The Women of the Arabs

by Henry Harris Jessup

As another illustration of public sentiment in Syria with regard to evangelical work, I will translate another paragraph from this official newspaper:

"We have been writing of the progress of the Press in Syria, and of Arabic literature in Europe, but we have another fact to mention which will no doubt fill the sons of our country with astonishment. You know well the efforts which were put forth some time since in the printing of the Old and New Testaments in various editions in the Arabic language, in the Press of the American Mission in Beirût. This work is under the direction of the distinguished scholar Dr. Van Dyck, who labored assiduously in the completion of the translation of the Bible from the Hebrew and Greek languages, which was commenced by the compassionated of God, Dr. Eli Smith. They had printed from time to time large editions of this Bible with great labor and expense, and sold them out, and then were obliged to set up the types again for a new edition. But Dr. Van Dyck thought it best, in order to find relief from the vast expenditure of time and money necessary to reset the types, to prepare for every page of the Bible a plate of copper, on whose face the letters should be engraved. He therefore proceeded to New York, and undertook in co-operation, with certain men skilled in the electrotyping art, to make plates exactly corresponding to the pages of the Holy Book, and he has sent to us a specimen page taken from the first plate of the vowelled Testament, and on comparison with the page printed here, we find it an exact copy of the Beirût edition which is printed in the same type with our journal. We regard it as far clearer and better than the sheets printed from movable types, and we congratulate Dr. Van Dyck, and wish him all success in this enterprise."

Such statements as these derive their value from the fact that they appear in the official paper of a Mohammedan government, and are a testimony to the value of the Word of God.

The next article is a literal translation of an address delivered in June, 1867, at the Annual Examination of the Beirût Female Seminary. This Seminary was the first school in Syria for girls, which was established on the paying principle, and in the year 1867 its income from Syrian girls who paid their own board and tuition was about fifteen hundred dollars in gold. It commenced with six pupils, and now has fifty boarders. A crowded assembly attended the examination in the year above mentioned, and at its close, several native gentlemen made addresses in Arabic. The most remarkable address was made by a Greek Priest, Ghubrin Jebara, the Archimandrite and agent of the Patriarch. When it is remembered that in the days of Bird, Goodell and Fisk, the Greek clergy were among the most bitter enemies of the missionaries, it will be seen that this address indicates a great change in Syria. Turning to the great congregation of three or four hundred people who were assembled in the American Chapel, Greeks, Maronites, Mohammedans, Catholics and Protestants, he said:

"You know my friends, into what a sad state our land and people had fallen, morally, socially and intellectually. We had no schools, no books, no means of instruction, when God in His Providence awakened the zeal of good men far across two seas in distant America, of which many of us had never heard, to leave home and friends and country to spend their lives among us, yes even among such as I am. In the name of my countrymen in Syria, I would this day thank these men, and those who sent them. They have given us the Arabic Bible, numerous good books, founded schools and seminaries, and trained our children and youth. But for the American Missionaries the Word of God would have well nigh died out of the Arabic language. But now through the labors of the lamented Eli Smith and Dr. Van Dyck, they have given us a translation so pure, so exact, so clear and so classical as to be acceptable to all classes and all sects. But for their labors, education would still be where it was centuries ago, and our children would still have continued to grow up like wild beasts. Is there any one among us so bigoted, so ungrateful, as not to appreciate these benevolent labors; so blind as not to see their fruits? True, other European Missionaries have come here from France and Italy, and we will not deny their good intentions. But what have they brought us? And what have they taught? A little French. They tell us how far Lyons is from Paris, and where Napoleon first lived, and then they forbid the Word of God, and scatter broadcast the writings of the accursed infidel Voltaire. But these Americans have come thousands of miles, from a land than which there is no happier on earth, to dwell among such as we are, yes, I repeat it, such as I am, to translate God's word, to give us schools and good books, and a goodly example, and I thank them for it. I thank them and all who are laboring for us. I would thank Mr. Mikhaiel Araman, the Principal of this Female Seminary, who is a son of our land, and Miss Rufka Gregory, the Preceptress, who is a daughter of our own people, for the wonderful progress we have witnessed during these three days among the daughters of our own city and country, in the best kind of knowledge. Allah grant prosperity to this Seminary, and all its teachers and pupils, peace and happiness to all here present to-day and long life to our Sultan Abdul Aziz."

