INTRODUCTION
This book with its sad, reiterated story of wrong and oppression is an indictment and an appeal. It is an indictment of the system which produces results so pitiful. It is an appeal to Christian womanhood to right these wrongs and enlighten this darkness by sacrifice and service. At the recent Mohammedan Educational Conference in Bombay the president of the gathering, the Agha Khan, himself a leading Moslem, spoke very trenchantly of the chief barriers to progress in the Moslem world. The first and greatest of these barriers in his opinion was "the seclusion of women which results in keeping half the community in ignorance and degradation and this hinders the progress of the whole." Surely the ignorance and degradation of one-half of a community which has a world population of 233 millions is a question that concerns all who love humanity.
The origin of the veil of Islam was, as is well known, one of the marriage affairs of Mohammed himself, with its appropriate revelation from Allah. In the twenty-fourth Surah of the Koran women are forbidden to appear unveiled before any member of the other sex, with the exception of near relatives. And so by one verse the bright, refining, elevating influence of women was forever withdrawn from Moslem society. The evils of the zenana, the seraglio, the harem, or by whatever name it is called, are writ large over all the social life of the Moslem world. Keene says it "lies at the root of all the most important features that differentiate progress from stagnation."
In Arabia before the advent of Islam it was customary to bury female infants alive. Mohammed improved on the barbaric method and discovered a way by which all females could be buried alive and yet live on—namely, the veil. How they live on, this book tells! Its chapters are not cunningly devised fables nor stories told for the story's sake. Men and women who have given of their strength and service, their love and their life to ameliorate the lives of Moslem women and carry the torch of Truth into these lands of darkness write simply the truth in a straightforward way. All the chapters were written by missionaries in the various lands represented. And with three exceptions the writers were women. The chapter on Turkestan is by a converted Moslem; and the two chapters on the Yemen and the Central Soudan are by medical missionaries. The book has as many authors as there are chapters. For obvious reasons their names are not published, but their testimony is unimpeachable and unanimous. We read what their eyes have seen, what their hands have handled, and what has stirred their hearts. It has stirred the hearts of educated Moslems too, in Egypt as well as in India. A new book on this very subject was recently published at Cairo by Kasim Ameen, a learned Moslem jurist. Although he denies that Islam is the cause, yet speaking of the present relation of the Mohammedan woman to man the author says:
"Man is the absolute master and woman the slave. She is the object of his sensual pleasures, a toy, as it were, with which he plays, whenever and however he pleases. Knowledge is his, ignorance is hers. The firmament and the light are his, darkness and the dungeon are hers. His is to command, hers is to blindly obey. His is everything that is, and she is an insignificant part of that everything.
"Ask those that are married if they are loved by their wives, and they will answer in the affirmative. The truth, however, is the reverse. I have personally investigated the conditions of a number of families that are supposed to be living in harmony, peace, and love, and I have not found one husband who truly loved his wife, or one wife who evinced a sincere affection for her husband. This outward appearance of peace and harmony—this thin veneering—only means one of three things, namely, either the husband is made callous and nonchalant by incessant strife, and has finally determined to let things take their course; or the wife allows herself to be utilized as an ordinary chattel, without uttering a protest; or both parties are ignorant and do not appreciate the true value of life. In this last case, the parties are nearer to a sort of happiness than in the former two, although their happiness is negative in quantity and evanescent in nature." ...
The writers of the following chapters believe that the only remedy for these social evils is the Gospel. That is why they write.
The occasion that led to the preparation and collection of this series of papers was the Cairo Conference. One of the most interesting sessions of that first general Conference on behalf of the Mohammedan world, held at Cairo April 4-9, 1906, was that on Woman's Work for Women. But the time was far too short nor had there been preparation for a full and free presentation and discussion of the condition and needs of our Moslem sisters. Those that loved them felt this and yet the women present seized the opportunity and unitedly sent forth the following appeal, endorsed by the whole Conference:
"Women's Appeal.
"We, the women missionaries, assembled at the Cairo Conference, would send this appeal on behalf of the women of Moslem lands to all the women's missionary boards and committees of Great Britain, America, Canada, France, Germany, Switzerland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Holland, Australia, and New Zealand.
"While we have heard with deep thankfulness of many signs of God's blessing on the efforts already put forth, yet we have been appalled at the reports which have been sent in to the Conference from all parts of the Moslem world, showing us only too plainly that as yet but a fringe of this great work has been touched.
"The same story has come from India, Persia, Arabia, Africa, and other Mohammedan lands, making evident that the condition of women under Islam is everywhere the same—and that there is no hope of effectually remedying the spiritual, moral, and physical ills which they suffer, except to take them the message of the Saviour, and that there is no chance of their hearing, unless we give ourselves to the work. No one else will do it. This lays a heavy responsibility on all Christian women.
"The number of Moslem women is so vast—not less than one hundred million—that any adequate effort to meet the need must be on a scale far wider than has ever yet been attempted.
"We do not suggest new organizations, but that every church and board of missions at present working in Moslem lands should take up their own women's branch of work with an altogether new ideal before them, determining to reach the whole world of Moslem women in this generation. Each part of the women's work being already carried on needs to be widely extended. Trained and consecrated women doctors; trained and consecrated women teachers; groups of women workers in the villages; an army of those with love in their hearts to seek and save the lost. And, with the willingness to take up this burden, so long neglected, for the salvation of Mohammedan women, even though it may prove a very cross of Calvary to some of us, we shall hear our Master's voice afresh ringing words of encouragement: 'Have faith in God. For verily I say unto you, that whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea, and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that these things which He saith shall come to pass, he shall have whatsoever he saith.' 'Nothing shall be impossible unto you.'"
That this wonderful appeal might reach a wider circle and that its skeleton form might be clothed with the flesh and blood of real life experiences and so be not a resolution but a revelation,—this book was written. May God give its message wings through His Spirit
S. M. Zwemer.
Holland, Mich.,
February, 1907.
CONTENTS
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
"All that took them captives hold them fast, they refuse to let them go. Their Redeemer is strong, the Lord of Hosts is His name; He shall thoroughly plead their cause."—Jeremiah l. 33, 34.
"Deliver them that are carried away unto death, and those that are tottering to the slaughter see that thou hold back. If thou sayest, Behold we knew not this, doth not He that weigheth the hearts consider it and He that keepeth thy soul, doth not He know it? and shall not He render to every man according to his works?"—Proverbs xxiv. 11, 12. (R. V.)
"Open thy mouth for the dumb in the cause of all such as are left desolate. Open thy mouth, judge righteously, and minister judgment to the poor and needy."—Proverbs xxxi. 8, 9. (R. V.)
OUR MOSLEM SISTERS
I
HAGAR AND HER SISTERS
"We must concentrate attention upon the mothers, for what the mothers are, the children will be." These words, spoken recently by a British statesman, are but the thoughts of many who have tried to save the children. And in looking at the millions of Moslems in the world to-day, and wondering why they are still as they were a thousand years ago, rather drifting backward than advancing, we turn to their women and find the cause. Mohammedan law, custom, and the example of their founder place woman on a level with beasts of burden and no nation rises above the level of its women.
The Lord Jesus is the only prophet come to this world who has raised women to what God meant them to be. It is only He who can save our Moslem sisters. When Hagar returns to Christ Ishmael shall live.
The story of Hagar, the mother of the Arabs, tells us of a young girl sacrificed for the scheme and then the jealousy of an older woman who should have loved and pitied her. And it seems to some of us that it needs the widespread love and pity of the women of our day in Christian lands to seek and save the suffering sinful needy women of Islam.
You cannot know how great the need unless you are told; you will never go and find them until you hear their cry. And they will never cry for themselves, for they are down under the yoke of centuries of oppression, and their hearts have no hope or knowledge of anything better.
And so to-day, we want to make our voices heard for them. We want to tell you, our sisters at home, in words so plain that you can never again say: "Behold, we knew it not."
"In the mouth of two witnesses shall every word be established," was the law of Moses. In this book you have the evidence of more than a score of witnesses and they all speak the same things. Each one tells only that which she knows. No incident is given without personal knowledge, and most of the writers have the experience of ten, fifteen, or twenty years in the midst of the people of whom they tell.
