FIRST CHAPTER OF THE KORAN
FIRST CHAPTER OF THE KORAN
Some time ago an American typewriter firm in advertising a machine with Arabic characters made the statement that the Arabic alphabet is used by more people than any other alphabet in the world. Some one thought that this was an exaggeration, and asked a professor of languages, “How big a lie is that?†He answered: “It is true.†The total population of all the countries whose inhabitants use the Arabic “A B Câ€â€”if they use any at all—is larger than the number of those who use the Latin alphabet or the Chinese character. The Arabic Koran is read by the Moslem boys in the day-schools not only of Arabia, but of Turkey, of Afghanistan, Persia, Java, Sumatra, the whole of North Africa and throughout Central Asia. In the Philippine Islands there are three hundred thousand Mohammedans whose only alphabet came from Arabia, and as far west as themosques of Morocco the Arabic tongue has travelled and become the language of law and commerce and religion.
When the early Arabs in their conquests crossed the strait between Africa and Spain and conquered that country they left many words behind. And therefore many of the place names in Spain to-day are Arabic. Gibraltar, for example, is the corrupted form of Jebel Tarik, which means the mountain of Tarik, the Arab general who first crossed the straits with his soldiers. And Quadiliquiver, one of the rivers of Spain, should be spelled Wady El Kebir, or the Big River.
Even the English language has a number of words that came as Arab guests to the feast of reason and have been adopted into our family and put into our dictionary. When you speak ofalgebra,ciphers,zero,alchemy,alcove,minaret,alcohol,coffee,sofa,amber,artichokes,gazellesormagazineyou are using good Arabic words which nearly every Arab would understand. To use these words, however, is quite a different thing from speaking “the language of the angels†correctly. It is easier to borrow a carpenter’s jack-knife than to acquire his skill in building a house. Many languages have borrowed from the Arabs and the Arabs have borrowed from them in return, but no language is richer than the Arabic in its number of words.
Would you like to know how the boys and girls talk in Arabia? If you have read “Topsy Turvy Land†you will remember how they write their words backward andbegin to read at what we call the end of the book. Their talk as well as their writing seems to us at first very topsy turvy. Of course, I need not tell you how much they talk, for in that respect they are just like the boys and girls in America. As they speak a language, however, very different from English, I am sure you would like to hear a little about it. Arabic is one of the oldest and most beautiful languages, and also one of the hardest to learn. It has so many words that their name for a dictionary is “Kamoos,†which means “an ocean.†They have five hundred different names for a lion and two hundred words for serpent. It is said that there are one thousand different terms in Arabic forsword, and eighty different words forhoney.
Like English the Arabic language has grammar with many rules (and more exceptions) and the boys dislike it just as much as some of you do. They have a severe struggle with the alphabet because each letter has three different forms, as it is used in the beginning, the middle or the end of a word; and then there are but fifteen conjugations and twenty different ways of forming the plural, not to speak of all the moods and tenses and the irregular verbs.
Some people think that Arabic is the most difficult language in the world. Keith Falconer, the first missionary to Arabia, said, “Arabic grammars should be strongly bound because learners are so often found to dash them frantically on the ground.†Another missionarysaid that he would rather cross Africa from Alexandria to the Cape of Good Hope than undertake a second time to master the Arabic speech.
I shall never forget my early struggles with the language, nor the place where I sat down to learn my lesson with Dr. Cornelius Van Dyke. He was a master of Arabic and with Dr. Eli Smith translated the whole Bible into the Arabic speech. Here it was in the shade of his beautiful veranda at Beirut, Syria, that I began to learn the irregular verb. It takes a long time for grown-up people to learn a new language, but it does not seem hard for the Arab boys and girls.
Beside the proper talk of grown-up people there is baby talk in Arabia which mothers teach the little brown toddlers before they walk out of the mat-huts and the black, camel-hair tents into the wide world. Yes, and there are also slang words which the camel drivers and the donkey boys use with and on each other.
The baby talk is much like English. Father isbaba; dog iswowwow; pretty isnoonoo; stop istootoo; chicken iskookoo, and when baby falls they saybaff!
The language of these little angels and the grown-up ones in Arabia is very poetical. The Arabs, because they live in the desert and look up into the big, blue sky and far out to the horizon where the mirage paints desert pictures every day, are full of imagination and live in an atmosphere of poetry. They love jingling words and proverbs and pretty sayings and figures of speech.
