ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the changes the expanding religions introduced, focusing on Buddhism and Islam particularly but with attention also to Christianity. These were the three religions whose expansion helped shape the whole postclassical period, with Islam actually established for the first time in the postclassical period. The religions resembled faiths like Hinduism and Judaism in many ways, but they introduced important innovations as well. The chapter considers implications of more extensive religious commitments for childhood, and the approaches of Buddhism and Islam more particularly. The fastest-growing religion during the postclassical period, Islam evinced several special interests concerning childhood, some of which blended with other aspects of Middle Eastern civilization. Childhoods in classical China and the Mediterranean resembled each other more than they differed. The Prophet Muhammad, whose own kindness to children was often cited, in specifically condemning the practice of infanticide in Arab tradition, offered another indication that early childhood commanded real and sympathetic attention in this new religion.