Although we claim no literary merit, we have a thrilling story and plead for a hearing.
Read for yourselves what is going on in the lives of a hundred million women in the world to-day and take this burden on your hearts before God.
A long tress of dark hair, a white veil, a bit of flower, and a shining necklace. They are there above the bier of a young bride carried past our window to her grave. There was another one yesterday, and there will be more to-morrow. Hundreds of child-wives and sixty-two per cent. they tell us of all the babies born here, in Egypt, are taken to an early grave. We cannot know these things and not call upon you, our sisters, to come and try to save them. They are passing away in an endless procession, without ever having heard of Jesus, without ever knowing that He died for them, that an eternity of gladness and love may be theirs.
Although the voices in this book sound from many lands: Egypt, Tunis, Algiers, Morocco, Hausa Land, East Africa, Arabia, Palestine, Syria, Turkey, Bulgaria, Persia, India, one story is told and one cry heard everywhere. There has been no communication between the writers, but there is absolute identity of evidence because all the Moslems of these lands are under Mohammedan law.
The world-wide suffering of Moslem women makes us read with wonder such words as were recently spoken by the secretary of the Pan-Islamic Society: "The Renaissance of Islam means the renaissance of humanity." Does the speaker think we are all blind, and deaf, and ignorant? These pages may enlighten him. We read further Mustapha Pasha Kamel's own words and tell him that in these he speaks the truth. They were spoken to his own fellow-Moslems.
Mustapha Pasha Kamel said in the course of his speech to his co-religionists:
"Conquer with the force of knowledge and history the strong fortresses of prejudice and bigotry, and open wide the gates of your heart for the reception of Truth and Light. For a conquered people there is no cure better than a passionate devotion to Truth. Be ye, therefore, messengers of Light and Truth, the missionaries of brilliant and triumphant Truth, the army of physicians prescribing the bitter pills of Truth. Tell the effete and feeble rulers and princes, 'Awake from your deep slumber. Recover soon from your drunkenness caused by the possession of absolute authority, the boast of heraldry, and the braveries of pomp and pageantry. Awake ye, before the depth of degradation into which your subjects have fallen sound the death-knell of your rule and shake the very foundations of your throne. Awake before the day overtakes you when repentance and regrets will be of no avail.' Tell the rich who waste so much of their wealth in the pursuit of ignoble pleasures, and who do not spare a farthing for a noble cause, 'Awake before it is too late. Do not forget in the midnight of your intoxication that a bitter day of reckoning awaits you. Awake, arise, or be for ever fallen. Your fates are bound up with those of your people and your glory depends upon their prosperity. If they rise, you rise. If they fall, you fall with them. Wealth is a poison if it becomes an instrument of evil; a life-giving antidote when devoted to a noble purpose. Regard it therefore as a divine gift and a sacred trust.' Tell the people who live the life of animals and are led like dumb cattle: 'Awake, and realize the true significance of life. Fill the earth and adorn it with the result of your labors.' Gentlemen, you alone can make them understand the full meaning of life. O physicians! the patient is in a critical state, and delay spells death." ...
If the thinking men of the Mohammedan world really believe what is here said to them by their own champion, we ask them will they not seek unto God for a remedy? And it may be He will turn their thoughts to their own homes, and let them see what is, why it is, and to think what might be.
The homes of the sons of Ishmael might be happy and united, the abode of gladness and family love, but they are the opposite of this. Few Mohammedans know that such a home is possible. They only know a place full of jealousy, of quarrelling and evil talk. What wonder that they have the proverb: "The threshold of the house weeps for forty days when a girl is born."
Unwelcome at birth, unloved in her life-time, without hope in her death; and she might be the joy of your heart, the life of your home, and the hope of your old age. Will you not ask yourselves, our brothers, can these things be? "Have we wandered in the dark for centuries, misled by blind leaders of the blind, and missing the good things offered us by the God of Ishmael?" It was through Hagar his mother that Ishmael lived.
"She sat over against him, and lift up her voice and wept. And God heard the voice of the lad, and the angel of God called to Hagar out of heaven, and said unto her, What aileth thee, Hagar? fear not, for God hath heard the voice of the lad where he is. Arise, lift up the lad and hold him in thine hand; for I will make him a great nation. And God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water; and she went and filled the bottles with water, and gave the lad drink. And God was with the lad, and he grew, and dwelt in the wilderness."
To-day we cry to our Father in Heaven to let us be the messengers of comfort to Hagar—and we will ask Him to open her eyes that she may see the Well of the Water of Life, and that she may hold it to the lips of her sons and daughters in the Moslem world. The following touching incident and poem by one who has labored long among Moslem women in Persia may well be our opening prayer ere we hear the cry of need from distant lands in these chapters:—
"It was the Communion Day in our Church, and the service proceeded as usual. My thoughts were all of my own unworthiness and Christ's love to me, until Mr. E. asked the question nobody ever notices, 'Has any one been omitted in the distribution of the bread?' And it seemed to me I could see millions on millions of women rising silently in India, Africa, Siam, Persia, in all the countries where they need the Lord, but know Him not, to testify that they had been omitted in the distribution of the bread and cup! And they can take it from no hands but ours, and we do not pass it on. Can Jesus make heaven so sweet and calm that we can forgive ourselves this great neglect of the millions living now, for whom the body was broken and the blood shed, just as much as for us?"
The feast was spread, the solemn words were spoken;
Humbly my soul drew near to meet her Lord,
To plead His sacrificial body broken,
His blood for me outpoured.
Confessing all my manifold transgression,
Weeping, to cast myself before His throne,
Praying His Spirit to take full possession,
And seal me all His own.
On Him I laid each burden I was bearing,
The anxious mind, of strength so oft bereft,
The future dim, the children of my caring,
All on His heart I left.
"How could I live, my Lord," I cried, "without Thee!
How for a single day this pathway trace,
And feel no loving arm thrown round about me,
No all-sustaining grace?
"Oh show me how to thank Thee, praise Thee, love Thee,
For these rich gifts bestowed on sinful me,
The rainbow hope that spans the sky above me,
The promised rest with Thee."
As if indeed He spoke the answer, fitted
Into my prayer, the pastor's voice came up:
"Let any rise if they have been omitted
When passed the bread and cup."
Sudden, before my inward, open vision,
Millions of faces crowded up to view,
Sad eyes that said, "For us is no provision;
Give us your Saviour, too!"
Sorrowful women's faces, hungry, yearning,
Wild with despair, or dark with sin and dread,
Worn with long weeping for the unreturning,
Hopeless, uncomforted.
"Give us," they cry; "your cup of consolation
Never to our outstretching hands is passed,
We long for the Desire of every nation,
And oh, we die so fast!
"Does He not love us, too, this gracious Master?
'Tis from your hand alone we can receive
The bounty of His grace; oh, send it faster,
That we may take and live!"
"Master," I said, as from a dream awaking,
"Is this the service Thou dost show to me?
Dost Thou to me entrust Thy bread for breaking
To those who cry for Thee?
"Dear Heart of Love, canst Thou forgive the blindness
That let Thy child sit selfish and at ease
By the full table of Thy loving kindness,
And take no thought for these?
"As Thou hast loved me, let me love; returning
To these dark souls the grace Thou givest me;
And oh, to me impart Thy deathless yearning
To draw the lost to Thee!
"Nor let me cease to spread Thy glad salvation,
Till Thou shalt call me to partake above,
Where the redeemed of every tribe and nation
Sit at Thy feast of love!"
—Annie Van Sommer,
Alexandria, Egypt.
Daughters of Egypt
II
EGYPT, THE LAND OF BONDAGE
Egypt was the home of the earliest civilization in the world, which archæology traces back beyond 3000 years B. C. The home of a race skilled both in the fine and mechanical arts; loving nature, honoring women, and deeply impressed with the seriousness of life on both sides the grave. The valley of the Nile, which is the true Egypt, is unlike any other part of the world. It has neither Alpine grandeur, nor pastoral softness, nor variety of plain and upland, meadow and forest. Its low hills have neither heather nor pine upon them. Egypt is the land of light, of glowing sunshine, of moonlight and starlight so brilliant that night is but a softer day. From the time that Israel's ancestors went down thither it has drawn men of every clime with a peculiar fascination.