As my object in giving these extracts from Arab writers and orators of the present day, is to give some idea of the change going on in Syrian public sentiment with regard to education, the dignity of woman, and the abolition of superstitious social usages, I cannot do better than to translate from the official journal of Daûd Pasha, late governor of Mt. Lebanon, an article on the customs of the Lebanon population. This paper was styled "Le Liban," and printed both in Arabic and French in July, 1867. It gives us a glimpse of the civilizing and Christianizing influences which are at work in Syria.

"In Mount Lebanon there exist certain customs, which had their origin in kindly feeling and sympathy, but have now passed beyond the limits of propriety, and lost their original meaning. For example, when one falls sick, his relatives and friends at once begin to pour in upon him. The whole population of the town will come crowding into the house, each one speaking to the sick a word of comfort and encouragement, and then sitting down in the sick room. The poor invalid must respond to all these salutations, and even be expected to rise in bed and bow to his loving friends. Then the whole company must speak a word to the family, to the wife and children, assuring them that the disease is but slight, and the sick man will speedily recover. Then they crowd into the sick room (and such a crowd it is!) and the family and servants are kept running to supply them with cigars and narghîlehs, by means of which they fill the room with a dense and suffocating smoke. Meantime, they talk all at once and in a loud voice, and the air soon becomes impure and suffocating, and all these things as a matter of course injure the sick man, and he becomes worse. Then the childish doctors of the town are summoned, and in they come with grave faces, and a great show of wisdom, and each one begins to recount the names of all the medicines he has heard of, and describes their effects in working miraculous cures. Then they enter into ignorant disputes on learned subjects, and talk of the art of medicine of which they know nothing save what they have learned by hearsay. One will insist that this medicine is the best, because his father used it with great benefit just before he died, and another will urge the claims of another medicine, of a directly opposite character, and opinions will clash, and all in the presence of the sick man, who thus becomes agitated and alarmed. He takes first one medicine and then its opposite, and then he summons other doctors and consults his relatives. Then all the old women of the neighborhood take him in hand and set at naught all that the doctors have advised, give him medicines of whose properties they are wholly ignorant, and thus they hasten the final departure of their friend on his long last journey. And if he should die, the whole population of the town assembles at once at the house and the relatives, friends, and people from other villages come thronging in. They fill the house with their screams and wails of mourning. They recount the virtues of the departed with groans and shrieks, and lamentations in measured stanzas. This all resembles the customs of the old Greeks and Romans who hired male and female mourners to do their weeping for them. After this, they proceed at once to bear the corpse to the grave, without one thought as to proving whether there be yet life remaining or not, not leaving it even twelve hours, and never twenty-four hours. It is well known that this custom is most brutal and perilous, for they may suppose a living man to be dead, and bury him alive, as has, no doubt, often been done. Immediately after the burial, the crowd return to the house of the deceased, where a sumptuous table awaits them, and all the relatives, friends, and strangers eat their fill. After eight days, the wailing, assembling, crowding, and eating are repeated, for the consolation of the distracted relatives. And these crowds and turbulent proceedings occur, not simply at Syrian funerals, but also at marriages and births, in case the child born is a boy, for the Syrians are fond of exhibiting their joy and sorrow. But it should be remembered, that just as in civilized lands, all these demonstrations of joy and sorrow are tempered by moderation and wisdom, and subdued by silent acquiescence in the Divine will, so in uncivilized lands, they are the occasion for giving the loose rein to passion and tumult and violent emotion. How much in conformity with true faith in God, and religious principle, is the quiet, well-ordered and moderate course of procedure among civilized nations!

"So in former times, the man was everywhere the absolute tyrant of the family. The wife was the slave, never to be seen by others. And if, in conversation, it became necessary to mention her name, it would be by saying this was done by my wife 'ajellak Allah.' But now, there is a change, and woman is no longer so generally regarded as worthy of contempt and abuse, and the progress being made in the emancipation and elevation of woman, is one of the noblest and best proofs of the real progress of Lebanon in the paths of morality and civilization."

This is the language of the official paper of the Lebanon government. Yet how difficult to root out superstitious and injurious customs by official utterances! At the very time that article was written, these customs continued in full force. A woman in Abeih, whose husband died in 1866, refused to allow her house or her clothes to be washed for more than a whole year afterward, just as though untidiness and personal uncleanliness would honor her deceased husband!