Going to Market. Two Burden Bearers.Going to Market. Two Burden Bearers.
They are tidy, industrious, and lively, and, to any one who did not understand their language, these women would give the impression of a charming picture and of many things good and true. But to one who could hear the conversation, as I often have, the secret of the utter depravity of all the people is soon learned, and one sees how it is that none grow up with any idea of purity. The minds of even young children are vitiated from the earliest age.
I have found many very "religious" women. It must, however, not be forgotten that the religion of Islam is totally divorced from the practice of all morals. Women in some numbers attend the weekly midday service in the mosques, sitting apart and worshipping.
One very handsome woman whom I knew had as a little child been enslaved, and later married to the Emir of Zaria, and had been the mother or stepmother of many of the Zaria princes. She was a very religious woman, was allowed a fair amount of liberty, and was much respected. She not infrequently attended the services and was much interested. But it is certain that, with the exception of the use of a certain number of pious expressions, religion has little hold over the Hausa women, and they can in no sense be considered to share in the devotions of the men, or to be companions with the men in those things which are the deepest part ofhuman nature. Hence with Christians there is the learning of a new relationship altogether, when the man begins to feel that his wife must be his companion and helpmeet in things pertaining to all his life and soul and spirit.
Amongst the very lowest classes, with whom there are less objections to coming into contact with men, and especially white men, and who in their suffering have allowed us to minister to them, I have been able to get a glimpse into the terrible sufferings of the poor women of all the other classes. In their hours of agony and suffering they can get no alleviation, no nursing or skill to shorten the hours of weary pain, and in large numbers they die terrible deaths for the lack of that surgical help we could so easily render them. I was able once to visit a woman who seemed to be dying. She was in a terrible condition; the complete delivery of her child could not be effected, and for two days she had been in a shocking state. In their despair her people asked me to come, and within three hours, by surgical knowledge, we were able to put her right, and finally get her to sleep and complete her cure. But we were told that many, many died in the condition in which we found her, and that there was never any thought of calling for help. Many a man who seemed fairly intelligent, and to whom I have talked almost with indignation of such things, has answered me: "We do not know what to do; our women cannot help these cases, for they have noskill, and we would any of us rather let them die than call a man in to help." And so they do die. They will not yet trust us, although they fully realize that we are different from their own religious leaders. Whole realms of thought have yet to be broken through, whole tracts of life principles and perverted ideas have to be destroyed, before it will be possible for the many poor sufferers in this land to get what the love of Christ has brought within their grasp, but which they are afraid as yet to take.
I have tried to show that there is a bright as well as a sombre side to this picture; that where there is restraint there is often some kindness; that with ignorance there is often a desire and a yearning after better things, and a dull feeling that whatis, isnotbest.
Nothing but a radical change in the very fundamental ideas of woman, even by woman herself, can bring about the regeneration of this land. Only the restoration of woman to the place gained for her by Christ, and snatched from her again by the prophet of Islam, can bring true holiness and life into the homes of Hausa, and bring a new hope and reality into the lives of the men.
The knowledge and worship of Christ are beginning to do this, and in one or two homes in North Nigeria already men, who previously thought woman inferior human beings or superior cattle, and who would have looked upon it as madness to suggest that a woman should be considered the helpmeetof the man in all that pertains to this life Godward and manward, are restoring to their wives and mothers and sisters that dignity. How happy will be the result when this spirit has spread and all the land has begun to feel the influence of good and holy women in the home, the market, the school, and the church.
Mombasa, though a Mohammedan town, is perhaps scarcely a typical one, as of late years it has become decidedly cosmopolitan, still in what is called the "Old Town" Mohammedanism with all its attendant ignorance and bigotry prevails.
There are women in this part of the mission-field with whom we have talked and prayed in past years, who seem further off from the Truth and Light than they were even in those early years of work amongst them.
These are the words of a young girl who, we know, was convinced of the truth of the Gospel: "Oh, Bibi, if I confess Christ openly I shall be turned out of my home, I shall have neither food nor clothing, and [with a shudder] perhaps they will kill me." We knew this was only too true.
