When the discerning power begins to preponderate, it should be explained to him that the original object of worldly possessions is the maintenance of health; so that the body may be made to last the period requisite to the spirit’s qualifying itself for the life eternal. Then, if he is to belong to the scientific classes, let him be instructed in the sciences. Let him be employed (as soon as disengaged from studying the essentials of the religion) in acquiring the sciences. The best course is to ascertain, by examination of the youth’s character, for what science or art he is best qualified, and to employ him accordingly; for, agreeably to the proverb, “All facilities are not created to the same person”; everyone is not qualified for every profession, but each for a particular one.
This, indeed, is the expression of a principle by which the fortunes of man and of the world are regulated. With the old philosophers it was a practice to inspect the horoscope of nativity, and to devote the child to that profession which appeared from the planetary positions to be suitable to his nature. When a person is adapted to a profession, he can acquire it with little pains; and when unadapted, the utmost he can do is but to waste his time and defer his establishment in life. When a profession bears an incongruity with his nature, and means and appliances are unpropitious, we should not urge him to pursue it, but exchange it for some other, provided that there is no hope at all of succeeding with the first; otherwise it may lead to his perplexity. In the prosecution of every profession, let him adopt a system which will call into play the ardour of his nature, assist him in preserving health, and prevent obtusity and lassitude.
As soon as he is perfect in a profession, let him be required to gain his livelihood thereby; in order that, from an experience of its advantages, he may strive to master it completely, and make full progress in the minutiæ of its principles. And for this livelihood he must be trained to look to that honourable emolument which characterises the well-connected. He must not depend on the provision afforded by his father. For it generally happens, when the sons of the wealthy, by the pride of their parents’ opulence, are debarred from acquiring a profession, that they sink by the vicissitudes of fortune into utter insignificance. Therefore, when he has so far mastered his profession as to earn a livelihood, it is expedient to provide him with a consort, and let him depend on his separate earning. The Kings of Fārs, forbearing to bring their sons up surrounded by domestics and retinue, sent them off to a distance, in order to habituate them to a life of hardship. The Dilemite chiefs had the same practice. A person bred upon the opposite principle can hardly be brought to good, especially if at all advanced in years; like hard wood which is with difficulty straightened. And this was the answer Socrates gave, when asked why his intimacies lay chiefly among the young.
In training daughters to that which befits them, domestic ministration, rigid seclusion, chastity, modesty, and the other qualities already appropriated to women—no care can be too great. They should be made emulous of acquiring the virtues of their sex, but must be altogether forbidden to read and write. When they reach the marriageable age, no time should be lost in marrying them to proper mates. (See Ak͟hlāq-i-Jalālī, Thompson’s ed.)
CHILD STEALING. The hand of a thief is not to be cut off for stealing a free-born child, although there be ornaments upon it, because a free person is not property, and the ornaments are only appendages; and also because the thief may plead that he took the child up when it was crying, with a view to appease it, and to deliver it to the nurse. But Abū Yūsuf does not agree with Ḥanīfah; for he says where the value of the ornaments amounts to ten dirms, amputation is incurred. Amputation is also inflicted for stealing an infant slave, because a slave is property, although Abū Yūsuf says it is not. (Hidāyah, ii. 91.)
CHOSROES. Arabic K͟husraw. The King of Persia to whom Muḥammad sent a letter inviting him to Islām. He is said to be Nausherwān. (See G͟hiyās̤u ʾl-Lug͟hāt, in loco; refer also to Muir’s Life of Mahomet, vol. ii. 54 n.)
CHRIST. [[JESUS CHRIST].]
CHRISTIANITY and CHRISTIANS. Arabic, Naṣrānīyah, “Christianity”; the terms used for Christians being Naṣrān, pl. Naṣāra, or ʿĪsawī.
Christianity seems to have been widely diffused in Arabia at the time of Muḥammad. According to Caussin de Perceval, who quotes from Arabic writers, Christianity existed amongst the Banū Tag͟hlib of Mesopotamia, the Banū ʿAbdu ʾl-Qais, the Banū Hāris̤ of Najrān, the Banū G͟hassān of Syria, and other tribes between al-Madīnah and al-Kūfah.
The historian Philostorges (Hist. Eccles. lib. 1, c. 3) tells us that a monk named Theophilus, who was an Indian bishop, was sent by the Emperor Constance, A.D. 342, to the Ḥimyarite King of Yaman, and obtained permission to build three Christian churches for those who professed Christianity; one at Zafār, another at ʿAdan, and a third at Hurmuz on the Persian Gulf. According to the same author, the Christian religion was introduced into Najrān in the fifth century. A bishop sent by the Patriarch of Alexandria was established in the city of Zafār, and we are told by Muslim authors, quoted by Caussin de Perceval, that a Christian church was built at Ṣanʿāʾ which was the wonder of the age, the Roman Emperor and the Viceroy of Abyssinia furnishing the materials and workmen for the building. The Arabs of Yaman were ordered by the ruler of Abyssinia to perform a pilgrimage to this new church instead of to the Kaʿbah; an edict which is said to have been resisted and to have given rise to the “War of the Elephant,” when Abrahah, the Viceroy of Egypt, took an oath that he would destroy the Meccan temple, and marched at the head of an army of Abyssinians, mounted on an elephant. This “War of the Elephant” marks the period of Muḥammad’s birth. [[MUHAMMAD].]