [Arabic] Heritage and Literature), Arabic
Perspectives, Baghdad, Number 4, 1979.
7. "Shir Malek Ibn Uraib" (the poetry
of Malek Ibn Uraib), edited by Dr. Noury al-Qaisy, in The Magazine
of the Institute of Arabic Manuscripts, Cairo, Volume 15, part One.
8. Jadul Haq Aly Jadul Haq, al-Toffoula Fi
Zil,al-Shari'a al-Islamyia (Childhood Under Islamic Sharia), al-Azhar,
September, 1995, p.3 1.
9. Dr. Shawkat al-Shatty, al-Islam Wal Tibb
(Islam and Medicine), University of Damascus, 1960, p.73.
10. Ibid., p.74.
11. Dr. Mahmoud al-Hajj Qassem Ma hammad,
Tarikh Tibb al-Atffal(History of Arab Pediatrics), the
try of Culture and Arts, Baghdad, 1978
12. Abdel Qader al-Baghdady, al-Farq Baynal
Firaq (Differences between the Sects), New Horizons Publishers,
BC-11third Print, 1978, p. 166.
13. Ibn Hazm al-Andalussy, al-Fasl Fil
Millal Wal Ahwaa Wal Nihhal (The Sound Judgment on Sects),
Dispositions Creeds'), Muhammad Ali Sobeih
Bookshop and Publishers, Cairo, Part 4, p.35.
14.' Ibid., pp. 32-33.
15. al-Ash'ary, Kitab al-lum’a Fil Radd Ala
Ahlil Ziyagh Wal Bida'a (Book of Spiendour in Response to the
People of perversities and Heresies), Beirut, 1952,
p.45.
16. Ibid., p.71.
17. Dr. Nasr Hamed Abu Zeid, al-Itijah al-Akly
Fil Tafseer (The Intellective Approach in Interpretation), al-Tanweer
Publishers, Beirut, Ihird Print, 1993, p.20.
18. Haytham Manna , Islam and Disease. Ph.D.
Thesis submitted to the Higher Institute of Social Sciences, Paris,
1983. The chapter on the causality of disease.
19. Ahmad Fathi Bahnasy, al-Mas'uliya al-findiya
Fil Fiqh al-Islami (Criminal Liability in Islamic
Jurisprudence), Beirut, third Print, 1988, p.270.
20. Abul Muzaffar Taher Ibn Muhammad al-Asfaniyeeti,
Kitab al-Tabseer Fil Deen Wa Tamyyz al-Firka al-Najiyah 'An Firak
al-Halekeen (The Book of Explaining the Belief and
Distinguishing the Saved Sect Front die Perished Sects), Paris
Manuscript Number 1452, Paper Number 26.
21. Ibn Hazm, op. cit., Part 5, p.32.
22. Bahnassy, op. cit., p. 223.
23. al-Jahez, al-Hayawan (Living
Creatures), Cairo, 1943, Part Seven, p. 56.
24. Abu Ubaid al-Qassern Ibn Salam, Kitab
al-Amwal (The Book of Finance), al-Azhar and Dar al-Fikr, Cairo,
1976, pp. 203-303.
25. Ibrahim Fawzy, Ahkam al-Usra Fil
Jahiliya Wal Islam (Family Codes in Pre Islamic Times and Under
Islam), al-Kalima, Beirut, 1983, p.82.
26. As, for example, the Prophetic saying
which is often cited by the Islamists when dealing with raising
children: "Order your children to pray when they are seven, and beat
them for it when they are ten, and separate their places of sleep"
(cited by Jadul Haq, op. cit, p.32), as well as. "On the seventh day
of his birth, a lamb should be slaughtered for the sake of the boy,
he should be named, and protected from dangers. When the boy reaches
six, he should be disciplined, and when he reaches even his bed
should be separated. At thirteen he should be beaten for prayer and
fasting, and at sixteen his father should marry him off and then
help him out." (Cited by Muhammad Attiya al-Ebrashy, Islamic
Upbringing and its Philosophy: The Stages of Up ringing, p.52.)
27. Ibn Sina, Kitab al-Siyasah (The
Book of Polities) cited in Muhammad, op. cit., p. 150,
28. Ibn Sina, al-Qanoun Fil Tibb (Canon
of Medicine), al-Muthanna Publishers, Baghdad, p. 1571.
29. Edited by Dr. Muhammad al-Habeeb al-Hayla
and published in 1968.
30. Aly Ibn Hubal al-Baghdady, alMukhtarat
Fil Tibb (An Anthology of Medicine). See the first part.
31. Ibn al-Jazzar, op. cit., pp. 68-69.
32. Ibn Sina, the Book of Politics, cited in
Muhammad, op. cit., p. 137.
33. Ali Ibn Abbas al-Majoussy, Kamel al-Sin’a
(The Comprehensive in Art of Medecine), Part Two, p.58.
34. Sa'id al-Daywahji, "al-Ta'aleem alizami
Fil Islam" (Mandatory Education in Islam), Arab Horizons, Issue
6, 1979.
Translated by Wassim Wagdy
Published
for the first time in Riwaq Arabi – Cairo 1997.
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