She was a beautiful girl with sweet, gentle manners, living in those days with her sister in a dark, ill-ventilated room which opened on to a small courtyard where all the rubbish of the house seemed to be thrown, and where goats, hens, and miserable-looking cats seemed thoroughly at home amongst the refuse.
Yet, in spite of these surroundings and in spite of her knowledge of all manner of evil (alas! how early these children learn things which we would think impossible to teach a little child), in spite of all this she was pure and good. Now she seems to have no desire at all to hear or read the Gospel. When we do see her, her manner is always flippant and worldly. We don't want to give her up, we keep on praying for her, but there have been so many hardening influences since those early days, and she never took the definite step of openly confessing Christ. She was soon married to a man much older than herself who already had a wife; probably more than one. We suppose he was a higher bidder!
She had one little baby that soon pined away and died. How can women, brought up as she was, have healthy children? Amongst all the Mohammedan women I have visited here I have never known one to have more than two children. The majority have no living child.
I believe the husband was kind to her, but he did not live long, and very soon she was married again. If she bears no children he will probably tire of her and leave her. I have been told by one of the women that if a wife does not cook his food properly he may get a divorce. One old woman I saw to-day told me that her daughter is now married to her third husband; the other two left her for some trivial reason. When I asked, "What will become of her when she is old and perhaps cast off again?"
"Ah, Bibi!" she said, "whathasbecome of me? I am weak and ill and old, and yet I have to cook and work for others." This is just what does happen unless they have a house and property of their own. They become household drudges to those relations who take them in, and there is rejoicing at their death.
The rule here is for each man to have four wives, if he can afford it. The number of concubines is, I believe, unlimited. Here the wives live each in a separate house. The reason given is: "If we lived together we should be jealous and quarrel and make our husband miserable."
I have known cases where the husband has only the one wife and there seems to be a certain amount of affection. One little wife said to me the other day, "I love my husband now, but if he ever takes another wife I shall hate him and leave him."
Could one blame her?
In most cases just as a girl has learned to read she has been forbidden by her husband, and I have been told, "My husband says there is no profit in women learning to read and he has forbidden it."
How one has felt for and grieved with some of these women! One day in going as usual to give a reading lesson to a mother and daughter (these two really loved each other), I found them both very sad and miserable. It seemed that the father of the girl determined to marry her to an elderly man whom, of course, she had never seen. The mothersaid her daughter was too young to be married, and she knew something of the character of the man. She begged me to try and do something, but we were quite helpless in the matter; a large sum of money was paid for the daughter. Some time afterwards when I visited the house the mother said to me, "Yes, Bibi, she is married to him and I have had to sit in the room listening to the cries of my child as he ill-treated her in the next room, but I could do nothing."
How one longs for the skill to bring home to our favored English girls and wives and mothers, the awful wrongs and the needs of these their Moslem sisters! But what human weakness cannot do, God by His Holy Spirit can. May He lead some of you to give yourselves to the glorious work of bringing light and life to these your sisters who are "Sitting in darkness and the shadow of death." Love is what they want. Our love that will bring knowledge of Christ's great love to them. Will you not pray for them?
"Women are worthless creatures and soil men's reputations.""The heart of a woman is given to folly."—Arabic Proverbs.
"Women are worthless creatures and soil men's reputations.""The heart of a woman is given to folly."—Arabic Proverbs.
This is an outline sketch of the pitiful intellectual, social, and moral condition of the nearly four million women and girls in Mohammedan Arabia. To begin with, the percentage of illiteracy, although not so great as in some other Moslem lands, is at least eighty per cent, of the whole number. In Eastern Arabia a number of girls attend schools, but the instruction and discipline are very indifferent; attention to the lesson is not demanded, so that a Moslem school is a paradise for a lazy girl! A girl is removed from school very early to prepare for her life-work and that is marriage. In a majority of cases she soon forgets what little knowledge she may have attained. A few women are good readers, but these are the most bigoted and fanatical of all women, and it is difficult to make any impression upon them as they are firmly convinced that the Koran contains all they need for salvation now and hereafter.
