The devshirme system began in the late 14th century. Christian boys were recruited by force to serve the Ottoman government. The boys were generally taken from the Balkan provinces, converted to Islam, and then passed through a series of examinations to determine their intelligence and capabilities. In special palace schools, they learned Arabic, Persian, Turkish, math, calligraphy, Islam, horsemanship, and/or weaponry. Working in the sultan's personal services was also part of the overall education, and this entailed assigning the boys to various rooms in the palace to look after such items as the sultan's hunting birds or the sultan's valuables. At the conclusion of each stage of the boys' training, the boys passed through a selection and promotion process. The academic education at the palace schools was one of the finest in the Islamic world and among its aims was to produce obedience, as well as high morals. Because of their loyalty to the state, the boys would become guards, gatekeepers, scribes, pages, governors, soldiers, or prime ministers, depending on their merit and seniority. Although the boys were essentially transformed into state slaves, most considered it an honor as it led to a highly privileged position in Ottoman administration. This system lasted through the 16th century. There is some evidence that some families (including Muslim families) voluntarily put forth their children to be admitted into this system because of the opportunities it provided.

This image shows a group of boys when they were first conscripted. The boys were dressed in red to avoid their escape. Boys were recruited from anywhere between 8 and 20 years of age.

During the Abassid period and onward, children four or older in villages and urban centers began attending schools (maktabs) attached to mosques to obtain a basic education in religious matters. Students in a maktab sat in a semicircle on the floor around the teacher writing their lessons on a tablet and then repeating it back for correction. In this illustration, one boy recites for the teacher while another boy takes his turn pulling the ceiling fan. Attendance at maktabs was voluntary; typically, wealthier families paid for their child to attend and poorer students exchanged the running of a teacher's errands for tuition. Successful students could go on to study with individual scholars at madrasas, which were supported by an endowment.

Generally, girls did not attend schools and when they were educated, if at all, it was in separate facilities or by private tutors. Some women made notable contributions to Islamic scholarship in the medieval period, routinely giving lectures, traveling for knowledge, transmitting and critiquing hadith, and issuing legal decisions. They did so within the cultural conventions of modesty and avoiding, to the extent possible, mixing with men.

In medieval times, education was a key factor of Islamic society. It was considered the purpose for which God created man. As such, belief and education were not separated from one another. The first revealed verse of the Qur'an is "Read," demonstrating the value placed on knowledge and learning. Islamic civilization created a golden age of education during the European dark ages. For example, in the 9th century the library of the largest monastery in Europe contained 36 volumes, while Islamic cities, like Cordoba and Baghdad, at that time built public and private libraries with more than 400,000 books. Many of the achievements of the European Renaissance were later based on the accumulated knowledge of medieval Islamic civilization.

The selections from this document provide a glimpse into the education that made a great scholar of the Islamic Middle Ages. During childhood, such an education left little time for rest and play. Also, fathers played a large role in decision-making about a child's academic path. The selections from this autobiography document the important role blind people played as tutors for children in the education system.

Statesman, jurist, historian, scholar, and philosopher Ibn Khaldun was born in Tunis on May 27, 1332. Ibn Khaldun is an exemplary example of product of the Islamic education that children and youth received. He received a traditional early education of Qur'an, jurisprudence, and Arabic grammar. In his early 20s traveled to Fes to complete his education with the eminent scholars of his day. Ibn Khaldun wrote The Muqaddimah in 1377 as the preface and first book of his world history volume. It is regarded as the earliest attempt made by any historian to discover patterns in changes in political and social organization and it represents a departure from traditional historiography that merely chronicled events. The majority of the volume was prepared in the form of academic lectures to be read aloud. The text often appears repetitive, but this makes sense in light of Ibn Khaldun's new terminology the fact that he wrote before the invention of printing.

Ibn Khaldun was remarkably modern and scientific in his thinking. At the same time, he was very much a part of his age in that he based his rational views on unquestioned religious, physical, and geographical assumptions. For example, in this selection, Ibn Khaldun criticizes the traditional pedagogy of rote memorization that was practiced in Islamic societies for teaching children and youth. However, he later goes on to explain that inhabitants of the eastern parts of Islamic civilization have accrued superior intelligence because of their sedentary culture (the western region consisted largely of nomadic Berber tribes). This document brings up the question of how effective memorization is as a pedagogical technique for teaching children and youth.