On the opposite page we have before us a glimpse of the majestic Nile, stretching through one thousand miles of desert till it flows into the Mediterranean Sea. "Wherever the river cometh, there is life." Everywhere along its banks the desert has become fertile, and there are countless towns and villages.
The productive capacity of the land had always depended upon the annual overflow of the Nile, but every summer during the season of high Nile billions and billions of cubic feet of water would roll away a rich and wanton waste into the sea, simply because there were not enough channels to carry it out into the thirsty sands of the desert. Energetic men conceived the idea of bringing these waste waters into control, to carry them out through the surrounding countries, bringing life and prosperity where there was dearth and desolation. For this purpose several great dams were built; one at Cairo, one at Assiut and one at Assouan, making it possible to store up much of the water which had formerly gone to waste, and canals were dug to carry the life-giving water out to the desert where thousands of acres of land have been reclaimed.
The large cities of Egypt are densely populated. A town of twenty-five thousand people is considered a mere village. It might be wondered what the people do for a livelihood, but they all seem to do something. There are all sorts of tradesmen and artificers. It is next to impossible to enumerate them, there's the:—
Richman, poorman, beggarman, thief;
Doctor, lawyer, merchant, chief;
Butcher, baker,
Candle-stick maker,
Soldier, sailor,
Tinker, tailor, etc., etc.
There are few signs of extreme want, but disease and deformity meet one everywhere, and blindness is perhaps the most pitiful.
Egypt is largely an agricultural country, and naturally the largest percentage of her inhabitants are tillers of the soil. A little more than half belong to the peasant class and are known as "fellaheen." They are industrious after their own fashion, conservative to the point of bigotry, yet good-humored and peaceable. The peasant class are the hope of Egypt. They look back to a past full of crushing tyranny, political and religious, but under the improved political condition of the country the Egyptian peasant is beginning to widen his horizon and to aim for education and civilization. Poor they certainly are, but what of that when they have enough to eat such as it is and can spend their whole lives in sunshine and fresh air? Warm enough with the lightest clothing, well sheltered by the rudest cabin, no hard winters to provide against, and no coal to buy.
Such is the physical condition of Egypt and the Egyptian. What of the moral and spiritual?
Nine-tenths of the people are Mohammedans, thus Mohammedan ideas rule the thought and manner of life.
Because Mohammedans worship one God, many people say, "Let them alone, their religion is good enough for them, it is even better suited to them than Christianity." It is true that Mohammedanism was a revolt against the idolatry and corruption of the early Christian churches, but is that revolt, even though an honest effort to find a purer form of worship, any excuse for not holding out to them the true way of salvation? Is not that revolt rather a trumpet call to Christianity, wakening her up to her great responsibility toward the unbelief of Islam, whose apostasy was caused by the unfaithfulness of the old Christian churches of the East?
No one who has drunk deeply at the fountain of evangelical truth can defend Islam. It has been commonly supposed that the God of the Koran is the God of the New Testament. Those who have made the subject a matter of careful study and investigation find that they are totally different. The God of Christianity is a God of love, the God of Islam is an Oriental despot.
The element of love is left out of both the religion and morality of Islam. Marriage is not founded upon love but upon sensuality. A mother was rebuked for arranging a marriage for her fourteen-year-old son. Her excuse was, "I do it to keep him from learning the bad habit of visiting prostitutes." The sensual nature has been trained in the Egyptian to an indescribable degree of disgusting perfection. As some one has said, "Mohammedans have added a refinement of sensuousness to pagan sensuality." As a result of this training men and women have sunk to depths of degradation unconsciously manifested in their customs, in their speech, and in their life.
For twelve centuries the blight of Islam has fallen over the fortunes of Egypt. Politics, commerce, learning, all have felt its withering blast, but that which has most keenly felt the blast and blight of Islam is society. There is no word in the Arabic language for home, the nearest approach to it being "beit," which means "house" or "a place in which to spend the night." To quote from an interesting writer on this thought—"The word is lacking because the idea is lacking." "Home, sweet Home" with all its wealth of meaning is a conception foreign to the average Oriental. An educated young Moslem with advanced ideas in many respects was asked if the members of his family took their meals together. He said they did not, each one when he became hungry told the servant to bring food. "Would it not be better to eat together?" "Yes, it would be much cheaper," he replied, showing that the first ray of the beauty of the home circle had not penetrated his active mind. How can it be otherwise when woman, the heart and life of the family circle, was in his mind because of inherited ideas relegated to the position of prisoner and slave rather than to that of companion and helpmeet? "It was Islam that forever withdrew from Oriental society the bright, refining, elevating influence of woman by burying her alive behind the veil and lattice of the Harem."
Arabic poetry and literature is generally very uncomplimentary to woman, characterizing her as a donkey, or even a snake. The majority of the men hoot at the gallantry and courtesy which Anglo-Saxon etiquette demands of men towards women. Says an Egyptian, "Our women must be beaten in order to be made to walk straight." And beaten they are for trifling offence by father, husband, brother, or son as occasion demands. This custom is so common that the women themselves expect a whipping occasionally.
It has been said that the theology of Islam does not give woman a place in heaven, but that statement is incorrect. However, her place and station in heaven seem to depend entirely upon the will of her husband. Many husbands are like the old Moslem sheikh who said, "I don't want my wives in heaven. I prefer the Harem of beautiful, pure, clean angels which God has provided for every good Moslem." The privilege of prayer is practically denied a young woman with children because of the strict regulations of washing before prayer. Unless these ablutions are done carefully according to rule, prayer is void. A few old women do pray.
The nominal Christians dwelling in the midst of Islam, though they hate Islam with all their hearts, have yet imbibed much of their spirit in regard to the treatment of women. A Coptic priest was heard to say, "It is better for the women not to go to church, for they can't keep quiet. They will eat and chatter during the service." Poor things! What else could they do, shut off from the main audience room as they always are behind a high lattice screen, where they can neither see nor hear what is going on!
Much can be said about the down-trodden condition of Egyptian women. "As a babe she is unwelcome; as a child untaught; as a wife unloved; as a mother, unhonored; in old age, uncared for; and when her miserable, dark, and dreary life is ended, she is unmourned by those she has served." Heaven is a forlorn hope, not because she is denied any of its privileges, but because of the incapability of providing her with enjoyments similar to those promised to the other sex.
It has often been asserted that the institutions of Islam elevated and improved the state of women, but history and true incidents from life go to show that her position was rendered by Islam more dependent and degraded than before.
She is degraded and made servilely dependent by seclusion. The veil and lattice of the Harem are both Islamic institutions established by the Prophet of Islam and founded upon incidents which occurred in his own family; and they are certainly a faithful commentary upon the sensuality and lewdness of the times, with an unconscious recognition of the fact that the religion of Islam was not of sufficient moral force to improve the times. History has verified this testimony and we only need to look around in these countries to see for ourselves that Mohammedanism, as its founder anticipated, has not improved the morality of those who have embraced its principles, but has rather excused and given license to all sorts of lewdness. It is difficult for people reared in Christian lands to have any conception of the laxity of morals in Mohammedan lands and it is a thing to be wondered at and excused only on the grounds of ignorance of existing conditions that English parents will allow their young daughters to become resident teachers or governesses in rich Mohammedan houses.
The whole system of Islam, in so far as it concerns family life and the treatment of women, is vile and revolting. The veil and lattice of the Harem, even though established to guard her modesty and purity, have degraded and debased her by making her a prisoner.
As a child, she has before her only a few short years in which she has an opportunity to go to school and the effort to improve those few years is very often fruitless, because just as she shows any signs of budding womanhood (as early as at the age of ten years and not later than thirteen years) she must lay aside her books and "be hidden," as they say in Arabic; then it is considered improper and immodest for a girl to be seen in the streets. Her education stops just at the point when her mind is beginning to open up, and she is learning to love her books. Thrown back into the seclusion of the Harem she soon forgets all she has learned. Should she be energetic enough to try to keep up her lessons and try to get reading matter, she is met with the taunt, "Are you a scribe or a lawyer, that you should read and write every day?"
