Our Moslem Sisters / A Cry of Need from Lands of Darkness Interpreted by Those Who Heard It

by Unknown

No Turk expects a woman to speak to him in a public place, or if she does he will not raise his eyes from the ground. A friend of mine was in deepest distress in a lonely place in Turkey, wringing her hands and crying "Alas! Alas!" as she saw a man approaching her; but Agha Effendim gave her no heed until she walked straight up to him, so sore was her need, and told him her trouble. Then his heart was touched, and Mohammedan Albanian as he was, he rendered her the aid which she asked.

Forty Mohammedan women, living too distant from Mecca to allow a pilgrimage thither, made the ascent, one summer, of one of the loftiest mountain peaks in European Turkey. They did this as a religious duty. It was a feat which required all the vigor and strength of an American mountain-climber, who ascended the same peak some days later. She could not abandon the task, however, which they had accomplished, whose feet knew only the heelless slipper or the wooden clog, when about their household duties, or stepped noiselessly in their gaily embroidered homemade stockings, when indoors. The Turkish woman can climb. She can reach lofty heights. Slowly and painfully she will leave her dense ignorance, her habits of superstition, her jealousies, and her intrigues behind her and will emerge, led by the loving hand of her Christian sister, sometimes of her husband or child, into the glorious liberty of the children of God.

We admit that ofttimes the obstacles seem insuperable, when we meet the barrier of the unawakened life. What opportunity is there before the little mother but fourteen years old herself? How shall she escape the name which her own family perhaps give her—"a cow"? "Cattle" is a common term for women. Her men-folks will very likely hinder her education, in many instances, but she must be led out of her old life, along this way. The mothers of coming generations, with unlimited influence over their husband's inclination and conduct even when set toward progress—the Turkish woman must be reached! Christianity is the one means to allay her superstitions, her jealousies, her fears, and to give her a true outlook upon life and its meaning. The women of Christendom must help her who cannot help herself. The pitifulness of the condition of Turkish women, and the difficulty of reaching them, form the challenge of Islam to the Christian world. Shall we take up the gauntlet thrown down by the Crescent and the Star, and lifting high the banner of the Cross, go forward in Christ's name, because God wills their salvation as truly as ours, and sends us to them in His name?

The influence of civilization is necessarily felt far less in the interior of Turkey than in the maritime sections; yet here also, thanks to the multiplication of schools and teachers and loving Christian women trained in those schools, conditions are beginning to be changed. "In one city of western Turkey," we are told, "the Turks themselves asked for a kindergarten teacher from our American mission school, to open a kindergarten for them, and it was done. Girls' schools have sprung up among the Moslems in various parts of the country, from the same influences which affected Greeks and Armenians, though more slowly. Quite recently there has been an awakening among the Turks to the fact that if they would keep pace with the march of civilization they must provide for the education of their girls. So now, in some of the large cities, schools for Turkish girls have been established, and, although the attendance is still small and the work elementary, yet it shows the trend of opinion, and gives great hope of soon bettering the condition of women in the empire."

Another observer writes concerning more progressive portions of Turkey: "The power of education is proving a sure disintegrator to the seclusion of Moslem social life. Turkish women have already taken enviable places among the writers of their nation. Others are musicians, physicians, nurses, and a constantly increasing number are availing themselves of the educational facilities afforded by the German, French, and other foreign institutions which have been established at Constantinople, Smyrna, and elsewhere in the Ottoman Empire. In the beautiful American College for Girls, on the heights of Scutari, Constantinople, Turkish girls, as well as those of all nationalities of the Orient and Franks, eagerly take advantage of the course, and a few have graduated with honor. A far larger number, however, are removed to the seclusion of their homes as they approach maidenhood. On the day when the first six girls from Moslem families were received, more than one of them learned the entire English alphabet. What a need for prayer that the Spirit of God shall reach those receptive young hearts from the very first day, in this and every other Christian educational institution to which Moslem girls turn their steps!" The most tactful and consecrated work of their missionary or native teachers must be done every day, for such Turkish girls, whether in more elementary schools or in colleges, inasmuch as the proverb of the country: "Either marry your daughter at sixteen or bury her!" is still very much in force beyond those limited districts where the influence of Western ideas has availed to modify somewhat the old thought. What they gain during the short time when they may remain in school, must be the food of their lives, in multitudes of instances.