General ignorance is the cause of general unhappiness and such dense ignorance often makes them suspicious and unreasonable. Nothing is done by the men to educate their women. On the contrary, their object seems to be to keep them from thinking for themselves. They "treat them like brutes and they behave as such." The men keep their feet on the necks of their women and then expect them to rise! The same men who themselves indulge in the grossest form of immorality become very angry and cruel if there is a breath of scandal against their women. In Bahrein, a young pearl-diver heard a rumor that his sister was not a pure woman; he returned immediately from the divings and stabbed her in a most diabolical way without even inquiring as to the truth of the matter. She died in great agony from her injuries, and the brother was acquitted by a Moslem judge, who is himself capable of breaking all the commandments.
Polygamy is practised by all who can afford this so-called luxury, particularly by those in high positions. The wives of these men are not happy, but submit since they believe it is the will of God and of His prophet. The women are not at all content with their condition, and each one wishes herself to be the favored one and will take steps to insure this if possible. Those who have learned a little of the social condition of women in Christian lands very readily appreciate the difference.
Women Churning Butter in Bedouin Camp (Arabia)Women Churning Butter in Bedouin Camp(Arabia)
It is a common thing for us to be asked to prescribe poison for a rival wife who has been addedto the household and for the time being is the favorite. Through jealousy some of these supplanted wives plunge into a life of sin. I do not know anything more pathetic than to have to listen to a poor soul pleading for a love-philter or potion to bring back the so-called love of a perfidious husband. Women, whether rich or poor, naturally prefer to be the only wife. Divorce is fearfully common; I think perhaps it is the case in nine out of every ten marriages. Many women have been divorced several times. They marry again, but this early and frequent divorce causes much immorality. Some divorced women return to the house of their parents, while the homeless ones are most miserable and find escape from misery only in death.
All these horrible social conditions complicate matters and it is difficult to find out who is who in these mixed houses. It is far more pathetic to go through some Moslem homes than to visit a home for foundlings. When a woman is divorced, the father may keep the children if he wishes, and no matter how much a heart-broken mother may plead for them, she is not allowed to have them. If the man does not wish to keep them he sends the children with the mother, and if she marries again the new husband does not expect to contribute to the support of the children of the former marriage.
There can be no pure home-life, as the children are wise above their years in the knowledge of sin.Nothing is kept from them and they are perfectly conversant with the personal history of their parents, past and present.
A man may have a new wife every few months if he so desires, and in some parts of Arabia this is a common state of affairs among the rich chiefs. The result of all this looseness of morals is indescribable. Unnatural vice abounds, and so do contagious diseases which are the inheritance of poor little children.
There is a very large per cent. of infant mortality partly on this account, and partly on account of gross ignorance in the treatment of the diseases of childhood.
Instead of a home full of love and peace, there is dissension and distrust. The heart of the husband does not trust his wife and she seeks to do him evil, not good. For example, a woman is thought very clever if she can cheat her husband out of his money or capital, and lay it up for herself in case she is divorced. There is nothing to bind them in sweet communion and interchange of confidences. As a rule, when a man and a woman marry they do not look for mutual consideration and respect and courtesy; marriage is rather looked upon as a good or a bad bargain. That marriage has anything to do with the affections does not often occur to them. If only a man's passions can be satisfied and his material needs provided, that is all he expects from marriage.
But I do not deny that there are grand though not frequent exceptions to this evil system. I have seen a man cling to his wife and love her and grieve sadly when she died. And some Arab fathers dearly love their daughters and mourn at the loss of one, and the little girls show sincere affection for their fathers. And yet all these bright spots only make the general blackness of home-life seem more dense and dismal.
Missionary schools and education in general have done much in breaking up this system. Many Moslems of the higher class are trying to justify the grosser side of their book-religion by spiritualizing the Koran teaching. But secular education will never make a firm foundation for the elevation of a nation or an individual. Those who have been led to see the weakness of a religion that degrades women, have gained their knowledge through the Gospel.
The fact that attention is paid to suffering women by medical missions is already changing the prevalent idea that woman is inferior and worthless. And although it may seem sometimes an impossible task to ever raise these women to think higher thoughts and to rise from the degradation of centuries, yet we know from experience that those who come in contact with Christian women soon learn to avoid all unclean conversation in their presence. Visiting them in their huts and homes is also a means of breaking down prejudice. The daily clinicin the three mission hospitals of East Arabia, where thousands of sick women receive as much attention as do the men, is winning the hearts and opening the eyes of many to see what disinterested love is. They can scarcely understand what constrains Christian women to go into such unlovely surroundings and touch bodies loathsome from disease in the dispensaries.