The girls who have an opportunity of going to school at all are in the minority, but for those who do, as in Christian lands, there is a peculiar fascination and joy connected with the first day of school after a month or two of vacation. Girls, new pupils and old, come trooping into the schoolroom enthusiastic, eager, and bright, rejoicing with all the ardor of childhood that they are allowed to come back to their beloved school and that they are not yet old enough to be "hidden." But there is a strain of sadness in all this joy, for in their interchange of confidences and family bits of news it comes out that a certain Fatima and a certain Zeinab, their big sisters, are sitting at home very sad and even shedding bitter and rebellious tears because, poor things! they have been "hidden" and their schooldays are over.
A day or two after our school began, the teachers and girls were all startled by a rustle of long garments sailing in at the door. On closer observation they soon saw that their visitor was none other than little Habeeba of last year, who during the summer had blossomed out into a woman by donning all the trappings of a Harem lady, and she was truly "hidden," for not a speck of her face showed except one bright eye. She could not stay away from her beloved school, she said, so had begged special permission to come and spend an hour with her friends.
The seclusion of the Harem is more or less rigid according to the caprice of some exacting husband or mother-in-law. As far as the younger married women's experience goes it is mother-in-law rule literally, for seldom is a man permitted to take his wife to a home of his own. The sons and even the grandsons must bring their brides home to the father's house and all be subject to the mother. A household of fifty is no uncommon thing. Much of the freedom of the younger women depends upon what the old mother-in-law or grandmother-in-law thinks proper. Often she rules with a hand of iron, probably to make up for her own hard life in her younger days, intermixed with an honest desire to preserve and promote the honor and dignity of her house. For the honor, dignity, and aristocracy of a family are often estimated according to the rigor of the seclusion of its women-folk.
Thousands of Egyptian women never step over their own thresholds and many of them never make complaint, only saying, "Oh, you know our men love us very much; that is the reason they imprison us. They do it to protect us."
Among the strictest people a young woman is not permitted to be seen by even her father-in-law. Nor is it allowable for her to be seen by any male servants except eunuchs. Under such conditions it might be wondered how a woman could keep her domestic machinery in running order, but as one woman said, who had never seen the face of her cook although he had been employed in her house for thirteen years, when asked the question, "How do you tell him what you want for dinner?" "Oh, he knows my wants, but when I wish to give a particular order, I tell the maid servant, she tells the little boy servant, and he conveys the message to the cook!"
It seems like the irony of fate that these women who are kept in such strict seclusion should be so extravagantly fond of society. They welcome in the most hospitable manner any visitors of their own sex. It is pitiful to see how they love to have glimpses of the outside world. A missionary lady tells of a woman whom she often visited, who had never been outside of her house since her marriage, forty years before, and who begged her to tell her something about the flowers, saying, "Ah, you are happy women, free to go here and there and enjoy life!"
Many people who know only the outside of Egyptian life, when they hear that the women have jewelry and beautiful dresses and servants to look after every want, say they are happy and contented in their seclusion, but those who visit them in their homes and talk with them in their own language know how they writhe under it, how they weary of the idleness and monotony forced upon them. One little woman, forced to spend her life behind closed shutters, would feign illness so as to get an opportunity to call in her friend, the lady missionary doctor, and, when rebuked, would laughingly say, "What am I to do! I must see somebody to pass away the time and I like to have you come to see me, but you won't come unless I send you word I am ill."
It seems part of the nature of the Egyptian to distrust his womenfolk and to believe them capable of any misdemeanor. Therefore they must be carefully watched and kept in check. This distrust reacts upon the nature and character of the women, often making them truly unworthy of trust, but many of them are very sensitive on the subject and feel keenly this unfair position into which they are thrown.
What has been said about the strict seclusion of Egyptian women refers chiefly to the middle and upper classes, for the poorest women, those of the peasant class, have the greatest freedom. They go about unveiled and manifest a character of marked independence and self-reliance, but they are ignorant beyond description, such a thing as books and schoolroom being unknown quantities to them, and their lot is a life of drudgery.
Many of the village women labor in the fields from early morning to late at night, especially during the cotton season, seven or eight months of the year.
During the cotton-ginning season many women and girls work from 4 o'clock A.M. to 9 o'clock P.M. in the cotton-ginning mills. Those in the vicinities of larger towns are vendors of fruit, vegetables, milk, cheese, and butter. On market days great troops of village women can be seen on the country roads, their wares in big baskets on their heads, their babies perched astride their shoulders, wending their way to town. Those who live in the larger towns are often employed as hodcarriers for masons.
Their powers of endurance are marvellous. It is a common occurrence for a woman to go out to pick cotton as usual in the morning and to come back in the evening, carrying her basket on her head and in it her new-born babe, and it has been known for a woman to start to town with her marketing on her head, be detained an hour or two by the roadside till she gives birth to her child, then with it continue her journey.
Besides being a drudge the peasant woman is nearly always a slave to her husband. Of course she does not eat with him; if she goes out with him she walks behind him while he rides the donkey, which it is her duty to keep moving at a good pace by prodding with a sharp stick. If there is anything to carry she does it. He does manage to carry his own cigarette and walking stick! Often, too, she has to exercise her wits to tell her lord amusing stories for his entertainment as they journey by the way. One day some tourists met just such a couple on a country road. The poor woman was trudging along with a big child sitting astride her shoulder while its father rode the donkey. The suggestion was made that the child might ride if its mother couldn't. To the credit of the smiling-faced peasant the suggestion was followed.
III
FROM UNDER THE YOKE OF SOCIAL EVILS
Unhappy marriages are a natural result of the seclusion of women in Egypt. It would be highly improper for a man to see his bride until after he had married her. He has not even had the privilege of choosing her. His mother did that for him, and it goes without saying that the young man is not always suited. The story is told of a young man who at his wedding feast was sitting so glum and silent that his young friends teased him by saying, "Brother! brother! Why so sad on this joyous occasion?" In answer he said, "I have just seen my bride for the first time and I am woefully disappointed. She is ugly! tall, thin, and weak-eyed." The tall "daughter-of-the-gods-girl" is not admired in Egypt. Her short, fat, dumpy little sister is much more according to Egyptian ideas of beauty. "Cheer up! cheer up!" said his friends, "you are not such a handsome fellow yourself that you should have such a handsome wife!" Shaking his head sadly, he said, "I feel like heaping ashes on my head. If you don't believe me that she is ugly, go upstairs and peep in at the Harem window and see for yourselves." Glad of the chance of such a privilege, they did so and came back saying, "Brother, heap more ashes on your head!"
Frequent divorce is a natural result of these unhappy marriages. Divorce in any land is a social evil but in Egypt it is especially so, because the divorce laws are such that in a peculiar way woman is degraded by them.
It is difficult to obtain exact figures regarding the percentage of divorce, as all cases are not recorded. There are some who say 50 per cent. of marriages end in divorce, others say 80 per cent., and a prominent Moslem when asked said 95 per cent. An experienced missionary when asked her opinion, said, "Divorce is so common that to find a woman who lives all her life with one husband is the exception."
In fact it is such an exception that it is a subject for remark, and a visitor in a house where such happy conditions exist never fails to be told about it.
Many women have been divorced several times, and a woman of twenty years of age may be living with her third husband.
A native Bible woman who had worked among Mohammedans for fourteen years when asked, "How many men or women of twenty-five years of age she thought likely to be living with their original partners?" said, "Do you mean that they should have kept to each other and that neither has been divorced or married anybody else?"—"Yes." She laughed and said, "Perhaps one in two thousand."
This was probably an exaggeration, but it shows that divorce is very common, and that the percentage is even higher than those who love Egypt and her people like to admit. It almost seems that the history of one's Mohammedan acquaintances in Egypt might be given in an endless stream of incidents about divorce and the intrigue and hate and jealousy attendant on this, the greatest social evil of Egypt.