We know the paucity of literature of all kinds in Turkey, where government press regulations prohibit any general output of publications; this, combined with the very general poverty of the people, makes many a home bookless, and the great majority of lives barren. Sometimes in missionary tours we have seen far up on the hillside a group of poor peasants descending. The sudden turning of the women of that party, drawing their filthy veils closer across their faces on hot July or August days, reveals to the passers-by that these are Moslems. They have discovered that there are men in the approaching party of travellers. They may have mistaken the ladies wearing hats as gentlemen also. A command has evidently been given by their lord and master, at which the women have sunk to the ground, with their backs to the road, while still far from it, lest one of those infidel eyes should peer through their veils, and look upon their faces. Yet women's curiosity compels those hidden eyes to seek at least a surreptitious peep at the foreign travellers, and they watch us furtively. Under such circumstances there can be no hope of any personal touch, save if occasion might arise which would allow a call at the hovel which constitutes their home. On one of my last journeys in Turkey I chanced to meet a Turkish soldier on a lonely mountain road. As I passed him, walking in advance of my horse and driver, filled with no small trepidation at such proximity in that lonely place, he gave me no salutation, and I confess to a feeling of relief when I had passed him unchallenged. But how that feeling changed to remorse when my driver overtook me, and said that the soldier had stopped him to inquire if the teacher who had just gone by were a doctor, for a little child of his lay at home grievously ill. What an opportunity had been missed! If he only had spoken, the pitiful need in that home would have been opened up to the missionary teacher, who, although not a doctor, would have done what she could to relieve the little sufferer, and to comfort the sorrowing parents. There would have been a chance to bring to that poor, ignorant mother in her miserable home, a token of love and tenderness out of the great world of which she knew nothing.

One of the most discouraging aspects of life in Turkey at the present time, is found in the fact that as men travel about in their business or professional life; come into contact in various ways with those of different views and more advanced thought than themselves; become influenced by them; and mildly enthusiastic to put the new ideas into practice; they are met on the very threshold of their homes by their uncomprehending and immovable wives, who with horror refuse to allow the souls of their families to be imperilled by tolerating any such heresies. This difficulty, instead of being cause for discouragement, constitutes a powerful challenge to the heart of Christianity, to help such an awakening man, and to find the dormant soul of this woman. No opposition can long stand before the appeal of the Gospel, when tactfully, lovingly, prayerfully brought to bear upon such souls.

Fatima Khanum ("my Sovereign Fatima"), a Bible woman, seventy years old, finds the joy of the Lord to be still her strength, as she goes from house to house, telling in her musical Turkish tongue the story of God's love for every man, and urges all to receive it. Very closely they get together on a wintry day, as visitor and visited gather about the brazier of coals, and talk over the wonderful words of life. May God greatly multiply the number of such faithful witnesses for Him, throughout the Turkish Empire!

"Evet, Effendim!" ("yes, my lord!") frequently says a missionary friend who, having learned the Turkish as her missionary language when a young teacher, still cherishes her love for it, and sometimes uses it to her best-beloved. Shall we not say, Yes, Lord! to Him who died on Calvary for all, and who is "not willing that any should perish," and with Him seek those "other sheep," and bring them to the fold of the Good Shepherd? There can be no failure here, although the church of Christ has but slowly and late come to the realization that the Mohammedan world too, with its millions of women and children, must be His. Hath not God said: "Look unto Me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else.... Unto Me every knee shall bow"?