When the men have wisdom to perceive that the education of their women and girls means the elevation of their nation, and when they give the women an opportunity to become more than mere animals, then will the nation become progressive and alive to its great possibilities. Reformation cannot come from within but must come from without, from the living power of the Christ. Are you not responsible to God for a part in the evangelization of Arabia in this generation?
"Let none whom He hath ransomed fail to greet Him,Through thy neglect unfit to see His face."
"Let none whom He hath ransomed fail to greet Him,Through thy neglect unfit to see His face."
The following earnest words, from one who being dead yet speaketh, are a plea for more workers to come out to Arabia. Marion Wells Thoms, M. D., labored for five years in Arabia and wrote in one of her last letters as follows:
"The Mohammedan religion has done much to degrade womanhood. To be sure, female infanticide formerly practised by the heathen Arabs was abolished by Islam, but that death was not so terrible as the living death of thousands of the Arab women who have lived since the reign of the 'merciful' prophet, nor was its effect upon society in general so demoralizing. In the 'time of ignorance,' that is time before Mohammed, women often occupied positions of honor. There were celebrated poetesses and we read of Arab queens ruling their tribes.
"Such a state of things does not exist to-day, but the woman's influence, though never recognized by the men, is nevertheless indirectly a potent factor, but never of a broadening or uplifting character. To have been long regarded as naturally evil has had a degrading influence. Mohammedan classical writers have done their best to revile womanhood. 'May Allah never bless womankind' is a quotation from one of them.
"Moslem literature, it is true, exhibits isolated glimpses of a worthier estimation of womanhood, but the later view, which comes more and more into prevalence, is the only one which finds its expression in the sacred tradition, which represents hell as full of women, and refuses to acknowledge in its women, apart from rare exceptions, either reason or religion, in poems which refer all the evil in the world to the woman as its root, in proverbs which represent a careful education of girls as mere waste.
"When the learned ones ascribe such characteristics to women, is it any wonder that they have come to regard themselves as mere beasts of burden?The Arab boy spends ten or twelve years of his life largely in the women's quarters, listening to their idle conversation about household affairs and their worse than idle talk about their jealousies and intrigues.
"When the boy becomes a man, although he has absolute dominion over his wife as far as the right to punish or divorce her is concerned, he often yields to her decision in regard to some line of action. In treating a woman I have sometimes appealed to the husband to prevail upon his wife to consent to more severe treatment than she was willing to receive. After conversing with his wife his answer has been, 'She will not consent,' and that has been final. Lady Ann Blunt, who has travelled among the Bedouins, says, 'In more than one sheikh's tent it is the women's half of it in which the politics of the tribe are settled.'
"In regard to their religion they believe what they have been told or have heard read from the Koran and other religious books. They do not travel as much as the men, and do not have the opportunity of listening to those who do, hence their ideas are not changed by what they see and hear. All the traditions of Mohammed and other heroes are frequently rehearsed and implicitly believed.
"Although the Arab race is considered a strong one, we find among the women every ill to which their flesh is heir, unrelieved and oftentimes even aggravated by their foolish native treatment. Amother's heart cannot help but ache as she hears the Arab mother tell of the loss of two, three, four, or more of her children, the sacrifice perhaps to her own ignorance. The physical need of the Arab women is great and we pray that it may soon appeal to some whose medical training fits them to administer to this need in all parts of Arabia.
"In the towns in which there are missionaries there are comparatively few houses in which they are not welcomed. In our own station there are more open houses than we have ever had time to visit. Wherever women travellers, of whom there have been two of some note, have gone, they have been met with kindness; hence it will be seen that the open door is not lacking."
