Promotion of Learning in India during Muhammadan Rule (by Muhammadans) c20.2

c20.2

WE have some evidence proving that female education was also cared for in Muhammadan India. No doubt the education of females was greatly restricted by the *pardah* system which stood in the way of females beyond a certain age being sent to schools, but there was no such obstacle so far as the young girls were concerned. Thus we learn from Ja'far Sharīf that girls were taught in schools. He describes minutely in his *Qānūni-Islām*¹ the custom how a boy or a girl after having finished reading the *Qur'ān* makes presents to the teacher in an assembly invited for the purpose. The author further says that when a boy or a girl goes to school, it is the usual practice for the teacher to write an 'Īdī (a verse of something relating to the 'Īd) or a blessing for the child on a coloured or zarafshānī (illuminated) paper which is read by the child to the parents who make presents to the tutor. Whenever the pupil commences a new book, it is customary to entertain the teacher, to observe what is called