A mosquito has only a sting in New Jersey. In Arabia they call himaboo fas, which means “father-of-an-axâ€! In America a tramp is a tramp, but the Arabs call him ason-of-the-road. And what could be prettier than their name for echo,bint-el-jebel, “daughter of the mountainâ€? Why, there is a whole fairy story in that one word! And if you go down the columns of the Arabic dictionary you can find many a story locked up in some word and only waiting to be opened.
In North Arabia when they say, “How-do-you-do,†the proper expression is, “What is the colour of your condition?†This may be philosophical, but it does not make good sense in English. Strawberries are calledFrench mulberries, and the name given to potatoes when first brought to Bahrein wasaliyeywellam; why this name was given, I cannot tell. Where could you find a better name for wine than the Arabum-el-khabaith, “mother of vicesâ€? No wonder all the Arab children are staunch prohibitionists. And you will know more about the nights in Arabia when I tell you that the common name for jackal is “son-of-howlingâ€!
“The language of the angels†is not altogether lovely and beautiful; alas, it bears the marks of a false religion all over it like scratches on marble or ink-stains on a beautiful piece of handwriting. Mohammed’s life and Mohammed’s teaching were not like the life and teaching of Jesus Christ, and so the Arabic language abounds in words that are not pure and not lovely. The missionariesin Egypt and in Syria have done much to purify and elevate the language of the Arabs by giving them Christian books and papers and above all the Holy Bible in their own tongue. The Arab children in the mission schools now sing Christian hymns and many of the stories that you love to read, such as “Ben Hur†and “Black Beauty†and “Robinson Crusoe,†have been translated into Arabic. At the Beirut press alone about twenty-five million pages of Christian books are printed every year.
When the Bible takes the place of the Koran, the Arab speech with all its beauty and strength will become more than ever “the language of the angels.â€
Nearly all the British India steamers in their zigzag journeys up the Persian Gulf, calling first at the Arabian coast and then at the Persian coast, stop at the pearl islands of Bahrein. Half-way up the Gulf and thirty miles from the mainland of Arabia, this group of islands has been famous for centuries as the most valuable pearl fishery in the world. For at least two thousand years the Arabs have been diving in these waters and bringing up the costly shells. Before the days of Christ, and even before the time of Solomon, pearls from Bahrein were shipped to the Western world, and it is probable that the dress and the conversation of the men and the boys of to-day is about the same as it was a thousand years ago. The boats are probably of the same pattern, with very little improvement.
Bahrein is an Arabic word which means thetwo seas, and this name was given to the islands because the Arabs fancied that here two seas met, the fresh water and the salt water mingling together. The islands have very little rainfall—during the summer none at all—and yet they are famous for their fresh-water springs, which find their source on the mainland of Arabia or Persia, and the water not only bubbles out in pools and wells onshore, but below the tide level there are fresh-water springs several miles out at sea. You would be interested to see the Arabs go out in their boats, place a bamboo over the opening in the rock and then collect fresh water above sea level in their great leather skins.
Bahrein is historically most interesting, because here the old Chaldeans and Phœnicians made their home. Some of the mounds on the island are older than the ruins of Babylon, and it is said that the Phœnicians worshipped the fish-god who, it is supposed, carried Noah’s ark over the flood.
The pearl fisheries at Bahrein employ about 3,500 boats, large and small. The boats measure from one to fifty tons. The smaller boats carry from three to fifteen men and work near the shore; the large boats, employing from fifteen to thirty men, fish all over the Gulf. It is a pretty sight to see the fleet sailing out of the harbour, the large sails, set to the wind, gleaming white in the sun, the blue waters underneath and the bluer sky overhead. Have you ever seen a diving outfit? It looks rather ungainly to me. The Arab divers do not use anything so elaborate as do the divers in America. White overalls to cover their dark skin (because they say sharks do not care for white people), afatam, or clothes-pin on the nose, and leather thimbles for scratching up the shells, and a basket to hold the catch, with a rope attached to a girdle to draw them up with—this is the complete outfit. When prayers have been said and aBismillah, down he goes, quickly fills the basket, and with a tug on the rope, he is hauled up, his basket is emptied while he takes a short breathing spell, then down again; and so on from sunrise to sunset.
