Читать книгу Our Moslem Sisters - Various - Страница 7

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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.