KARACHI: Using a variety of visual materials from picture books, comics, posters and stamps from Pakistan, Iran, Turkey and Syria, professor of the humanities, religious studies and South Asia studies at the University of Pennsylvania Jamal J. Elias examined the moral and religious constructions of children during his talk ‘Angels and monsters: children, emotion and visual culture in Islamic societies’ at the Aga Khan University’s Sixth Sense Forum lecture series on Tuesday.

Prof Elias, who has lectured and published extensively on a broad range of subjects relevant to the mediaeval and modern Islamic world, said that childhood innocence and cuteness are cornerstones of the values and self-image of societies in many parts of the world. “But beneath the veneer of idealised childhood lies a range of problematic assumptions and constructions concerning the nature and place of children,” he said.

In the context of Pakistan, he shared posters of children reading the Quran or praying. The females in the posters are either older sisters or innocent girls dressed modestly and hoping for good things for everyone. If there is a woman anywhere, she is shown as a mother helping her children to follow the right path. “If she is a child, she is shown as the more responsible of children when compared to boys,” he said.

Speaking of Iran, he showed pages or covers from some of their children’s picture books where little boys are shown wearing headbands on which is written ‘Ya Hussain’, looking forward to growing up and becoming soldiers. He mentioned the example of one particularly serious children’s book about a boy, the protagonist of the story, who runs away from home to fight in the battle of Khorramshahr during the Iran-Iraq War. Meanwhile, there is a picture of a wailing girl clutching the Quran in the book.

Coming to Turkey, Prof Elias had more story books from that country in which the boys are encouraged to become soldiers and girls are expected to remain strong and supportive. They can’t be soldiers themselves but they can grow up and give birth to a soldier.

Looking at Syria, there was cuteness as a sign of virtue in their literature and posters. Children are seen as pure and innocent so they are also expected to be pious. “They are linked to ‘husn o’ jamal’ to portray the beauty of the soul but as Imam Ghazali argues external beauty cannot be compared to inner beauty,” he said.

Published in Dawn, April 19th, 2017