Ignorance, superstition, and sensuality are the characteristics which impress themselves most strongly at first upon one who visits the Arab harem, but there are those, too, among the women who are really attractive. It is a dark picture, and we do not urge the need of more workers because the fields are white to harvest. We ask that more offer themselves and be sent soon, rather, that, after they have learned the difficult language, they may be able to beginto prepare the ground for seed-sowing. It is a work that can only be done by women, for while the Bedouin women have greater freedom to go about and converse with the men than the town women have, and while some of the poorer classes in the towns will allow themselves to be treated by aman doctor, and sit and listen to an address made in the dispensary, the better class are only accessible in their houses. Their whole range of ideas is so limited and so far below ours that it will require "line upon line and precept upon precept" to teach these women that there is a higher and better life for them. In fact there must be the creation of the desire for better things as far as most of them are concerned, but love and tact accompanied by the power of the Holy Spirit can win their way to these hearts and accomplish the same results that have been accomplished among other Oriental women.
I have been striving to show that there is a crying need for work among the Arab women and that there are ample opportunities for service. I appeal to the women of the church whose sympathies have so long gone out to heathen women everywhere, not to have less sympathy for them, but to include Mohammedan Arabia and her womanhood more and more in their love, their gifts, and their prayers. In the days of Mohammed, after the battle of Khaibar, in which so many of her people had been mercilessly slaughtered, Zeinab, the Jewess, who prepared a meal for Mohammed and his men, put poison in the mutton and all but caused the prophet's death. It is said by some that he never fully recovered from the effects of the poison, and that it was an indirect cause of his death. It seems to us who have lived and labored in the land of the false prophet that his religion will only receive its death-blow when Christian women rise to their duty and privilege, and by love and sacrifice, not in vengeance but in mercy, send the true religion to these our neglected, degraded sisters,—sisters in Him who "hath made of one blood all nations."
The term "Yemen," meaning the land on the right hand, is the name applied to that whole tract of land in Arabia south of Mecca and west of the Hadramaut, which has always been looked upon as a dependency or province.
In early historical times the Yemen was occupied by Homerites and other aborigines, but later on by the Himyarites, who drove many of the original inhabitants to seek a new home in Africa, where, having intermarried with the Gallas, Kaffirs, and Dankalis, they formed a new race which is generally known nowadays as the Somali.
The physical conformation of the Yemen is not unlike that of the portion of Africa immediately opposite, where there is as great diversity in climate and soil as there is in the manners and customs of the peoples.
From Aden, the Eastern Gibraltar, right northward there stretches a range of mountains chiefly formed of igneous rocks that have been bent, torn, and twisted like the iron girders of a huge building that has been destroyed by fire and almost covered by the ruin. Bare peak after peak rises from themass of débris yet everywhere pierced, scarred, and seamed by the monsoon floods seeking their way to the ocean bed; they seldom reach it, however, as a stream and never as a river, because of the barren, scorched, sandy zone which belts the Red Sea and sucks into its huge maw everything that the hills send down.
Like his country the Yemen Arab is girded about with an arid zone of reserve which few Europeans have ever crossed, but when they have managed to do so, according to the individual they have met, they have found it may be a man with a heart as hard as a nether millstone. Marrying one day and divorcing almost the next, only to marry another as soon as he can scrape together sufficient funds to purchase a wife, this type of man looks upon woman as an inferior animal formed for man's gratification, and to be flung aside like a sucked orange when the juice is gone.
Or on the other hand, they may find men whom real love has saved and made to give forth warm affection and true domestic joy, just as the terraced ridges on their mountain slopes retain the God-given moisture and send forth a luxuriant crop of strengthening cereals, delicious coffee, and luscious grapes.
I have known young men of twenty-four who have been married and divorced half a dozen times, and also Arabs whose days are in the sere and yellow leaf who never had but one wife.
There was a native chief who used to come occasionally to our dispensary whose children were numbered by three figures, and Khan Bahadur Numcherjee Rustomjee, C. I. E., who was for many years a magistrate in Aden, told me he knew a woman who had been legally married more than fifty times and had actually forgotten the names of the fathers of two of her children!
One day an Arab brought a fine-looking woman to our dispensary, and as he was very kind to her and seemed to love her very much I ventured to tell him that she was suffering from diabetes mellitus, and that in order to preserve her life he would require to be careful with her diet. He thanked me most profoundly, promised to do all that he could for her, took her home and divorced her the same day, casting her off in the village and leaving her without a copper.
Next morning she came weeping to the dispensary and I tried to get compensation, but the man pleaded poverty, and because I was the cause of her plight I felt in duty bound to support her until she died some months later.
