Circumcision is generally performed before the boy is submitted to the instruction of the schoolmaster.[230] Previously to the performance of this rite, he is, if belonging to the higher or middle rank of society, usually paraded about the neighbourhood of his parents' dwelling, gaily attired, chiefly with female habits and ornaments, but with a boy's turban on his head, mounted on a horse, preceded by musicians, and followed by a group of his female relations and friends. This ceremony is observed by the great with much pomp and with sumptuous feasts. El-Jabartee mentions a fête celebrated on the occasion of the circumcision of a son of the Ḳáḍee of Cairo, in the year of the Flight 1179 (A.D. 1766), when the grandees and chief merchants and ´ulamà of the city sent him such abundance of presents that the magazines of his mansion were filled with rice and butter and honey and sugar; the great hall, with coffee; and the middle of the court, with fire-wood: the public were amused for many days by players and performers of various kinds; and when the youth was paraded through the streets he was attended by numerous memlooks with their richly caparisoned horses and splendid arms and armour and military band, and by a number of other youths, who, out of compliment to him, were afterwards circumcised with him. This last custom is usual on such occasions; and so also is the sending of presents, such as those above mentioned, by friends, acquaintances, and tradespeople. At a fête of this kind, when the Khaleefeh El-Muḳtedir circumcised five of his sons, the money that was scattered in presents amounted to six hundred thousand pieces of gold, or about £300,000. Many orphans were also circumcised on the same day, and were presented with clothes and pieces of gold.[231] The Khaleefeh above mentioned was famous for his magnificence, a proof of which I have given before (p. 122 ff.). At the more approved entertainments which are given in celebration of a circumcision, a recital of the whole of the Ḳur-án, or a zikr, is performed: at some others, male or female public dancers perform in the court of the house or in the street before the door.
Few of the children of the Arabs receive much instruction in literature, and still fewer are taught even the rudiments of any of the higher sciences; but there are numerous schools in their towns, and one at least in almost every moderately large village. The former are mostly attached to mosques and other public buildings, and, together with those buildings, are endowed by princes or other men of rank, or wealthy tradesmen. In these the children are instructed either gratis or for a very trifling weekly payment, which all parents save those in indigent circumstances can easily afford. The schoolmaster generally teaches nothing more than to read, and to recite by heart the whole of the Ḳur-án. After committing to memory the first chapter of the sacred volume, the boy learns the rest in the inverse order of their arrangement, as they generally decrease in length (the longest coming first, and the shortest at the end). Writing and arithmetic are usually taught by another master; and grammar, rhetoric, versification, logic, the interpretation of the Ḳur-án, and the whole system of religion and law, with all other knowledge deemed useful, which seldom includes the mere elements of mathematics, are attained by studying at a collegiate mosque, and at no expense; for the professors receive no pay either from the students, who are mostly of the poorer classes, or from the funds of the mosque.