Then he questioned us on the prayers we had learnt, on the good we had to do and the evil to avoid, and his voice was so monotonous that each sentence sounded like a prayer.
When we had finished, he asked, as he always did, to see our governess. I went to find her in the garden, and she came at once.
As the Hodja could not speak English, he asked us to say to her, “You have a fine face. Allah loves the good and the kind and those who go the way they should go. He will be with you.” And before he went away, taking with him the delightful perfume of incense, he shook the hand of the Englishwoman in his.
Turkish Lady in Tcharchaff. Outdoor Costume
During the reign of Abdul Aziz (vide text) Turkish ladies wore the Yashmak in the street, now they wear a thick black veil through which they can see and are not supposed to be seen. The women must always wear gloves.
Another day he came, and after the lesson he said to me, “Neyr, you are twelve years old; you must be veiled. You can no longer have your hair exposed and your face uncovered—you must be veiled. Your mother has not noticed you have grown a big girl, I therefore must. I teach you to love Allah, you are my spiritual child, and for that reason I must warn you of the danger henceforward of going out unveiled. Neyr, you must be veiled.”
I was not even listening to the Imam! An awful agony had seized and numbed my soul; the words which he had uttered resounded in my brain, and little by little sank into my understanding—“Neyr, you must be veiled”—that is to say, to be forever cloistered like those who live around you; to be a slave like your mother, and your cousins, and your elder sister; to belong henceforth to the harem; no longer to play in the garden unveiled; nor ride Arabian ponies in the country; to have a veil over your eyes, and your soul; to be always silent, always forgotten, to be always and always a thing.
“Neyr, you must be veiled,” the old Hodja began again.