Another man of more than fifty years carried the wife of his youth to our dispensary on his back. She was suffering from Bright's disease and ascites, yet he toiled on and till now has shown no sign of wavering in his allegiance. Warm-hearted, courteous, and kind, I look upon him as one of nature's noblemen whom even Mohammedanism cannot spoil.
Another man whose wife had an ovarian tumor brought her down from Hodeidah for me to operate on, and faithfully attended to all her wants while she was ill, and at last when the wound caused by operation was healed, took her home joyfully as a bridegroom takes home the bride of his choice.
A third man, who had either two or three wives at the time, called me to see one who had been in labor for six days. When the Arab midwives confessed that they could do nothing more for her and when he saw her sinking, love triumphed over prejudice, and he came hurriedly for me. I performed a Cæsarean section, and so earned the gratitude of both husband and wife, who, though years have gone, still take a warm interest in all that concerns the mission.
I wish, however, that I could say that cases like these were common experiences with me, but unfortunately the reverse is the case. Men seem always ashamed to speak of their wives and when wanting medicine for them or me to visit them always speak of them as, "my family"—"the mother of my children"—"my uncle's daughters," or like circumlocution. Once I boxed a boy's ears for speaking of his own mother as his "father's cow!"
Brought up in ignorance, unable to read, write, sew, or do fancy work—in all my experience out here I have never known of a real Arab girl being sent to school nor a real Arab woman who knew the alphabet. Sold at a marriageable age, in many cases to the highest bidder, then kept closely secludedin the house, is it any wonder that her health is undermined and when brought to child-bed there is no strength left?
Called one day to see a Somali woman I missed the whip usually seen in a Somali's house, and jokingly asked how her husband managed to keep her in order without a whip. She, taking her husband and me by the hand, said, "You are my father and this is my husband. Love unites us, and where love is there is no need for whips."
I was so pleased with her speech that I offered her husband, who was out of work, a subordinate place in our dispensary. Yet less than a month later I heard that he had divorced his wife and turned her out of doors.
The following case will, I think, illustrate the usual attitude of the Arabs in the Yemen towards womankind:
A man whose wife had been in labor two days came asking for medicine to make her well. My reply was that it was necessary to see the woman before I could give such a drug as he wished. "Well," said he, "she will die before I allow you or any other man to see her," and two days after I heard of her death.
I have often remonstrated with the men for keeping their wives so closely confined and for not delighting in their company, and making them companions and friends. But almost invariably I have been answered thus, "The Prophet (upon whom beblessing and peace) said, 'Do not trouble them with what they cannot bear, for they are prisoners in your hands whom you took in trust from God.'" And therefore as prisoners they are to be kept and treated as being of inferior intellect.
I have known cases where a man gave his daughter in marriage on condition that the bridegroom would never marry another wife; but the man broke his word and married a second wife, whereupon he was summoned before the kadi, who ruled that, "When a man marries a woman on condition that he would not marry another at the same time with her, the contract is valid and the condition void because it makes unlawful what is lawful, and God knoweth all."
The consequence of such laws is that the women become prone to criminal intrigues, and I have known dozens of cases where mothers have helped their daughters and even acted as procuresses for them to avenge some slight upon them or injury done to them. There is no fear of God before their eyes. Heaven to them is little better than a place of prostitution. Why, then, should they desire it? Here they know the bitterness of being one of two or three wives, why then should they wish to be "one of seventy"?
Sir William Muir, who lived for forty years in India, says: "The sword of Islam and the Koran are the most obstinate foes to civilization, liberty, and truth the world has yet known." After a residence of nearly twenty years in Palestine and much intercourse among all classes, both in city and village life, the writer of this chapter can confirm the statement.
Islam is the same everywhere and changes not.
The chief cause of its blighting influence is its degradation and contempt of women, which is the result of ignorance of the Word of God.Therefore, the wide-spread preaching of the Gospel to-day is the need of Islam, and the responsibility for it rests chiefly upon the Christians of England and America.
One looks in vain among Moslems for peaceful homes, honored wives, affectionate husbands, happy sons and daughters, loving and trusting one another.