On the two major celebrations of the Islamic lunar calendar—Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha—public festivities in cities and towns across Muslim regions of Asia, Africa, and elsewhere include rides of various kinds. In the photograph at top from Jenin, in the West Bank city of Palestine, children and young adults ride a whirling disk brought in for the occasion. In the lower photograph, Afghani children ride swings suspended from wire cables. Large and small swings, slides, seesaws, elephant rides and moon bounces make up the amusements for Eid, or celebration day, enjoyed with family, food from street stalls, sweets, and gifts of money and toys. The occasion of Eid al-Fitr, shown in these images from September 2009, is the end of the month-long fast from dawn to sunset during the ninth lunar month of Ramadan. (Bracketed by the sighting of the new moon, the month of Ramadan may be 28 or 29 days in length.) During that month, adult Muslims are obligated to abstain from food, drink, and sexual activity, except for those whose health does not permit it, such as diabetics, or travelers, who make up the days later. Children show a remarkable enthusiasm for participating in the Ramadan fast, even though they are not required to fast. Beginning as young as 5 or 6, however, children join other members of the family to fast part of the day, or just a few days in the month. They also join in family meals, which often include guests, visits to other homes, and trips to the mosque (Arabic, masjid) for evening prayers. The first day of the tenth lunar month—Shawwal—is the day of Eid al-Fitr, which begins with prayers held outdoors to accommodate the huge crowds.

The photograph at the top shows two children gazing into the soft light of a fanoos [fan-NOOS], or traditional Ramadan lantern. In the photograph below, Ramadan lanterns are hung outside a shop in a section of medieval Cairo. As far as is known, the tradition originated in Egypt, perhaps as long ago as pharaonic times, when it may have announced the Nile flood. The tradition in its current form may date to the Fatimid period (969-1171 CE). It isn’t clear when the custom became associated with the Islamic holiday of Ramadan, the ninth month of the Islamic lunar calendar, when Muslims keep the fast from dawn to sunset. Indeed, lanterns and lamps of various kinds, of many hues and degrees of brightness, and even both real and imaginary, have always been special to Egypt. For centuries before the coming of electricity, Cairo itself was noted for its spectacular use of lanterns to illuminate the city, especially during the holy month of Ramadan.

The tradition of the colorful lanterns is coupled with the song, which children sing as they process through the streets of Egyptian, and especially Cairene neighborhoods announcing the coming of Ramadan, and collecting coins and sweets. The words of the song that are not translated are obscure, perhaps referring to fire or light (wahawi, ya wahawi). "You have gone, O Sha'ban" refers to the lunar month before Ramadan, and "the daughter of the Sultan is wearing her caftan" means she is dressed in a loose, often embroidered garment worn when going out and on holidays. "Give us this season's gift" is a plea for the small presents children would receive from adults for going out in procession to announce the coming of Ramadan.

Children are typically very excited about the coming of Ramadan, because it is a festive time that lasts an entire month. Even though abstaining from food and drink daily from dawn to sunset is a hardship, many children are anxious to participate as much as they can, fasting part of the day or just a few days. Some manage to fast the whole month by the age of ten or so. After sunset each day, in contrast, special, abundant food, friends and family, and evening activities, including visits to the mosque (Arabic, masjid) take place. Ramadan culminates in the major festival called Eid al-Fitr at the end of the month. Children traditionally receive new shoes and clothing, money, sweets and toys as a reward for just trying, or accomplishing the fast.

The top photograph shows the mummified remains of the 15-year-old Inca child, known as the "Llullaillaco Maiden," who was sacrificed with two other children, a boy of seven years old, shown in the photograph below, and a six-year-old girl, whose mummy had been struck by lightning and was charred. The children had walked or been brought to the top of Mt. Llullaillco, in northern Argentina, elevation 22,000 feet (6706 meters), a volcano near the Chilean border today. According to archaeologists and cultural historians, the children were victims of a sacrificial ritual called capacocha. The children were chosen for their beauty and possibly nobility, honored by their selection, and well-fed and cared for before their ritual deaths. According to Inca beliefs, such children were to serve as guardians over their villages from the heights of the mountains, joining the ancestors and honored in death. Before their deaths, they had participated in ceremonies at Cuzco, possibly walking hundreds of miles. They were taken to the top of Mt. Llullaillaco. Their deaths may have been painless, as they were given chicha, a strong alcoholic beverage made from maize. The older girl had pieces of coca leaves on her mouth. They would have fallen asleep from intoxication before they were placed in burial niches where they froze to death in the thin air.

