The Women of the Arabs

by Henry Harris Jessup

December 14. "On Saturday, our native female prayer-meeting consisted of twenty, besides two children. Fourteen were Arabs, more than were ever present before. We met in the girls' school room, where we intend in future to assemble. We sung part of a psalm, as we have begun to teach music in our school. We find the children quite as capable of forming musical sounds as those in our own country; but alas, we have no psalms or hymns adapted to their capacities. The Arabic cannot be simplified like the English, without doing violence to Arab taste; at least such is the opinion now. What changes may be wrought in the language, we cannot tell. Of this obstacle in the instruction of the young here, you have not perhaps thought. It is a painful thought to us, that children's literature, if I may so term it, is incompatible with the genius of this language: of course, infant school lessons must be bereft of many of their attractions."

It may be interesting to know whether present missionary experience differs from that of Mrs. Smith and her husband in 1835, with regard to children's literature in the Arabic language.

In 1858, Mr. Ford prepared, with the aid of Mr. Bistany, (the husband of "Raheel," Mrs. Smith's adopted child,) a series of children's Scripture Tracts in simple and yet perfectly correct Arabic, so that the youngest child can understand them. In 1862, we printed the first Children's Hymn-book, partly at the expense of the girls in Rufka's school. We have now in Arabic about eighty children's hymns, and a large number of tracts and story books designed for children. We also publish an Illustrated Children's Monthly, called the "Koukab es Subah," "The Morning Star," and the children read it with the greatest eagerness.

The Koran, which is the standard of classic Arabic, cannot be changed, and hence can never be a book for children. It cannot be a family book, or a women's book. It cannot attract the minds of the young, with that charm which hangs around the exquisitely simple and beautiful narratives of the Old and New Testament. It is a gem of Arabic poetry, but like a gem, crystalline and unchanging. It has taken a mighty hold upon the Eastern world, because of its Oriental style and its eloquent assertion of the Divine Unity. It is reverenced, but not loved, and will stand where it is while the world moves on. Every reform in government, toleration and material improvement in the Turkish Empire, Persia and Egypt, is made in spite of the Koran and contrary to its spirit. The printing of the Koran is unlawful, but it is being printed. All pictures of living objects are unlawful, but the Sultan is photographed, Abd el Kader is photographed, the "Sheikh ul Islam" is photographed. European shoes are unlawful because sewed with a swine's bristle, but Moslem Muftis strut about the streets in French gaiters, and the women of their harems tottle about in the most absurd of Parisian high-heeled slippers.

The Arabic Bible translated by Drs. Eli Smith and Cornelius Van Dyck, is voweled with the grammatical accuracy and beauty of the Koran with the aid of a learned Mohammedan Mufti, and yet has all the elegant simplicity of the original and is intelligible to every Arab, old and young, who is capable of reading at all. The stories of Joseph, Moses, and David, of Esther, Daniel and Jonah are as well adapted to the comprehension of children in the Arabic as in the English.

Not a few of the hymns in the Children's Hymn book are original, written by M. Ibrahim Sarkis, husband of Miriam of Aleppo, and M. Asaad Shidoody, husband of Hada. This Hymn book was published in 1862, with Plates presented by Dr. Robinson's Sabbath School of the First Presbyterian Church, Brooklyn.

This digression seemed necessary, in order to show the great progress that has been made since 1836, in preparing a religious literature. It is no longer true as in Mrs. Smith's day, "that we have no psalms or hymns adapted to the capacities of children." Nor is it longer true that "children's literature is incompatible with the genius of the Arabic language."