The divers pass through many dangers in bringing the pearls from the bottom of the ocean to the surface. Sharks are the most terrifying, and during the pearl season a number of divers lose their lives, or are maimed; a leg or an arm has to be amputated because the cruel, sharp, powerful mouth of the shark caught the fisherman while he was seeking goodly pearls for us. A large number of them are afflicted with rheumatism as a consequence of their calling. In the boat, besides the men who are doing the work, is a man who is a substitute for them in prayer. The divers are too busy to observe the stated hours of prayer, so this man will repeat the prayers in place of each man. He is the Levite, and performs the religious ceremonies for every other man and boy. He must be occupied all the time on the boats where there is a crew of thirty men, and he must say the prayers five times a day for each man.
The Evolution of a Pearl Button
The Evolution of a Pearl Button
The Arabs say that pearls come from a raindrop which fell while the oyster had its mouth open; each drop of rain thus caught is a prize for the diver. “Heaven born and cradled in the deep blue sea,†it is the purest of gems and, in their eyes, the most precious. When the pearl oysters are brought up, they are left on deck over night, and next morning are opened by means of a curved knifesix inches long. Until a few years ago, all the shells were thrown back into the sea as useless, but now they are brought to shore by the ton and deposited in some merchant’s yard. He employs natives to scrape off the outside roughness, and then they are packed in wooden crates and exported in large quantities.
On shore the pearls are classified according to weight, size, shape, colour and brilliancy. You would think the pearl merchants a strange kind of people. They carry the most valuable pearls around with them everywhere, tied up in turkey-red twill. They have no safes nor banks, so the only safe way they can think of is to carry them around and run the risk of being knocked down and robbed; but since the Indian government has made Bahrein a protectorate, such robberies are rare.
The pearl merchants are calledtawawis, which means those who handle the brass sieve, ortas. When the pearls are brought on shore, they are classified according to size first of all, and to do this, each merchant has a nest of beautiful sieves fitting one into the other. The smallest has holes as big as the end of a pencil, and they go down gradually in size until the largest sieve, which is about six inches across, has holes as fine as mustard seeds. Any day during the pearl season you may see the Arab merchants sitting cross-legged in their houses, sifting pearls, and when they are classified and piled up in little heaps, white and shining in the bright sunlight on the red cloth that covers the floor, it is a sight worth seeing.
The total value of the pearl harvest each year is at least a million dollars, but most of the profit goes into the hands of the dealers. The divers work for wages, and many of them are heavily in debt. In spite of the dangers they incur, the divers love their work, because pearl diving always has in it the element of gambling. One may work a whole day and find only pearls of small value, and then perhaps bring up a fortune in an hour. The most beautiful pearl I ever saw was found in the waters at Bahrein some ten years ago, and was sold for ten thousand dollars. It must have been to such a fortunate pearl diver that Browning referred in his verses:
“There are two moments in a diver’s life:One when, a beggar, he prepares to plunge,Then when, a prince, he rises with his prize.â€
“There are two moments in a diver’s life:One when, a beggar, he prepares to plunge,Then when, a prince, he rises with his prize.â€
“There are two moments in a diver’s life:One when, a beggar, he prepares to plunge,Then when, a prince, he rises with his prize.â€
“There are two moments in a diver’s life:
One when, a beggar, he prepares to plunge,
Then when, a prince, he rises with his prize.â€
The time for pearl diving is from May until the end of September. During the winter months the cold weather interferes with the work, and the men live inshore. Then it is that they come in crowds to our hospital, and we have the joy of preaching to them from the parable of the Pearl of great price, and no audience appreciates a sermon on that text as much as the men who know what it costs to bring up the pearls. You remember the parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is a merchant seeking goodly pearls, and having found one pearl of great price, he went and sold all that he had and bought it.†When we tell the Arabs that the Pearlof great price was the kingdom of God, peace and righteousness and joy, which Jesus Christ purchased for us at the cost of His own life and now offers freely to all who will believe in Him, they understand something of the message.