Many a young man has no hesitation about marrying and divorcing, keeping up the process for a year or so till he at last finds a wife to suit him. If it didn't degrade those he has cast aside, he might be excused for doing so, as he has had no chance to choose his wife intelligently.
A young man of some spirit was determined to have a wife to please him and who would be congenial to him. Seeing no other way to accomplish it, he married and divorced in rapid succession six times. The seventh was a queenly young woman, gentle and refined in all her ways, in whom the heart of her husband might well rejoice, yet the terror daily hung over her that she might be divorced in time like the other six. It was pathetic to see how she tried to cultivate every little feminine art to please her husband, how she tried to improve her mind so as to be a companion to him, but constantly with the fear of divorce lurking in her tender and loving heart.
Among the lower classes marrying and divorcing in rapid succession is a form of dissipation. When pay-day comes, instead of going off on a big drink (which, to the credit of Islam, is forbidden), they use their money to defray the expenses of a season of debauchery, marrying and divorcing as many wives as possible while the money lasts. Picture the degradation of the poor women who are the victims (often unwilling victims) of such orgies.
It would be interesting to bring in here everything that Mohammedan law says about divorce, but the rules are many and complicated and almost too revolting to put into words. It is enough to say that the husband may divorce his wife without any misbehavior on her part or without assigning any reason. It is all left to the will and caprice of the man, and he has only to say, "Woman, thou art divorced," or he can even use metaphorical language which must be understood by the ever-on-the-alert wife to mean divorce, as when he says, "Thou art free!" "Thou art cut off!" "Veil yourself!" "Arise, seek for a mate!" etc., etc. A certain man had been away for a week or so on a business trip. He came home and the first words he said to his wife, were, "I thought you had gone home to your father's house!" She understood him to mean, and rightly too, "I divorce thee!" so she packed up her things and went off.
If a man pronounce his sentence of divorce only once or twice it is revocable, but if he pronounces it three times it is irrevocable, and the divorced wife cannot be taken back by her husband till she has been married to another man, has lived with him and been divorced; then her former husband can take her back. This is the most revolting and degrading of all the divorce laws, and the prophet Mohammed instituted it thinking that the very repulsiveness of it would act as a restraint, but strange to say it only seems to give more license.
A man will get into controversy with his friends perhaps. To strengthen his statements he uses all sorts of oaths, the strongest of which is, "I divorce my wife by the triple divorce." It takes legal effect. The poor man is in great distress, for he really loves his wife. What is he to do? He must go through the process of law to get her back. He hires a servant or a strange peasant to marry her. The revolting part is that the poor woman has to live with this hired husband till he is again hired to divorce her, when she is free to go back to her former husband. This case actually happened, and many like it with varying circumstances might be related, although it can gladly be said that the irrevocable divorce is not of such frequent occurrence as the revocable.
Some incidents will illustrate the various circumstances which cause divorce or are excuses for it.
Abraham, the carpenter, came to his employer one day asking for an advance of wages. "Why?" was asked. "I am going to get married," he said, "and it costs much money." Then he proceeded to relate his domestic troubles, how he had lived with his one wife sixteen years, explaining that he deserved much credit for doing so, seeing that his father during his lifetime had indulged in thirty-nine wives, but that he had come to the point where he must divorce this wife as she really did talk too much, so of course he would have to marry another.
A happy young mother had one little son whom she loved dearly. He was accidentally burned to death. The poor grief-stricken mother mourned and wept so much and so long that she became nearly blind. Because she had no more children, her husband divorced her. In time she talked of marrying again. The missionary who had visited her often and comforted her in her sorrow, remonstrated on the grounds of her former experience. She answered by saying, "A divorced woman must either marry again or else live a life of sin."
A poor little child-wife received such injuries at the birth of her first child because of the ignorance of those who attended her at the time that she became an invalid, consequently her husband divorced her. She heard of the Mission Hospital, where she might receive kindly treatment. She was admitted and cured by an operation. Her husband then restored her to his loving heart and home.
In a certain town there was a little family where there seemed to be plenty of conjugal happiness in spite of so much that is often said about the impossibility of such a thing in a Moslem family. The little wife was beautiful, bright, and intelligent, being fairly well educated; and was able to make her house into something like a real home. They were blessed with a family of interesting and promising children. The father was wont to boast that he a Mohammedan could verify the fact that such a thing as a perfect home could exist under Islamic conditions. But temptation came his way. He divorced his beautiful unoffending wife to marry the temptress, who though rich and of a high family (which was her recommendation and considered sufficient excuse for his base action), was ignorant and ugly, the only thing which seemed to give him any pangs of regret.
There was a man who was fairly well-to-do and was considered by his neighbors as being very respectable. The first wife was a very nice woman but had no son, so her husband divorced her and married a second. Still there was no son, so he married a third. It was believed he did not really divorce the second wife, but pretended to do so to please the third, who would not consent to being one of two wives. After a while a son was born to the third, and so his first wife was brought back to the house as nurse to the child. She was the most ladylike of the three wives, but she had to carry the baby and walk behind the mother like a servant. When the baby died the parents quarrelled. Number three left the house and went into the country. The husband at once brought back number two, whereupon number three returned in a rage and number two was turned out of the house. On the next quarrel with number three the man married a fourth time—a girl younger than his daughter by his first wife. About this time he met the Bible woman in the street and asked her why she did not visit his house as usual. She replied, "I do not come because I never know which lady to ask for."
The house of Ali might be supposed to be rather a religious one, for the mother of the family has performed the pilgrimage to Mecca and one of the sons is a howling dervish. Here we were introduced to a young bride, wife of a brother of the dervish. Calling again a few months later we found another bride, the one we had seen on our former visit having been divorced. The third time we went the first wife was there again and the second had been divorced. The woman had been married to another man and divorced by him during the short time of separation from the first husband, and when the latter wished to have her back her parents could not agree about allowing the marriage and quarrelled so much that they divorced each other! The time occupied by these proceedings was between a year and eighteen months. Here were six persons concerned, and four marriages and four divorces had taken place. A baby had arrived on the scene, but its parentage was a mystery in the mix-up.
It is quite usual for a woman to be divorced before the birth of her first child, and we could not but feel sympathy with the poor young mother who under such circumstances called her baby "Vengeance."
Love, the best and most holy of human joys, has been almost strangled to death in Egypt by the institution of divorce, and the family can seldom be considered a community of common interest. As one woman was heard to say, "We go on the principle of trying to pluck or fleece our husbands all we can while we have the chance, since we never know how soon we may be divorced."
It has been said that the character of a nation cannot rise above the character of its women. What can be expected of a nation when hate and jealousy are the ruling passions of its women, of its mothers who nurture and train up its young!
The question has been asked what is the condition of the children of divorced parents. According to the law the mother is given an allowance by her former husband on which to bring up their children to a certain age; then they are his. If they are girls they often are allowed to become servants to the mother's successor, although there are fathers who do have enough natural affection to give the daughters of a former wife the proper place in the house. The allowance given a divorced woman when she has children is most often a mere pittance and too often she never gets one at all. She marries again and the children live with grandparents or other near relations or even alternate between the houses of the remarried father and mother, thus becoming mere little street waifs who have no definite abiding place. They certainly do suffer from neglect, but seldom are they victims of deliberate cruelty, although such cases are not unheard of.
The distressing screams of a child once attracted the attention of a family; on investigation it was discovered that the Mohammedan neighbor, who had just brought home a new wife encumbered with her little four-year-old daughter, had been cruelly ill-treating the little mite by shutting her in a dark cellar for hours at a time.
The moral effect of divorce on the children is very bad. They often seem to have an inborn passion of hatred and jealousy. The head mistress of a school for girls said she had often noticed how little gentle affection and love seemed to exist between Mohammedan sisters. These passions are also trained into them, for they constantly hear their parents spoken against and see the jealousy that exists between their mothers and the wives who have supplanted them.
