The Women of the Arabs | Page 3

daughter of Kais, chief of Tem?m, who fell in love with one of her captors and refused to return to her tribe, whereupon her father swore to bury alive all his future female children, which he did, to the number of ten.
Subsequent to this, rich men would buy the lives of girls devoted to inhumation, and Sa Saah thus rescued many, in one case giving two milch camels to buy the life of a new-born girl, and he was styled "the Reviver of the Maidens buried alive."
The following Arabic Proverbs having reference to women and girls will illustrate the ancient Arab ideas with regard to their character and position, better than volumes of historic discourse:
"Obedience to women will have to be repented of."
"A man can bear anything but the mention of his women."
"The heart of woman is given to folly."
"Leave not a girl nor a green pasture unguarded."
"What has a girl to do with the councils of a nation?"
"If you would marry a beauty, pay her dowry."
"Fear not to praise the man whose wives are true to him."
"Woman fattens on what she hears." (flattery)
"Women are the whips of Satan."
"If you would marry a girl, inquire about the traits of her mother."
"Trust neither a king, a horse, nor a woman. For the king is fastidious, the horse prone to run away, and the woman is perfidious."
"My father does the fighting, and my mother the talking about it."
"Our mother forbids us to err and runs into error."
"Alas for the people who are ruled by a woman!"
The position of woman among the Arabs before the times of Mohammed can be easily inferred from what has preceded. But there is another side to the picture. Although despised and abused, woman often asserted her dignity and maintained her rights, not only by physical force, but by intellectual superiority as well. The poetesses of the Arabs are numerous, and some of them hold a high rank. Their poetry was impromptu, impassioned, and chiefly of the elegiac and erotic type. The faculty of improvisation was cultivated even by the most barbarous tribes, and although such of their poetry as has been preserved is mostly a kind of rhymed prose, it often contains striking and beautiful thoughts. They called improvised poetry "the daughter of the hour."
The queen of Arabic poetesses is El Khunsa, who flourished in the days of Mohammed. Elegies on her two warrior brothers Sakhr and Mu'awiyeh are among the gems of ancient Arabic poetry. She was not what would be called in modern times a refined or delicate lady, being regarded as proud and masculine in temper even by the Arabs of her own age. In the eighth year of the Hegira, her son Abbas brought a thousand warriors to join the forces of the Prophet. She came with him and recited her poetry to Mohammed. She lamented her brother for years. She sang of Sakhr:
"His goodness is known by his brotherly face, Thrice blessed such sign of a heavenly grace: You would think from his aspect of meekness and shame, That his anger was stirred at the thought of his fame. Oh rare virtue and beautiful, natural trait, Which never will change by the change of estate! When clad in his armor and prepared for the fray, The army rejoiceth and winneth the day!"
Again, she lamented him as follows:
"Each glorious rising sun brings Sakhr to my mind, I think anew of him when sets the orb of day; And had I not beheld the grief and sorrow blind Of many mourning ones o'er brothers snatched away, I should have slain myself, from deep and dark despair."
The poet Nabighah erected for her a red leather tent at the fair of Okaz, in token of honor, and in the contest of poetry gave her the highest place above all but Maym?n, saying to her, "If I had not heard him, I would say that thou didst surpass every one in poetry. I confess that you surpass all women." To which she haughtily replied, "Not the less do I surpass all men."
The following are among the famous lines of El Khunsa, which gave her the title of princess of Arab poetesses. The translation I have made quite literal.
"Ah time has its wonders; its changes amaze, It leaves us the tail while the head it slays; It leaves us the low while the highest decays; It leaves the obscure, the despised, and the slave, But of honored and loved ones, the true and the brave It leaves us to mourn o'er the untimely grave. The two new creations, the day and the night, Though ceaselessly changing, are pure as the light: But man changes to error, corruption and blight."
The most ancient Arab poetess, Zar?feh, is supposed to have lived as long ago as the Second Century, in the