A Moslem home is built upon the foundation of the man's right (religious right) to have at least four wives at a time; to divorce them at pleasureand to bring others as frequently as he has the inclination or the money to buy.
A son is always welcomed at birth with shrill shouts and boisterous clapping of hands or beating of drums; but a baby girl is received in silence and disappointment.
The boy is indulged in every way from the day of his arrival. He is under no restraint or control, and usually at two years of age is a little tyrant, freely cursing his mother and sisters. The mother smiles at his cleverness, she herself having taught him, and her own teaching leads afterwards to much misery in the lives of other women.
Great numbers of boys die in infancy, or under three years of age, because of the ignorance of their mothers in caring for them. They are either overfed or neglected. In some families, where there have been a number of both boys and girls, all the boys have died. The women have been blamed for this and sometimes divorced, or else retained to serve the new wives who have been brought instead.
How often I think of the dear little Moslem girls! The most teachable and responsive to loving kindness of all. Oh, that they might have happy homes, happy mothers, wise and loving fathers! One dear Moslem child, only four years old, after having been in a Christian mission school for a year, was taken ill and died. All the members of a large family were present as she lay dying (crowding into the room of the sick is an Oriental custom) and heardher exclaim: "My mother! Jesus loves little girls just like me!"
A Moslem can divorce his wife at his pleasure or send her away from his house without a divorce. If he does only the latter, she cannot marry any one else. This is often done purposely to torment her. But the women are not the only sufferers through these wretched domestic arrangements. Many of them are utterly heartless and show no pity for their own children. They will leave them to marry again, the new husband refusing to take the children, and numbers die in consequence. Many a troublesome old man is also put out of the way by poison administered by the wives of his sons. Not long ago a prison, in an Oriental city, was visited by some Christian missionaries who had obtained permission to see the women who had been sentenced for life. They are found to be there for having murdered their "da-râ-ir," that is, their husbands' other wives, or the children of their hated rivals; and, having no money, they had not been able to buy their way out of prison, as can be done and is customary in Moslem countries.
As the camera would not do full justice to Moslem "interiors," either in house-life or in the administration of public affairs, both also being difficult to obtain, a few "pen and ink" sketches are sent by the writer of this article, taken in person on the spot.
Here is a picture of Abu Ali's household. AbuAli has two wives, Aisha and Amina. Confusion and every evil thing are found in his family life. Each wife has five children, large and small, and the ten of the two families all hate each other. They fight and bite, scratch out each other's eyes, and pull out each other's hair. The husband has good houses and gardens but the women and children all live in dark, damp rooms on the ground floor. The writer knows them and often goes to see them, especially to comfort the older wife, whose life is very wretched. She is almost starved at times. She weeps many bitter tears and curses the religion into which she was born. The Prophet Mohammed's religion makes many a man a heartless tyrant. He is greatly to be pitied because a victim by inheritance to this vast system of evil. Wild animals show more affection for their offspring and certainly take (for a while at least) more responsibility for their young than many Moslems do in Palestine.
Werdie is another case. This name in Arabic means "a rose." There are many sweet young roses in the East but, hidden away among thorns and brambles, their fragrance is often lost. This Werdie, a fair young blue-eyed girl whose six own brothers had all died, lived with her mother and father and his other wives in a very large Oriental house (not ahome). She lived in the midst of continual strife, cursings, "evil eyes," and fights. This household is a distinguished family in their town!
Sometimes the quarrels lasted for many days without cessation and Werdie always took part in them as her mother's champion. The quarrels were between her father's wives,—her mother's rivals,—and she often boasted that she could hold out longer than all the others combined against her. On one occasion her awful language and loud railings continued for three days, and then she lost her voice—utterly—and could not speak for weeks! She had an ungoverned temper, and when goaded by the cruel injustice done her mother she delighted to give vent to it; but she also had a conscience and a good mind and was led into the Light. On being told of the power in Jesus Christ to overcome, she said one day, "I will try Him. I want peace in my heart, I will do anything to get it; I believe in Him and I will trust Him," and she did. She was afterwards given in marriage by her father, against her wish, to a man she did not know. He treats her cruelly as does also her mother-in-law. But now she has another spirit, a meek and lowly one, and is truly a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ. In the midst of strife she is a silent sufferer and a marvel to all the members of her family. She prays much and has literally a broken and a contrite spirit. She is the Lord's. There are other roses among the Moslems whom Jesus Christ came to redeem. Let us pray for them and go and find them!He will point the way.
