The Women of the Arabs. Henry Harris Jessup
is mostly a kind of rhymed prose, it often contains striking and beautiful thoughts. They called improvised poetry "the daughter of the hour."
The queen of Arabic poetesses is El Khunsa, who flourished in the days of Mohammed. Elegies on her two warrior brothers Sakhr and Mu'awiyeh are among the gems of ancient Arabic poetry. She was not what would be called in modern times a refined or delicate lady, being regarded as proud and masculine in temper even by the Arabs of her own age. In the eighth year of the Hegira, her son Abbas brought a thousand warriors to join the forces of the Prophet. She came with him and recited her poetry to Mohammed. She lamented her brother for years. She sang of Sakhr:
"His goodness is known by his brotherly face,
Thrice blessed such sign of a heavenly grace:
You would think from his aspect of meekness and shame,
That his anger was stirred at the thought of his fame.
Oh rare virtue and beautiful, natural trait,
Which never will change by the change of estate!
When clad in his armor and prepared for the fray,
The army rejoiceth and winneth the day!"
Again, she lamented him as follows:
"Each glorious rising sun brings Sakhr to my mind,
I think anew of him when sets the orb of day;
And had I not beheld the grief and sorrow blind
Of many mourning ones o'er brothers snatched away,
I should have slain myself, from deep and dark despair."
The poet Nabighah erected for her a red leather tent at the fair of Okaz, in token of honor, and in the contest of poetry gave her the highest place above all but Maymûn, saying to her, "If I had not heard him, I would say that thou didst surpass every one in poetry. I confess that you surpass all women." To which she haughtily replied, "Not the less do I surpass all men."
The following are among the famous lines of El Khunsa, which gave her the title of princess of Arab poetesses. The translation I have made quite literal.
"Ah time has its wonders; its changes amaze,
It leaves us the tail while the head it slays;
It leaves us the low while the highest decays;
It leaves the obscure, the despised, and the slave,
But of honored and loved ones, the true and the brave
It leaves us to mourn o'er the untimely grave.
The two new creations, the day and the night,
Though ceaselessly changing, are pure as the light:
But man changes to error, corruption and blight."
The most ancient Arab poetess, Zarîfeh, is supposed to have lived as long ago as the Second Century, in the time of the bursting of the famous dyke of Mareb, which devastated the land of Saba. Another poetess, Rakâsh, sister of the king of Hira, was given in marriage, by the king when intoxicated, to a man named Adi.
Alas, in these days the Moslem Arabs do not wait until blinded by wine, to give their daughters in marriage to strangers. I once overheard two Moslem young men converging in a shop, one of whom was about to be married. His companion said to him, "have you heard anything about the looks of your betrothed?" "Not much," said he, "only I am assured that she is white."
In a book written by Mirai ibn Yusef el Hanbali, are the names of twenty Arab women who improvised poetry. Among them are Leila, Leila el Akhyalîyeh, Lubna, Zeinab, Afra, Hind, May, Jenûb, Hubaish, Zarifeh, Jemîleh, Remleh, Lotifeh, and others. Most of the verses ascribed to them are erotic poetry of an amatory character, full of the most extravagant expressions of devotion of which language is capable, and yet the greater part of it hardly bearing translation. It reminds one strikingly of Solomon's Song, full of passionate eloquence. And yet in the poetry of El Khunsa and others, which is of an elegiac character, there are passages full of sententious apothegms and proverbial wisdom.
CHAPTER II.
STATE OF WOMEN IN THE MOHAMMADAN WORLD.
Our knowledge of the position of women among the Mohammedans is derived from the Koran, Moslem tradition, and Moslem practice.
I. In the first place, the Koran does not teach that women have no souls. Not only was Mohammed too deeply indebted to his rich wife Khadijah, to venture such an assertion, but he actually teaches in the Koran the immortality and moral responsibility of women. One of his wives having complained to him that God often praised the men, but not the women who had fled the country for the faith, he immediately produced the following revelation:
"I will not suffer the work of him among you who worketh to be lost, whether he be male or female." (Sura iii.)
In Sura iv. it is said:
"Whoso doeth good works, and is a true believer, whether male or female, shall be admitted into Paradise."
In Sura xxxiii:
"Truly, the Muslemen and the Muslimate, (fem.)
The believing men and the believing women,
The devout men and the devout women,
The men of truth and the women of truth,
The patient men and the patient women,
The humble men and the humble women,
The charitable men and the charitable women,
The fasting men and the fasting women,
The chaste men and the chaste women,
And the men and women who oft remember God;
For them hath God prepared
Forgiveness and a rich recompense."
II. Thus Mohammedans cannot and do not deny that women have souls, but their brutal treatment of women has naturally led to this view. The Caliph Omar said that "women are worthless creatures and soil men's reputations." In Sura iv. it is written:
"Men are superior to women, on account of the qualities
With which God has gifted the one above the other,
And on account of the outlay they make, from their substance for them.
Virtuous women are obedient. …
But chide those for whose refractoriness
Ye have cause to fear … and scourge them."
The interpretation of this last injunction being left to the individual believer, it is carried out with terrible severity. The scourging and beating of wives is one of the worst features of Moslem domestic life. It is a degraded and degrading practice, and having the sanction of the Koran, will be indulged in without rebuke as long as Islamism as a system and a faith prevails in the world. Happily for the poor women, the husbands do not generally beat them so as to imperil their lives, in case their own relatives reside in the vicinity, lest the excruciating screams of the suffering should reach the ears of her parents and bring the husband into disgrace. But where there is no fear of interference or of discovery, the blows and kicks are applied in the most merciless and barbarous manner. Women are killed in this way, and no outsider knows the cause. One of my Moslem neighbors once beat one of his wives to death. I heard her screams day after day, and finally, one night, when all was still, I heard a dreadful shriek, and blow after blow falling upon her back and head. I could hear the brute cursing her as he beat her. The police would not interfere, and I could not enter the house. The next day there was a funeral from that house, and she was carried off and buried in the most hasty and unfeeling manner. Sometimes it happens that the woman is strong enough to defend herself, and conquers a peace; but ordinarily when