The Women of the Arabs | Page 7

closely veiled, and if
a man and his wife have occasion to go anywhere together, he walks in
advance and she walks a long distance behind him. Nofel Effendi, one
of the most learned and intelligent Protestants in Syria, once gave me
the explanation of this aversion to walking in public with women, in a
more satisfactory manner than I had ever heard it before. Said he, "You
Franks can walk with your wives in public, because their faces are
unveiled, and it is known that they are your wives, but our women are
so closely veiled that if I should walk with my wife in the street, no one
would know whether I was walking with my own wife or another man's!
You cannot expect a respectable man to put himself into such an

embarrassing position!" No Moslem woman or girl would dare go into
the street without a veil, for fear of personal chastisement from the
husband and father, and the Greek, Maronite and other nominal
Christian women in Syria shrink from exposing their faces, through
fear of insult from the Mohammedans.
When European women, either residents or travellers, pass through the
Moslem quarter of these cities of Syria and Palestine, with faces
unveiled, they are made the theme of the most outrageous and insulting
comments by the Moslem populace. Well is it for the feelings of the
most of these worthy Christian women, that they do not understand the
Arabic language. The Turkish governor of Tripoli was obliged to
suppress the insulting epithets of the Moslems towards European ladies
when they first began to reside there, by the infliction of the bastinado.
In 1857, the Rev. Mr. Lyons in Tripoli, hired Sheikh Owad, a Moslem
bigot, to teach him the Arabic grammar. He was a conceited boor; well
versed in Arabic grammar, but more ignorant of geography, arithmetic
and good breeding than a child. One day Mrs. Lyons passed through
the room where he was teaching Mr. L. and he turned his head away
from her and spat towards her with a look of unutterable contempt. It
was the last time he did it, and he has now become so civilized that he
can say good morning to the wife of a missionary, and even consent to
teach the sacred, pure and undefiled Arabic to a woman! I believe that
he has not yet given his assent to the fact that the earth revolves on its
axis, but he has learned that there are women in the world who know
more than Sheikh Owad.
In ancient times Moslem women were occasionally taught to read the
Koran, and among the wealthier and more aristocratic classes, married
women are now sometimes taught to read, but the mass of the Moslem
men are bitterly opposed to the instruction of women. When a man
decides to have his wife taught to read, the usual plan is to hire a blind
Mohammedan Sheikh, who knows the Koran by heart. He sits at one
side of the room, and she at the other, some elderly woman, either her
mother or her mother-in-law, being present. The blind Sheikhs have
remarkable memories and sharp ears, and can detect the slightest error

in pronunciation or rendering, so they are employed in the most of the
Moslem-schools. The mass of the Mohammedans are nervously afraid
of entrusting the knowledge of reading and writing to their wives and
daughters, lest they abuse it by writing clandestine letters to improper
persons. "Teach a girl to read and write!" said a Mohammedan Mufti in
Tripoli to me, "Why, she will write letters, sir,--yes, actually write
letters! the thing is not to be thought of for a moment." I replied,
"Effendum, you put your foot on the women's necks and then blame
them for not rising. Educate your girls and train them to intelligence
and virtue, and then their pens will write only what ought to be written.
Train the hand to hold a pen, without training the mind to direct it, and
only mischief can result." "_Saheah, saheah_," "very true, very true,"
said he, "But how can this be done?"
It has begun to be done in Syria. From the days of Mrs. Sarah L. Smith
to the present time, Moslem girls have been taught to read and write
and sew, and there are many now learning in the various American,
British and Prussian schools. But it will be long before any true idea of
the dignity of woman enters the debased minds of Arab Mohammedans.
The simple fact is that there is no moral purity or elevation among the
men, and how can it be expected among the women. The Moslem idea
of woman is infinitely lower than the old Jewish idea. Woman in the
time of Christ was highly honored.