The Women of the Arabs. Henry Harris Jessup
pass through the Moslem quarter of these cities of Syria and Palestine, with faces unveiled, they are made the theme of the most outrageous and insulting comments by the Moslem populace. Well is it for the feelings of the most of these worthy Christian women, that they do not understand the Arabic language. The Turkish governor of Tripoli was obliged to suppress the insulting epithets of the Moslems towards European ladies when they first began to reside there, by the infliction of the bastinado.
In 1857, the Rev. Mr. Lyons in Tripoli, hired Sheikh Owad, a Moslem bigot, to teach him the Arabic grammar. He was a conceited boor; well versed in Arabic grammar, but more ignorant of geography, arithmetic and good breeding than a child. One day Mrs. Lyons passed through the room where he was teaching Mr. L. and he turned his head away from her and spat towards her with a look of unutterable contempt. It was the last time he did it, and he has now become so civilized that he can say good morning to the wife of a missionary, and even consent to teach the sacred, pure and undefiled Arabic to a woman! I believe that he has not yet given his assent to the fact that the earth revolves on its axis, but he has learned that there are women in the world who know more than Sheikh Owad.
In ancient times Moslem women were occasionally taught to read the Koran, and among the wealthier and more aristocratic classes, married women are now sometimes taught to read, but the mass of the Moslem men are bitterly opposed to the instruction of women. When a man decides to have his wife taught to read, the usual plan is to hire a blind Mohammedan Sheikh, who knows the Koran by heart. He sits at one side of the room, and she at the other, some elderly woman, either her mother or her mother-in-law, being present. The blind Sheikhs have remarkable memories and sharp ears, and can detect the slightest error in pronunciation or rendering, so they are employed in the most of the Moslem-schools. The mass of the Mohammedans are nervously afraid of entrusting the knowledge of reading and writing to their wives and daughters, lest they abuse it by writing clandestine letters to improper persons. "Teach a girl to read and write!" said a Mohammedan Mufti in Tripoli to me, "Why, she will write letters, sir—yes, actually write letters! the thing is not to be thought of for a moment." I replied, "Effendum, you put your foot on the women's necks and then blame them for not rising. Educate your girls and train them to intelligence and virtue, and then their pens will write only what ought to be written. Train the hand to hold a pen, without training the mind to direct it, and only mischief can result." "Saheah, saheah," "very true, very true," said he, "But how can this be done?"
It has begun to be done in Syria. From the days of Mrs. Sarah L. Smith to the present time, Moslem girls have been taught to read and write and sew, and there are many now learning in the various American, British and Prussian schools. But it will be long before any true idea of the dignity of woman enters the debased minds of Arab Mohammedans. The simple fact is that there is no moral purity or elevation among the men, and how can it be expected among the women. The Moslem idea of woman is infinitely lower than the old Jewish idea. Woman in the time of Christ was highly honored. Believing women followed Christ throughout Galilee and Judea, and although enemies stood watching with hateful gaze on every side, not one word of insinuation was ever lisped against them. It is a most sadly impressive fact to one living in Syria at the present day, that the liberty and respect allowed to woman in the days of our Saviour would now be absolutely impossible. In purely Greek or Maronite or Armenian villages, the women enjoy far greater liberty than where there is a Moslem element in the population. And it is worthy of remark and grateful recognition, that although Christianity in the East has sunk almost to a level, in outward morality, with the Islamic and semi-Pagan sects, there is a striking difference between the lowest nominal Christian community and the highest Mohammedan, in the respect paid to woman. Ignorant and oppressed as the Greek and Maronite women may be, you feel on entering their houses, that the degrading yoke of Moslem brutality is not on their necks. Their husbands may be coarse, ignorant and brutal, beating their wives and despising their daughters, mourning at the birth of a daughter, and marrying her without her consent, and yet there are lower depths of coarseness and brutality, of cruelty and bestiality, which are only found among Mohammedans. I once suggested to a Tripoli Moslem, that he send his daughters to our Girls' School, then taught by Miss Sada Gregory, a native teacher trained in the family of Mrs. Whiting, and he looked at me with an expression of mingled pity and contempt, saying, "Educate a girl! You might as well attempt to educate a cat!"
Not two months since, I was conversing with several of the aristocratic Mohammedans of Beirût, who were in attendance at the commencement of the Beirût Protestant Medical College. The subject of the education of girls was introduced, and one of them said, "we are beginning to have our girls instructed in your Protestant schools, and would you believe it, I heard one of them read the other day, (probably his own daughter,) and she actually asked a question about the construction of a noun preceded by a preposition! I never heard the like of it. The things do distinguish and understand what they read, after all!" The others replied, "Mashallah! Mashallah!" "The will of God be done!"
Some ten years ago, an influential Moslem Sheikh in Beirût, who was a personal friend of Mr. Araman, the husband of Lulu, brought his daughter Wahidy (only one) to the Seminary to be instructed, on condition that no man should ever see her face. As Mr. Araman himself was one of the teachers, and I was accustomed to make constant visits to the school, she was obliged to wear a light veil, which she drew adroitly over her face whenever the door was opened. This went on for months and years, until at length in recitation she would draw the veil aside. Then she used to listen to public addresses in the school without her veil, and finally, in June, 1867, she read a composition on the stage at the Public Examination, on, "The value of education to the women and girls of Syria," her father, Sheikh Said el Ghur, being present, with a number of his Moslem friends.
CHAPTER III.
THE DRUZE RELIGION AND DRUZE WOMEN.
The great expounder and defender of the Druze religion is Hamzé, the "Universal Intelligence," the only Mediator between God and man, and the medium of the creation of all things. This Hamzé was a shrewd, able and unprincipled man. In his writings he not only defends the abominations of Hakem, but lays down the complete code of Druze doctrine and duty.
It is the belief of many, and said to be the orthodox view among the Druzes that their system as such is to last exactly 900 lunar years. The date of the Druze era is 408 Hegira, or 1020 a. d. The present year, 1872, corresponds to the year 1289 Anno Hegira, so that in nineteen lunar years the system will begin to come to an end according to its own reckoning, and after 1000 years it will cease to exist. Others have fixed this present year as the year of the great cataclysm, but the interpreters are so secret and reserved in their statements, that it is only by casual remarks that we can arrive at any idea of their real belief. Lying to infidels is such a meritorious act, that you cannot depend on one word they say of themselves or their doctrines. Their secret books, which were found in the civil wars of 1841 and 1845, have been translated and published by De Sacy, and we have a number of them in the original Arabic manuscripts in the Mission Library in Beirût. From a chapter in one of these, entitled "Methak en Nissa," or the "Engagements of Women," I have translated the following passages, to show the religious position of women, as bearing upon my object in describing the condition of Syrian females.
"Believers are both male and female. By instruction women pass from ignorance to knowledge, and become angels like the Five Ministers who bear the Throne: i.e., the Doctrine of the Unity. All male and female believers ought to be free from all impurity and disgrace and dishonor. Believing women should shun lying (to the brethren) and infidelity and concupiscence, and the appearance of evil, and show the excellency of their work above all Trinitarian women, avoiding all suspicion and taint which might bring ill upon their brethren, and avoiding giving attention to what is contrary to the Divine Unity.
"We have written this epistle to be read to all believing women who hold to the Unity of Hakem, who knows His Eternity and obey their husbands. But let no Dai or Mazûn read it to a woman until he is well assured of her faith and her religion, and she shall have made a written profession