The children of divorced parents, being neglected and not having any settled home, generally grow up in ignorance, because they do not stay long enough in one place to go to school regularly. A school was established in a Mohammedan quarter of a large city with a view to reaching the people in that district, but they were of a class whose social system was in such a constant state of upheaval by divorcing and marrying new wives that it was quite impossible to keep the children in school long enough at a time to make any impression upon them. When asked why a certain Zeinab had not put in her appearance, "Oh, she has gone to see her mother who lives across the canal."—"Where is Tantaweyah to-day?"—"Gone to stay with her father awhile in another village."—"What can be the matter with Kaleela?" the teacher asks. She knew Kaleela loved school and would not stay away without an excuse, and she knew that her father wanted her to stay in school, but she had a suspicion that the new wife at home had been the means of putting a stop to Kaleela's schooldays. Her suspicion was true, for the new wife's new baby required a nurse.
The institution of polygamy like that of divorce is a natural consequence of the strict seclusion of woman, for it would be unfair to a man to be put under the necessity of taking a wife he had never seen without allowing him some license should he be disappointed in her. In fact, polygamy was the original institution, a relic of the ancient and more barbarous times, Jewish as well as Heathen. By making polygamy a religious institution, the Prophet preserved a relic of barbarism.
Yet even among Mohammedans polygamy is a dying institution. Its death-blow has been struck because educated Moslems are beginning to be ashamed of it and doctors of Mohammedan law are beginning to interpret the law to mean that Mohammed allowed a man to have four wives on the condition that he could treat all alike; and since human nature makes that condition next to an impossibility therefore Mohammed meant for a man to have only one wife! Many educated Mohammedans in Egypt are taking this position. Among the middle classes the difficulty of supporting more than one wife at a time is decreasing polygamy. But by no means is polygamy an unheard-of thing, even if it is going out of fashion. Fashion is always slow in reaching the country places, and it seems to be in the country villages that polygamy seems to be more generally practised. Two brothers, representative country-men, wealthy and conservative, were known to have very extensive harems, each one having twenty-four wives and concubines.
Many fruitless attempts have been made to defend polygamy and to defend the prophet of Islam for preserving it, but, as a careful student of social and moral ethics has said, "To an ideal love, polygamy is abhorrent and impossible," and when ideal love is impossible to the wife's heart she is degraded because the passions of hate and jealousy will quickly and surely take its place.
The Arabic word which is applied to a rival wife is "durrah," the root meaning of which is "to injure," "to harm." This appellation certainly shows that the fellow-wives are not expected to be on terms of amity with each other.
The most common excuse for taking a second wife "over the head" of the first wife, as expressed in Arabic, is that she has failed to present her husband with a son. To die without a son would be a great disgrace, so he takes his second wife. A well-educated, pleasant-spoken Moslem sheikh, who was teaching some new missionaries the Arabic language, was just on the point of marrying. Being much interested in the young man, one of the missionaries took occasion to impress upon him some of his moral duties toward his new wife. Among them that he should never take another during her lifetime. "Yes, honorable lady, I promise to do as you say if God is willing and she presents me with a son, otherwise against my will I must take a second."
A missionary lady and a Bible woman were making some house-to-house visits in a little country village. As they were going through the street two smiling-faced women standing together in the door of their hut pressed them to enter and pay them a visit, too. In the course of the conversation it turned out that they were fellow-wives. "Have you any children?" was asked of the older. "No, neither has she," was the quick response indicating her rival with a nod of her head. Their common disappointment in not having any children seemed to draw them together and they seemed more like sisters than rival wives, but if one had a child and the other not there would have been some quarrelling and trouble.
As can be quite easily understood it is rarely possible for fellow-wives to live together in the same house. In one village there were two houses quite near each other. One was known as the "house of Hassan"; the other as the "little house of Hassan." The former is the family house, and the other is hired by one of the sons for his second wife, the first wife being in the larger dwelling. The quarrels are so incessant that it is difficult for any one to be friendly with both parties, and the second wife is ruining her health with inordinate smoking "to kill thought." She seems very lonely and dull, but says the arrangement is good, for when her husband is vexed with her he goes to the other house, and when vexed in the other house he comes to her, and she added, "If we lived together and he were vexed with both at once, he would have to sleep in a hotel!"
A Bible woman was wont to visit two young women who lived in a large apartment house, on different floors one just above the other. At first they were believed to be the wives of brothers, but they were so much at variance with each other that neither would enter the apartment of the other, so had to be taught and read to separately, much to the inconvenience of the teacher, who could not understand why two sisters-in-law, as she thought, could not meet together to read. She soon discovered that they were both wives of one man and that jealousy was the cause of the disagreement.
Child-marriages have always been considered one of the curses of the East. In Egypt thirteen is about the average age at which the girls are married, but one is constantly meeting with cases of marriage at a much earlier age. A woman of twenty-five, prematurely old, seemed to take great delight in telling of her marriage when she was only seven years old, about as far back as she could remember. Another often tells the story how she escaped being married when she was only eight years old. The guests were all assembled, the elaborate supper had been enjoyed by all, the dancing women had been more than usually entertaining; the time for the bridal procession came around, but where was the bride? Her father searched all through the house for her. At last he found her lying asleep in the ashes in the kitchen. His father heart was touched and he said to those who followed him, "See that baby there asleep! Is it right to marry her?" At the risk of bringing great disgrace upon himself, he then and there stopped the marriage and the next day started her off to school. This custom of child-marriage is one of the very fruitful causes of the ignorance of the women.
Ignorance and superstition always go hand in hand and they jointly are both a cause and an effect of the degradation of women in Egypt. Superstition might almost be called the religion of feminine Egypt. The people have many curious beliefs about the influence of the "evil eye" and as many curious charms to protect them from this influence. Many mothers will not wash their children for fear they may be made attractive and thus fall under the influence of the evil eye. One woman never compliments another woman's child for the same reason. Two women were companions in travel on the train; by way of introducing the conversation, one said to the other, "What is that ugly thing black as tar in your arms?" The other smiling held out her little baby. "Ugh! how ugly!" said the first woman. "Is it a boy or a girl?"—"A girl," said the mother, but it was quite understood that it was a boy. Boys on account of the very high premium put upon them in Egypt are considered to be very much subject to the influence of the "evil eye," so often he is dressed as a girl and called by a girl's name till he reaches the age when he rebels.
The social evils of Egypt are endless, but there is a hope of better things for the future. One of the characteristics of the "New Egypt" is a reaching out after higher ideals. The ideal of the marriage relation is rising, the educated young Egyptian is beginning to claim his right to choose his own bride, thus making the marriage relation more stable because the grounds of compatibility are surer. With this change of ideas on the marriage question and because an educated man would rather choose an educated wife, there is a growing demand for female education.
The evangelical community has the reputation of being the best educated class of people in Egypt. The last census of all Egypt showed that only forty-eight in one thousand could read. A special census of the native evangelical community showed that three hundred and sixty-five in one thousand could read. The census also brought out the fact that in the evangelical community female education has taken a great step in advance, showing that while in all Egypt only six women in one thousand could read, in the evangelical community two hundred in one thousand could read.
It would be interesting to take a peep into some of the homes of these representative Christian women and see for ourselves how a Christian education has developed those wives and mothers into true home-makers. First let us get acquainted with the dear old grandmother who has just been on a visit to her son and his family who live in our city. She and her son have come to make us a farewell visit before she leaves for her native town. Her feeble voice, her slow step, her dimmed sight, the appealing marks of old age interest us in her. The goodbye kiss and an affectionate pat from her withered old hand draw our hearts to her, the tender filial light in the eyes of her son tells us that this gentle little old lady has been a power for good. After they leave we learn in conversation with those who know the story of her life that she is one of the faithful mothers who has endured much persecution, separation from friends, leaving a home of wealth and influence for one of poverty all for the sake of Christ. The best commentary on her life is the beautiful Christian home of this son, where his sweet ladylike little wife presides over their family of clean, well-ordered children with all the gentle dignity of a real queen. We are perfectly at home with them, for we see nothing but what accords with our ideal of a real home. Without any previous information it would be easy to know that this home is a Bethel where Christ delights to dwell.