In a letter addressed to the young women in the "Female Academy at Norwich," February, 1836, Mrs. Smith gives a vivid description of the "average woman" of Syria in her time, and the description holds true of nine-tenths of the women at the present day. There are now native Christian homes, not the least attractive of which is the home of her own little protegé Raheel, but the great mass continue as they were forty years ago. She says, "My dear friends, will you send your thoughts to this, which is not a heathen, but an unevangelized country. I will not invite you to look at our little female school of twenty or thirty, because these form but a drop among the thousands and thousands of youth throughout Syria; although I might draw a contrast even from this not a little in your favor. But we will speak of the young Syrian females at large, moving in one unbroken line to the land of darkness and sorrow. Among them you will find many a fine form and beautiful face; but alas! the perfect workmanship of their Creator is rendered tame and insipid, for want of that mental and moral culture which gives a peculiar charm to the human countenance. It is impossible for me to bring the females of this country before you in so vivid a manner that you can form a correct idea of them. But select from among your acquaintances a lady who is excessively weak, vain and trifling; who has no relish for any intellectual or moral improvement; whose conversation is altogether confined to dress, parties, balls, admiration, marriage; whose temper and faults have never been corrected by her parents, but who is following, unchecked, all the propensities of a fallen, corrupt nature. Perhaps you will not be able to find any such, though I have occasionally met with them in America. If you succeed, however, in bringing a person of this character to your mind, then place the thousands of girls, and the women, too, of this land, once the land of patriarchs, prophets and apostles, in her class." "These weak-minded Syrian females are not attentive to personal cleanliness; neither have they a neat and tasteful style of dress. Their apparel is precisely such as the Apostle recommended that Christian females should avoid; while the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit is thrown wholly out of the account. They have no books, and no means of moral or intellectual improvement. It is considered a disgrace for a female to know how to read and write, and a serious obstacle to her marriage, which is the principal object of the parent's heart. This abhorrence of learning in females, exists most strongly in the higher classes. Nearly every pupil in our school is very indigent. Of God's word they understand nothing, for a girl is taken to church perhaps but once a year, where nothing is seen among the women but talking and trifling; of course she attaches no solemnity to the worship of God. No sweet domestic circle of father, brother, mother and sister, all capable of promoting mutual cheerfulness and improvement, greets her in her own house. I do not mean to imply that there exists no family affection among them, for this tie is often very strong; but it has no foundation in respect, and is not employed to promote elevation of character. The men sit and smoke their pipes in one apartment, while in another the women cluster upon the floor, and with loud and vociferous voices gossip with their neighbors. The very language of the females is of a lower order than that of the men, which renders it almost impossible for them to comprehend spiritual and abstract subjects, when first presented to their minds. I know not how often, when I have attempted to converse with them, they have acknowledged that they did not understand me, or have interrupted me by alluding to some mode or article of dress, or something quite as foolish." "Thus you see, my young friends, how unhappy is the condition of the females of Syria, and how many laborers are wanted to cultivate this wide field. On the great day of final account, the young females of Syria, of India, of every inhabited portion of the globe, who are upon the stage of life with you, will rise up, either to call you blessed, or to enhance your condemnation." "God is furnishing American females their high privileges, with the intention of calling them forth into the wide fields of ignorance and error, which the world exhibits. I look over my country and think of the hundreds and thousands of young ladies, intelligent, amiable and capable, who are assembled in schools and academies there; and then turn my eye to Jerusalem, Hebron, Nazareth, Sychar, Damascus, Tyre, Sidon, Jaffa, and to the numerous villages of Mount Lebanon, and think, 'Why this inequality of condition and privileges? Why can there not be stationed at every one of those morally desolate places, at least one missionary family, and one single female as a teacher? Does not Jesus Christ, the Good Shepherd, require it of His youthful friends in America, that from love to Him, gratitude for their own distinguished mercies, compassion for perishing souls, and the expectation of perfect rest and happiness in heaven, they should spread themselves over the wide world, and feed the sheep and the lambs scattered without a shepherd upon the mountains?' Yes, He requires it, and angels will yet behold it; but shall we not see it in our day?"

Great changes have come over Syria since the above words were written. Not less than twelve high schools for girls have been established since then in Syria and Palestine, and not far from forty common schools, exclusively for girls, under the auspices of the different Missionary Societies.