Will you not pray for the pearl divers of Bahrein that many of them may find the Pearl of great price, and that their humble homes,—mat-huts along the shore of the great sea—may be made glad by the joy of a Christian civilization and the knowledge of our Saviour? It is not hard to love them for their own sake, and I well remember many a happy hour spent with them in their boats or sitting on the beach, talking over their work. Sir Edwin Arnold referred to them in these lines:
“Dear as the wet diver to the eyesOf his pale wife, who waits and weeps on shore,By sands of Bahrein in the Persian Gulf;Plunging all day in the blue waves; at night,Having made up his toll of precious pearls,Rejoins her in their hut upon the shore.â€
“Dear as the wet diver to the eyesOf his pale wife, who waits and weeps on shore,By sands of Bahrein in the Persian Gulf;Plunging all day in the blue waves; at night,Having made up his toll of precious pearls,Rejoins her in their hut upon the shore.â€
“Dear as the wet diver to the eyesOf his pale wife, who waits and weeps on shore,By sands of Bahrein in the Persian Gulf;Plunging all day in the blue waves; at night,Having made up his toll of precious pearls,Rejoins her in their hut upon the shore.â€
“Dear as the wet diver to the eyes
Of his pale wife, who waits and weeps on shore,
By sands of Bahrein in the Persian Gulf;
Plunging all day in the blue waves; at night,
Having made up his toll of precious pearls,
Rejoins her in their hut upon the shore.â€
It was on Saturday morning, February 9, 1901, that Elias, our colporteur, and I started for a journey along the eastern coast of Arabia, and, as we hoped, inland. Our expectations of a long camel journey and the sight of villages not yet marked on the map between the coast and Muscat were disappointed. But the result was a journey of 440 miles and more along the coast to the rocky cape that guards the narrow entrance to the Gulf. Our experiences were so interesting that I will relate some of them to you.
Did you ever read the droll story, “Three Men in a Boat� Well, we were eleven men in a boat, not to speak of a fine Arab horse and a yelping greyhound, presents from the Ruler of Bahrein to the Ruler of Abu Thabi. Our boat was of the usual native style without any cabin or even an awning, and measured twenty feet across the beam and fifty from bowsprit to poop. The noble quadruped had the largest share of the scanty space midships; the dog was confined to the forecastle lest prayers be impossible; for the Mohammedans believe that the dog is an unclean animal, and that it is impossible to pray in any place where a dog has walked or sat without first washing it. The two first-class passengers and their boxes were on the left side of the poop; thecrew slept, smoked, washed themselves, and ate their dried fish and rice anywhere; and the captain with a priest and a merchant squatted at our right. I will not weary your patience to relate how many days after we intended to start the sail was hoisted and we were off. One never expects a native sailing craft to leave until the three days of grace (and grumbling impatience) are twice over. But good Abdullah bin Kambar was not altogether to blame; two of his sailors ran away, and he had to look them up and urge them on board. With a fair, brisk wind filling the huge sail we were all happy to start and forgot the delays and our dried bread baked three days too early.
Our boat was bound for Abu Thabi, the first important town on the coast south. The wind continued favourable, and on Monday we were sailing between two islands, mere rocks and uninhabited except by a few fishermen during the season. A little further towards the mainland is the large island of Dalma, and there was a long dispute between the captain and the mate as to which island we were passing. When the words waxed warm between them my chart decided the dispute. This island is an old centre for the pearl-fishers, and every season there is a large gathering here of merchants and divers; a sort of market-place on the highway of the sea.
The weariness of five days and nights in the boat was relieved in many ways. There was opportunity to read and plenty of interruption.
We had our meals to cook and tried to fish with a line and hook; once the captain hit a wild duck with his rusty gun, but although all helped to lower the boat and they pursued the wounded bird, she escaped. One day we saw a large shark, and that afternoon there were some good fish stories. At night the black slave Abdullah sat at the wheel and told stories as only a Negro-Arab can tell them; stories of the new Arabian Nights, and of how an Arab sharper stole a favourite horse by putting the bridle on his own neck and having his mate run off with the horse! Several times it was our turn to lead the conversation, and we had a splendid opportunity to give “line upon line and precept upon precept.†One can judge at once of the ignorance and open-heartedness of the Arab sailors by the remark they commonly make after they have had a missionary or colporteur for passenger: “We had no idea that Christians were such decent folk and even prayed to Allah.â€
At three o’clock on Thursday afternoon we were in sight of Abu Thabi, or “father-of-the-gazelle.†It was my first visit to this town, although Elias had been there before. We found the ruler kind, friendly and very intelligent. We were assigned to a large room in one of his houses, and during our stay of four days there was abundance of food sent to us from the ruler’s table, and all our wants were supplied from his beneficence,—huge dishes piled with rice, steeped with gravy and crowned with several pounds of prime roast mutton, the wholesurrounded with dates and bread loaves, on a large circular mat, and washed down with perfumed water. We were never hungry.