Let us go to a distant town far up the river and visit an old couple who have spent many years in God's service. Their lives are a perfect illustration of what Christ can do for a life. Reared under all the tenets and principles of Islam and not being converted to Christianity till they were mature in years, it might be doubted whether a complete change could be wrought in their lives. It did not come all at once, God works out some of His greatest changes in lives slowly and quietly, a "growing up unto Him in all things." The story of the growth of these two followers of Christ is long and interesting. It is enough to know that they have attained to that point where they can truly be called a "holy temple in the Lord." Their home is a model of Christian happiness where "cleanliness and godliness" dwell together. Their lives are lives of service for their Master. The daughter of this home, a woman of rare beauty, carefully brought up and well educated, is one who although yet young in years has had a marked influence for good in Egypt, first as a teacher in a large girls' school, then as the honored and much loved wife of the pastor of a flourishing evangelical church. To visit her in her home, to see her in the midst of her little sons and daughters, to join with the family in the evening meal which has been prepared by her own hands, to hear her talk of her work among the women in her husband's large congregation makes one reverently breathe a prayer of thanksgiving to God that He has let us have a glimpse of the possibilities of Egyptian womanhood.
All up and down the valley of the Nile can be found women from this representative two hundred in different stations of life; and each one filling in a womanly way her position. Generally she is a wife and mother, but a true home-maker whether she be the wife of a noble or a peasant. Sometimes she is a servant, faithful, honest, and helpful; often she is a teacher throwing out great circles of influence, which are widening out till thousands of Egyptian women will be reached. Sometimes she is a humble soul who gives herself over entirely to the service of her Master.
Such a one was Safsaf, converted at the clinic. Her husband had cast her off because she was nearly blind. Her great desire was to learn to read. She was presented with a primer and New Testament when she returned to her village after being in the hospital three months. Who would teach her to read? She begged a lesson at every opportunity from those in her village who had a little learning. No one imagined that she was such an earnest Christian till she soon mastered the reading and after going through the New Testament three times, she began to teach the very ones who had taught her, rebuking them for their sins. They cursed her, saying, "Did we teach you so that you would accuse us!" Her old father learned the truth through her teaching. He then arranged their little hut so that she might hold meetings for women. Her influence among the women and children was wonderful and everybody began to recognize it. Through her efforts a boys' school was started and a capable teacher was secured. The greatest desire of her heart was to have the ministrations of an evangelist in her village. She mustered up courage to go to the meeting of Presbytery and present the request. This was a daring and unheard-of thing for an Egyptian woman to do. But the members of Presbytery were much affected by her pleading and granted her request. The next thing was to get a church; she gave her own little bit of ground, her all, then begged money to build the church on it. In addition to these wider interests, she faithfully and lovingly fulfilled home duties. Her sister, an ignorant, selfish, and very superstitious woman, was her great trial. This sister became ill, so she took her to the hospital. The doctors told her there was no hope. She begged them to allow her to remain. Safsaf spent days and nights praying for her sister's recovery. She began to mend, and the prayers of her devoted sister at her bedside that she might be restored so as to have an opportunity to learn of God and become a converted soul, led her to accept Christ as her Saviour.
The life of this humble, quiet-spoken, earnest-hearted, patient, loving woman, who lives close to Christ, is exercising an influence in her native village which even men wonder at, but only God knows how far-reaching it is.
The possibilities of the Egyptian women are great either for good or for evil.
It is said that Ismail Pasha, the grandfather of the present Khedive, who in his day ruled Egypt with a tyrant's hand, was himself ruled by a woman. His mother, a woman of strong character, was the power behind the throne. Much has been said about the downtrodden condition of Egyptian women, and none too much. Islam puts its heel on the neck of woman. It debases and despises her. But there is another side to the picture. Woman was born an invincible spirit, which even the yoke of Islam has not been able to crush. And in Egypt scarcely less than in lands where she is more honored, she exercises a sway that can neither be denied or despised. The lords of creation—and that the men of Egypt feel themselves decidedly to be—yield to their women far more than a casual observer or even they themselves imagine.
An illustration of this is seen in connection with the mourning customs. The government, and in the case of the Copts, the Church also, has interfered to break up the violent mourning of the women at the time of deaths. Yet very little have they yielded.
This is only one of a thousand instances in which, despite all restrictions, they do as they please. But their influence reaches to far deeper things. They cling to superstitions and a false faith with far more tenacity than do the men. They bring up their children in the same way. It is they who make the marriages for their sons; and they rule their daughters-in-law. They keep many a man from acting up to his religious convictions, and drag many a one back to the denial of his faith. They submit in many things; they are weaker, but it is true that work for women lies at the very foundation of mission work. An Egyptian once said in answer to a statement that the primary object of Mission schools for girls was to lead them to Christ, "If you get the girls for Christ, you get Egypt for Christ."
IV
THE WOMEN OF EGYPT ONCE MORE
"Hasten the redemption of woman ... by restoring her to her mission of inspiration, prayer, and pity."
—Mazzini.
What are the women like? Are they pretty? How do they bring up their children? How do they keep their homes? Do you like them? Are they lovable?
Such are a few of the many questions which are put to the traveller and resident in Egypt, by those interested, for various reasons, in the land and its people.
How differently these questions can be answered. The ordinary tourist sees the black-robed figures (with features invisible except for two eyes peering over a black crape veil) walking in the streets of the cities, or driving sitting huddled together on karros,[A] and he remarks on the discomfort of the costume and the cleverness with which they succeed in balancing themselves on the jolting springless carts. Or again he sees ladies of the upper class driving in their carriages and motor broughams, wearing indeed the inevitable "habarah" and veil,[B] but the former cut so as to well expose the upper part of the person which is clothed in rich satins and adorned with sparkling jewels, and the latter made in such fine white chiffon and hung so loosely over the lower part of the face only, that the features are distinctly visible; and he marks with a smile the effort made by woman to emancipate herself from customs which deny her the prerogative of attracting admiration to herself.
Bargains in Oranges
By the Banks of the Nile
Again, perchance, he sees the "fellahah" carrying her water jar with ease and grace along some rough uneven track; or, may be, in company with others bearing with agility and strength loads of mud and brick to the builders, measuring her steps and actions to the music of some native chant; and he is impressed with the idea of her bright existence and her powers of perfect enjoyment.
Again he sees her, whether in city or village alike, following the bier which is carrying all that is left of one who may or may not have been dear to her, and he hears the shrill death wail, and he notes either the bitterness of hopeless sorrow, or the hollowness of a make-belief grief; and he is struck with the demonstrativeness of the women and the peculiarity of the scene, and will try to get a snap-shot of it on his kodak, and then he passes on to things of other interest. Thus the tourist gets to know something of the women, it is true, but all that lies behind these outside scenes is closed to him, and rarely known.
To the British resident the Egyptian woman is usually less interesting than to the tourist. The novelty of her peculiarities and picturesqueness has worn off, and between her and her more fortunate sisters of the West there is a great gulf fixed. Very rarely is an attempt made to bridge this gulf; language and customs apparently form an impassable barrier, and though many English ladies live in Egypt for years, they never enter an Egyptian house, or speak to an Egyptian woman.
It is therefore left to the Christian missionary to know—and to know with an ever widening knowledge—what are the disabilities and what the capabilities as well as possibilities of these daughters of Hagar.
A woman's life may truly be said to have its commencement in betrothal. Before then she is a child, and the days of her childhood are usually spent without any form of restraint whatever. Most of her time, even if she be the daughter of quite well-to-do people, is often spent playing in the streets, where she learns much that is evil and little that is good. The one great reason which many parents give who wish to put their children to school is, "to keep her out of the street, where she plays in the dirt and learns bad language." But whether she goes to school or not the life of a little girl except in school hours is a perfectly free, untrained life in which she learns no morality, not even obedience to her parents. If she does obey them it is from abject fear of punishment, when disobedience would inevitably mean a severe beating. Between the ages of ten to fifteen, usually about twelve and often earlier, the little girl is betrothed and then confinement to the house begins. In one hour her life is changed, no more playing about in the street and acting upon the impulse of her own sweet will, no more for her the child's delight of spending her millième or two at the costermonger's cart and then sitting in the gutter to eat her purchase with face and hands begrimed with dirt; no more for her the joy of paddling in the mud by the street pump, and climbing and clambering about wherever she can with difficulty get. No, she is betrothed now, and her childhood and girlhood are over. Instead of freedom and liberty, come confinement and restraint. She is not now allowed out of doors except on rare occasions and then in company with older women, and her movements are hampered by her being enveloped in "habarah" and "veil."