The children wore shoes or slippers as well as colorful clothing elaborately decorated with metal, bone, and cords. The children were not wrapped into bundles, but loosely wrapped in shawls. They sat cross-legged or crouched as they would have fallen asleep. The older girl’s face, which showed red ochre markings, was creased from the place it rested on her shawl. The girl’s long hair was plaited into fine braids that are still fully intact. Among the artifacts placed with them were figurines donning headdresses decorated with colorful bird feathers.

The image from the Codex Mendoza (produced ca. 1535-1550) describes the Aztec birth ritual of bathing and naming the child, which, according to accounts from the 16th century, was usually held on the fourth day after birth. It was attended by the parents and kin, who gathered in the house before sunrise to feast and observe the ceremony. The midwife who aided the birth conducted the ceremony, and she is shown holding the infant. After consulting with the tonalpouhqui, a person knowledgeable in the sacred books would determine the sign of the child based on the moment of birth.

The image is a narrative, showing a sequence of events through the use of multiple images connected by dotted lines. The midwife took the infant from the cradle near its mother and carried it to a pottery vessel filled with water, placed on a mat. The midwife's counterclockwise footprints circle the mat, where two sets of symbolic objects are placed. Male infants were given a shield and arrows, tools for wood-, feather-, and metal-work, and the scribe's implements (depicted above the mat). Female children were given domestic objects: a broom, a reed basket and a spindle (depicted below the mat). The midwife performed four rituals with the water: she invoked the goddess of water and put drops of water on the baby's mouth, telling it to receive the water it needs to live upon the earth; she touched the baby's chest with her wet hand and invoked the purifying property of water that cleans the heart; she cast drops of water on the baby's head, telling the baby to let the water enter its body to dwell there. Finally, the midwife washed the child's body to keep evil away from it. After these four rites, a boy child was presented to the sky four times, calling on the sun and the astral gods, asking that he become a warrior. A girl child was not presented to the sky—a masculine god, but after the washing the midwife spoke to the cradle asking the protection of the mother goddess. Following the ceremony, the baby was given a name, often one based on the day and time of birth.

Aztec children were valued creations. Language used in rituals compared infants to precious stones and feathers, flakes of stone, ornaments, or sprouts of plants. The duty of parents and society, however was not to indulge but to socialize the child, so that they would not become "fruitless trees," as an Aztec proverb stated. According to sources written shortly after the Spanish conquest, such as the Codex Mendoza, society placed a high value on conformity, obedience, and decorum. The section of the Codex Mendoza that depicts daily life shows gender-specific punishments used in raising children. The image seems to show a sequence of punishments, first threatening the boy and the girl with three maguey thorns, the spike of the agave plant. In the second image, the woman is administering punishment to the girl by piercing her arm with the maguey thorn; the boy is pierced more severely in the neck, flank, and hip, and he is bound at the wrists and ankles. In the third image, the punishment of striking the child with a stick or rod is being carried out. In each case the image shows the children weeping profusely as the threat or the punishment is administered.

Annotation written by Susan Douglass.

From the time of birth, children in Aztec, or Nahua, society were socialized into gender roles. In the birth ritual introducing the infant to society, symbolic objects clearly differentiated. Boys were to be warriors and craftsmen, and girls were to tend to domestic chores. Articles of clothing—loincloth and cape for the boy, shift and skirt for the girl—were given to the child. The umbilical cord of the boy was buried in a field to associate him with the battlefield; the girl’s cord was buried in a corner of the house, each space signifying the sites of social productivity. The image from the Codex Mendoza depicts ways in which childhood socialization patterns differed for boys and girls, systematically divided into panels on the left and right sides of the page, each vignette separated from the other by a line. In each scene, male and female adults preside over raising boys and girls, respectively. From infant to adult, children were classed into age-cohorts, each with its expectations. A ritual called izcalli took place every four years and involved a purification ceremony for children of that cohort in a fire with the acrid smoke from chili peppers. The image shows a small boy being held over the fire, the girl in front of it. Children were also held up by the head or neck to make them grow tall; their ears were pierced with maguey thorns for later ornaments. Other scarification rituals took place at various stages of maturity. After the age of four, children became responsible for gender-specific chores, and began to wear adult-like garments. They were socialized into patterns of speaking, showing respect, and sitting in gender-specific postures. Boys learned endurance, sleeping bound on the cold, wet ground; girls perfected sweeping rituals for purification of the house. The boy is taught to carry firewood, while the girl learns to grind maize and make tortillas. The image on the bottom shows an older boy learning to fish, and the girl weaving spun thread on a back-strap loom—both tasks that would require a child to reach a certain size and strength. These measures in early childhood may reflect brief life expectancies in which every member of the family had to contribute to the prosperity of the society.

Annotation written by Susan Douglass.