When the dwellers in the mat-huts heard of the arrival of foreigners with a medicine chest and books our room was filled with the curious or the ailing from early dawn until after sunset. That is the only drawback to their kindness; the Arab idea of hospitality does not include the blessing of privacy for their guest. One is never left alone, and if you seek solitude they set you down as a magician, or delver into the hidden things of nature which are forbidden to all true believers. So we had to forego meditation, reading, and even the change of clothing until nightfall, after our long sea journey.
It was a queer crowd that collected in the court and filled our little room; a long row of Arabs sitting on the mats all around the four sides of the court. Most of them were Oman Arabs, but there was one priest from Mecca who had more to say than all the rest. He was a wanderer who wore a spotless white turban and a sneering smile. His present residence, he said, was on the Island of Kais, in the Gulf, and he lived as do all of his kind by teaching school and copying charms for the ignorant. We had some discussions and more quiet talks together after the crowd left. It was sad to hear from him what dense ignorance there is regarding our religion. The news of Queen Victoria’s death had just reached there and the sage from Mecca told fabulous stories of how andwhy Christians were ruled by women! Our sales of Scripture were not large, but there was a demand for other books. One poor but learned man brought a manuscript copy of Al Hariri (the Arabian Shakespeare) in exchange for other books.
We left Abu Thabi by sailing-boat for Debai, eighty miles up the coast in a straight line. The wind compelled us to go zigzag.
This place has become the metropolis of Western Oman, and in population, progress, commerce and architecture far surpasses all the other towns. Between Abu Thabi and Debai the coast is desert and neither date-tree nor hut is seen; so flat is the country that a hill two hundred feet high (the only landmark for sailors) is called “the High Mountain.â€
We did not tarry long at Debai, although we had a pleasant morning at the house of the ruler and met some Arabs from the interior. One of them said he was willing for a proper consideration to take me all the way across Arabia to Jiddah, the port of Mecca. In the afternoon we started selling Scriptures on the outskirts of the town and in a very short time the crowd collected. Women came with copper coins and bright boys brought their savings to purchase Gospels—in the language of our trade, “the true story of the Living Prophet Jesus.†After we left Debai on donkeys two boys who were late ran after us and overtook us a mile from the town; they brought money and paid for three more books. Thecaptain of our boat took us to his house for breakfast on our arrival, and showed us some poetry his wife had written. She talked with us and seemed versed in the Koran; we left her a Gospel.
From Debai to Sharkeh we rode on asses, and as our two chests were heavy they were put, one each, on the backs of two other asses; the distance is about ten miles. At Sharkeh we met old friends and were glad that even after a previous visit we were welcomed. An Arab merchant showed us much kindness and offered us a shop with a prophet’s chamber above it for rent. Since this visit our missionaries often come here. From Sharkeh we crossed over to Lingah, and thence back to Bahrein by the mail steamer, but Elias went on visiting Ajman and the villages beyond all the way to Ras-el-Jebel, which means “the top of the mountain.†The Arabic version of the seventy-second Psalm gives the promise in this way: “There shall be an handful of corn in the earth on Ras-el-Jebel; the fruit thereof shall shake like Lebanon.â€
Oman is a little peninsula that sticks out eastward from the big peninsula of Arabia, and it might almost be called an island. On three sides are the waters of the Indian Ocean and the Persian Gulf, and on the west is the great sea of sand which the Arabs call the “empty abode,†and which has never been crossed by any traveller as far as we know. The Arabs themselves are afraid to venture beyond the limits of the oases that touch its borders, and on all the maps of Arabia this desert is marked “blank and unexplored.†Because the people of Oman for centuries past lived on such an island with the sea on one side and the desert on the other, they are quite distinct from the other Arabs. The language they speak has a peculiar accent, and their religion, although they are Mohammedans, is in many respects different from that of the other parts of Arabia.
I want to tell you of two journeys taken across this province. Many others have been made since, and our medical missionaries can now visit all the villages in the mountains back of the coast. On May 9, 1900, a colporteur and I put our two chests of books and medicines on board a small sailing-boat, and at four o’clock the wind was favourable to leave Bahrein harbour. We intendedto visit the pirate coast, and thence, if the way proved open, to cross the horn of Oman to Muscat, overland.
The captain and crew of our boat were all strict Moslems, and made no secret of the fact that formerly they were slave-traders. Crossing by zigzag lines to the Persian coast to avoid shoals and catch the wind, we reached Bistana and then sailed across the Gulf direct for Sharkeh. Half-way across is the little island of Abu Musa, with a small Arab population, but splendid pasturage, good milk and water. The chief export is red oxide, of which there are two hills with a boundless supply. Steamers occasionally call here for this cheap, marketable ballast; we left our witness in the shape of Arabic Gospels.