Still she has for a time some little comfort in being the important person of the community. She is the bride-elect and there is some excitement in seeing the new "galibeeyahs"[C] and articles of furniture which are to become her own special property. But then, after a few short months, sometimes weeks, the fatal wedding day arrives, when the child-bride is taken away from her mother and becomes the absolute possession of a man she has often never seen, and knows nothing about. Her woman's life is begun in earnest, and in very stern reality she learns what it is to be in subjection, she learns by bitter experience that she has no power now to do what she likes, and that she is subservient to another.
Her husband may be kind to her, and in many cases is; but in any case she is his slave and utterly dependent on the caprice of his nature. If she herself is fortunate enough to have a man who treats her humanely there are dozens of others living in her quarter who come to see her, who are objects of cruelty and malevolence; and so her mind is fed with histories of intrigue and divorce, of injustice and retaliation, and of unwritten scandal and sin; until she too, alas! becomes contaminated, and often brings down upon herself the just wrath and harshness of one who might have been good to her. History repeats itself: in nine cases out of ten, she can add her tale of woe to the rest.
She bears her children and nurses them, thankful if they chance to be boys; she has no heart nor ability to teach or train them; or joy in keeping them clean and pretty;—she loses two, three, or more in infancy; those who are strong survive and until they are two or three years old, take her place in the streets, where the open-air life and exercise become their physical salvation.
When she is over twenty, she in her turn becomes an elder woman and is to be seen, usually with a young baby in her arms, walking in the streets as she goes the round of seeing her friends, wailing with the mourners at the house of death, weekly visiting the graves of her own or her husband's relatives, and joining in the wedding festivities of those who are going to follow in her train.
What wonder that the Moslem man often cries despairingly: "Our women are all brutish," and has not an atom of respect for her in his heart. In the few cases where a Moslem man speaks well of his wife, and calls her "a good woman," he almost invariably attributes her being so to his own foresight, and diligent insistence in keeping her wholly under his control, limiting those who come to the house, and not letting her go out of the house even after she has become an elder woman. Between thirty-five and forty she is an old woman with grandchildren, and her life quietly goes down to the grave with all the light and joy long since gone out of it, and with a dark and hopeless future before it. A few illustrations from the writer's personal knowledge will not perhaps be out of place here.
Fatimah had been a day pupil in a mission school for four years. She could read and write well, and sew, and do fancy work. Her father was dead, her brother, for some business expedient, arranged a marriage for her, when she was thirteen, with an old man who had already sons and daughters much older than herself.
He was a head man in his village and lived some distance from Fatimah's home. "Do you think it will be a good thing for Fatimah?" said I to the mother. "What are we to do?" was the reply; "they say he is kind; and far better to marry her to him than to a young man who will only ill-treat and beat her; we are very poor and cannot afford to get a really respectable young man."
The marriage took place, within two months Fatimah had returned home but was induced to go back again, this was repeated twice and on returning home the third time, she made up her mind to get her husband to permanently divorce her. Her mother of course abetted her, and a woman (as payment for a piece of fancy work she had asked Fatimah to do for her) promised to bring about the divorce by some plan of intrigue which she would arrange.
Fatimah's life is blighted; the best that one can hope for is re-marriage to a poor but respectable man, and to go through her life with him; but the probabilities are she will be married and divorced time after time, and each time sink lower in the social scale. She is not yet fifteen years old.
Aneesah was a little girl of nine, frail and delicate-looking, and an only child and much petted, but often she seemed possessed by the devil so naughty was her conduct. At such times her mother would take her and tie her up, then beat her unmercifully, until the neighbors, hearing the child's screams, would come to the rescue and force the mother to desist. The mother has herself shown me the marks of her own teeth in the flesh of her child's arms, where she has bitten her in order to drive the devil out of her. What is likely to be the future of that child? One shudders to think of it.
Many a time in visiting among the very poor I have sat with the women in an open court, which is like a small yard in the middle of several houses, in which several families own one, two, or three rooms. In the court there may be a dozen or more women, unwashed, uncombed, untidy to a degree; some bread-making, some washing, others seated nursing their babies:—babies who are as sick and unhealthy as they can possibly be, their bodies ingrained with dirt, their heads encrusted with sores and filth, their eyes inflamed and uncleansed, their garments smelling, and one and all looking thoroughly ill and wretched. It is the rarest thing to see a healthy-looking baby.
As I have sat amongst them and talked with them, I have tried to reason with them and point out the advantages of cleanliness and industry; all admit that I am right and that our habits are better than theirs, yet none have the heart or the energy or the character to break away from their customs and their innate laziness and to rise up and be women.
Yet one can hardly wonder at their condition, what chances have they had? Married at ten or eleven, untrained and untaught, many of them not knowing how to hold a needle, or make the simplest garment; still in their teens with two or three children to burden them, whom they long to see big enough to turn out into the streets and play as they did before them. Their only interest in life, each other's family brawls and scandals; their health undermined by close confinement and want of exercise, is it a wonder that they sink into a state of callousness and indifference about everything?
I have seen a bright-spirited, energetic, laughing, romping girl of eleven, turned in one year into a miserable, lazy, dull, inert woman with her beauty and health gone, and looking nearer thirty than thirteen. One often does not wonder at such a condition of things, rather does one wonder when the reverse prevails, and one is able to realize their possibilities in spite of all their drawbacks. I know of women, though they are but very few, equally poor and unfavored as those I have described, who can be found sitting in their own little rooms, their younger children with them, holding themselves aloof from the usual gossip, their rooms swept, themselves clean and tidy, their babies, though not ideal, comparing favorably with the others; their one apparent trouble, the elder children whom they do not know how to train and whom they cannot keep out of the streets; unless indeed there chance to be a mission school in the near neighborhood.
The same state of things pervades all classes of society, though in the middle and upper classes the Moslems are usually very cleanly both in their persons and in their homes, but the majority of the women are in the same low degraded moral state. Life in the harems is spent in smoking and idle gossip, and things far worse; the wife and mother there, no less than among the poorer classes, has no idea of responsibility. She is frequently unable either to sew, read, or write, and leaves her children to the care of dependents. Her life is merely an animal life; she is but a necessary article for use in her husband's household.
A wealthy merchant who has had several wives keeps one in a beautiful house with every comfort, another wife of the same man is left to live where she can with the pittance of something like three pence per day. This is what the Moslem faith allows.
It has been well said "a nation cannot rise above the level of its women," and this is painfully illustrated in Egypt and in all other lands where the faith of Islam holds sway. Much is being done to improve the social conditions of the people of Egypt, but the real sore remains untouched so long as the teaching of the Koran with regard to the position of women remains in vogue.
There are many Mohammedan gentlemen who would fain see a better state of things, and who, like the late Mr. Justice Budrudin Tyabji, of Madras, devote their efforts to the amelioration of the backward position of their brethren in the faith, and desire especially the "mitigation and ultimate removal of paralyzing social customs, such as the seclusion of women." But their efforts are unavailing so long as they remain adherents of the Moslem faith, for in obedience to the Koran they can adopt no other course than the present one.
Let them substitute for the Koran the teaching of the Christian faith, the faith which alone gives woman her rightful position, and they will find that she can be a mighty influence for good in the social life of the nation. Let her take the place ordained for her by the Great Creator as the "helpmeet" to man, let her fulfil her mission in the world, laid down in the teaching of the New Testament, to love and influence, to cheer and strengthen, to pour out her life in the devotion of love and self-sacrifice, whether as daughter and sister, or wife and mother; then will the women of Egypt be clothed with "strength and honor" and then will the daughters of Hagar put on the robe of chastity and the "adornment of a meek and quiet spirit."
"Chastity—
"She that hath that is clothed in complete steel."
Her price will be "far above rubies," the heart of her husband will "safely trust in her," her children shall "arise up, and call her blessed."