The Women of the Arabs

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The Women of the Arabs

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Title: The Women of the Arabs
Author: Henry Harris Jessup
Editor: C.S. Robinson and Isaac Riley
Release Date: December 11, 2005 [EBook #17278]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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THE WOMEN
OF
THE ARABS.
_WITH A CHAPTER FOR CHILDREN._
BY
Rev. HENRY HARRIS JESSUP, D.D.,
_Seventeen years American Missionary in Syria._
EDITED BY Rev. C.S. ROBINSON, D.D., & Rev. ISAAC RILEY.
"The threshold weeps forty days when a girl is born." --_Mt. Lebanon
Proverb._
NEW YORK: DODD & MEAD, PUBLISHERS.
Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1873, by DODD &
MEAD, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington.

THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED TO THE
CHRISTIAN WOMEN OF AMERICA.

Beirût, Syria, _July, 1873_.
_Owing to the impossibility of my attending personally to the editing
of this volume, I requested my old friends_, Rev. C.S. Robinson, D.D.,
and Rev. Isaac Riley, _of New York, to superintend the work, and
would gratefully acknowledge their kind and disinterested aid,
cheerfully proffered at no little sacrifice of time._

H.H. JESSUP.

PREFACE.
The Orient is the birthplace of prophecy. Before the advent of our Lord,
the very air of the East was resounding with the "unconscious
prophecies of heathenism." Men were in expectation of great changes
in the earth. When Mohammed arose, he not only claimed to be the
deliverer of a message inspired of Allah, but to foretell the events of
futurity. He declared that the approach of the latter day could be
distinguished by unmistakable signs, among which were two of the
most notable character.
Before the latter day, the sun shall rise in the West, and God will send
forth a cold odoriferous wind blowing from Syria Damascena, which
shall sweep away the souls of all the faithful, and the Koran itself.
What the world of Islam takes in its literal sense, we may take in a
deeper spiritual meaning. Is it not true, that far in the West, the gospel
sun began to rise and shed its beams on Syria, many years ago, and that
in our day that cold odoriferous wind of truth and life, fragrant with the
love of Jesus and the love of man, is beginning to blow from Syria
Damascena, over all the Eastern world! The church and the school, the
printing press and the translated Bible, the periodical and the ponderous
volume, the testimony of living witnesses for the truth, and of martyrs
who have died in its defence, all combine to sweep away the systems of
error, whether styled Christian, Moslem or Pagan.
The remarkable uprising of christian women in Christian lands to a new
interest in the welfare of woman in heathen and Mohammedan
countries, is one of the great events of the present century. This book is
meant to be a memorial of the early laborers in Syria, nearly all of
whom have passed away. It is intended also as a record of the work
done for women and girls of the Arab race; to show some of the great
results which have been reached and to stimulate to new zeal and effort
in their behalf.

In tracing the history of this work, it seemed necessary to describe the
condition of woman in Syria when the missionaries first arrived, and to
examine the different religious systems, which affect her position.
In preparing the chapter on the Pre-Islamic Arabs, I have found
valuable materials in Chenery's Hariri, Sales and Rodwell's Koran, and
Freytag's Arabic Proverbs.
For the facts about the Druze religion, I have consulted Col. Churchill's
Works, Mount Lebanon, and several Arabic manuscripts in the mission
library in Beirût.
Rev. S. Lyde's interesting book called the "Asian Mystery," has given
me the principal items with regard to the Nusairîyeh religion. This
confirms the statements of Suleiman Effendi, whose tract, revealing the
secrets of the Nusairîyeh faith, was printed years ago at the Mission
Press in Beirût, and translated by that ripe Arabic Scholar Prof. E.
Salisbury of New Haven. The bloody Nusairîyeh never forgave
Suleiman for revealing their mysteries; and having invited him to a