Saleh Al Wahhâb is a Moslem in good positionwith ample means. He first married a sweet-looking young girl, Belise by name, but she had no children, so he divorced her and married three other women. Not having his desire for children granted, he divorced all three of these women and took back his first wife, who was quite willing to go to him!
Haji Hamid, who made the pilgrimage to Mecca, was the chief of a Matâwaly village and highly honored, belonging to the Shiah sect of Moslems. He has had many wives, some of whom he had divorced because they displeased him, and others had died. When he became an old man, he brought a young and, as he was assured by others, a very beautiful and virtuous bride. He had never seen her. He paid a large sum of money for her, most of which she wore afterwards as ornaments—gold coins—on her head and neck.
Soon after her arrival in the sheikh's house he became seriously ill. She found this unpleasant, as she was a bride and wanted to enjoy herself. So she ran away, taking all the gold with her, and left him to die!
There is no honor or truth among Moslems. The Prophet's religion does not and cannot implant pity or compassion in the human heart. Haji Hamid had inherited from his birth false teaching, the evil influences and results of lying, corruption in Government affairs, tyranny, bribery, bigotry, and contempt for women. He only reaped as he had sown. However, he heard the Gospel on his dying bed andseemed grateful for kindnesses shown to him by Christian strangers.
Abd Er Rahim, "Slave of the Merciful," was a rich Moslem who once had several wives. Some he had divorced, some he had sent back to their fathers' homes, and some had died, and he was tired of the one who remained because she was getting old.
By chance he had seen a very handsome young peasant girl, and he wanted her, but he was afraid of his wife, for he felt sure that she would be troublesome if he brought this young girl to his house. So he planned a "shimel-howa" for his wife (a pleasant time, literally, a "smelling of the air," a promenade), to which she readily agreed. She put on her jewelry and silk outer garments, and started. Her husband was to follow her, but, according to Moslem custom, at a distance, as a man is not seen in public with his wife. She never returned, but was found dead two days afterwards, drowned in a well, wearing all her jewelry. Her husband found her. The facts were never investigated. A few days afterwards the new wife was brought into the house and lived there until the death of Abd Er Rahim. He has now gone to his reward! He never knew anything about the Lord Jesus Christ. No one ever told him. His last wife, however, did have the opportunity of knowing, but she laughed and made fun of His name. When she died, about three years ago, twenty large jars of water werepoured over her to wash away her sins. She was arrayed in several silk gowns and buried, with verses from the Koran written on paper placed in her dead hands, to keep evil spirits away from her soul. Such is their ignorant superstition.
Benda was a poor Moslem woman who lived in a goat's-hair tent on one of the plains mentioned in the Bible, a Bedouin Arab's cast-off wife. She had lost her only child, her son, a young man. When first found, she herself was a mere skeleton. Very deaf and clothed in rags, she sat on the ground, weeping bitterly over the two long black braids of hair of her dead son, a pitiful object. It was very difficult to make her hear, but she was taught, often amidst the roars of laughter of some nominal Christians who said to her teacher: "Why do you cast pearls before swine?"
However, Benda was one of His jewels. She had a hungry heart, she understood the truth, believed, and was saved and comforted. Before she "went up higher" she became a "witness" to some of her own people.
There are other Moslem Bendas yet to be found, others to be brought into the fold. Who will come to help to find them and to bring them in? The lost sheep of the house of Ishmael.
Some one has asked: "What happens to the cast-off wives and divorced women among the Moslems?" Sometimes they are married several times and divorced by several men. If they have no children, after their strength fails them so that they cannot work, they beg and lead a miserable existence, and die. A woman who has lived at ease and in high position, after being divorced, will sometimes reach the very lowest degrees of poverty, hunger, and misery, and then die. For such, there are no funeral expenses; nothing is required but a shallow grave. Moslem men are usually willing to dig that in their own burying ground, and the body is carried to its last resting place on the public "ma'ash," or bier. Benda was buried in this way, but "she had an inheritance incorruptible and that fadeth not away."