Promotion of Learning in India during Muhammadan Rule (by Muhammadans) c20.4

c20.4

*Hadyah*, and present him with money sent by the parents, on which occasion a half-holiday is given to the school. There can be no doubt, therefore, that young girls as well were regularly taught in schools. Besides this evidence of custom of sending girls to school, we have as an historical fact noticed before, that Raẓiyah, who succeeded Altamash on the throne of Delhi, was an educated princess. It appears also that Sulṭān Ghiyāṣuddīn, who reigned in Mālwa from 1469 to 1500, established within his seraglio all the separate offices of the court, and had at one time, we are told, fifteen thousand women within his palace. "Among these were *school-mistresses*, musicians, women to read prayers, and persons of all professions and trades."¹ The very fact that he retained schoolmistresses in the harem indicates that the ladies in the palace were taught by them.