178 children: The Islamic World A musical toy from a copy of al-Jazari’s treatise on automata (opaque watercolor, ink, and gold on paper); Syria, 14th century (Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution) in North Africa and Arabia than elsewhere, probably because some pagan cultures in those regions had practiced female circumcision before their conversion to Islam The matter of educating girls was contentious Muhammad had set an example by having well-educated wives, but he was also quoted as having said that teaching a woman to write was like feeding venom to a snake, which some people interpreted to mean that just as giving a snake poison would make it more venomous, educating a woman would make her more poisonous Many girls therefore were denied any kind of education and even punished if they learned to read Yet many people reasoned that like a boy, a girl had to learn to read the Koran and commentaries on the Koran to fulfill God’s wishes Before the age of seven, children learned to read and write mostly from male family members such as fathers, uncles, cousins, and older brothers and sometimes from educated female family members Seemingly, a girl was more likely to become educated if she had educated female relatives as her teachers In general, it was acceptable for a woman to teach boys and for a man to teach girls In fact, some women became esteemed for their knowledge of the Koran and religious laws and were sought out by adults who wished to learn from them The educational process involved learning passages by rote At age seven a child would be expected to learn to recite the shortest chapters in the Koran and work his or her way through increasingly long passages Reciting the Koran from beginning to end was an act of piety that every educated person was expected to on important occasions and to mark religious holidays A child who could so was a source of pride to the family By the 1000s a child was also expected to learn the hadith, which were accounts of what Muhammad said or did These, too, were memorized Although paper made its way into the Islamic world from China by the 1000s, it was too expensive for any but the wealthiest of people to