On May 14th we reached Sharkeh, the chief town on the pirate coast. Formerly this entire region was noted for the savage ferocity of its inhabitants. Thanks to English commerce and gunboats, these fanatic people have become tamed; most of them have given up piracy and turned to pearl-diving for a livelihood; their black tents and rude rock dwellings are making room for the three or four important towns of Sharkeh, Debai, Abu Thabi, and Ras el Kheima. We found the Arabs rather hospitable, and quite willing to hear our message. The mat-hut, set apart for our use, we for seven days made dispensary and reception-room. Here over two hundred Arabs came to get medicines, buy books, or discuss the reason of our errand. Many were the quiet talks duringthose days with all sorts and conditions of Arabs. There was often no rest until long after sunset; and no sooner had the muezzin called to daylight prayer than the visitors began to walk in again. They were a pleasant lot of people, and more sociable than the Arabs of Yemen, while less dignified than those from Nejd.
We heard on every side that travelling in the interior of Oman was safe, so, after bargaining with camel-drivers, we secured two companions and five camels to take us to Sohar for the sum of twentyrialsor Arabian dollars. At 9P. M.on May 20th we left, and after a short rest at midnight to water the camels, marched until nine o’clock the next day. By going as much as possible by starlight to avoid the heat, and resting during the day under some scraggy acacia tree or in the shadow of a Bedouin fort, we completed the distance of ninety odd miles in a little over four days. A large part of the way we took was desert, with no villages or even nomad booths; the more usual route by Wady Hom being a little unsafe, we followed Wady Hitta.
Prayer in the desert
Prayer in the desert
Sometimes our caravan would pass a camel’s skeleton bleached by the torrid sun. When a camel grows footsore or breaks down, there is no alternative: the poor beast is left to die in the wilderness. The second day we passed villages and cultivated fields; that night we spread our blankets on the soft sand, surrounded by thousands of sheep and goats, driven in by Bedouin lasses from their mountain pastures. Even among these shepherdswe found readers, and the colporteur sold books wherever the camels halted long enough to strike a bargain. It was late on Wednesday, May 23d, that we entered the narrow pass of Hitta. Our guides preceded, mounted, but with rifles loaded and cocked; then followed the baggage camel, to which mine was “towed,†and in similar fashion my companion on the milch camel followed by its two colts. We were not troubled with the heat at night, but during the day it was intense, and it was refreshing to come to an oasis (common in this part of Oman) where water burst from a big spring, and trees and flowers grew in luxury. In the mountainous parts of Oman the roads run almost invariably along sandy watercourses or deep, rocky ravines. Tamarisks, oleanders, euphorbias, and acacias are the most common trees and shrubs. Where the country appears almost barren, we were surprised to find a considerable population of shepherds and goatherds. Their dwellings are mere oval shanties constructed of boulders or rocks. In the fertile valleys the population always centres in villages, and scarcely ever is a dwelling found at any distance from this common centre.
Just at the top of the pass of Hitta is the village ’Ajeeb rightly named “wonderful.†The view down the mountains over the fertile stretch of coast called the Batinah and out over the boundless Indian Ocean was grand. We descended to the sea, and the turbulent mountain stream, so cold to our bare feet as we waded it in the early dawn,dwindled to a brook, and at last ebbed away along the beach a tiny stream of fresh water. These perennial streams are the secret of a coast fertile for nearly a hundred and fifty miles.
At Shinas, on the sea, we spent a hot day. The mosque was our pulpit and salesroom. One graybeard took us to his hut after noonday prayer to offer us simple hospitality. He spoke with fervour of my brother, Peter J. Zwemer, who came to his village three years previous. From Shinas our camels took us to Sohar. At the large village of El Wa we were unable to stop, as the camel-men were afraid of smallpox, which was prevalent there. Every one we passed on the way was friendly to a remarkable degree. The women brought fresh milk and fruit to us ere we dismounted, and the boys, instead of mocking the strange foreigners,salaamed, delighted to hear that in spite of our appearance we spoke Arabic. Not one copper did we spend for food and lodging; it is the land of large-hearted hospitality. To help a sick child or give quinine to some ague-tormented Arab was to them a large return for their kindness to a “son-of-the-road.â€
My second journey across the northern horn of Oman was made in May, 1901, with the same travelling companion; and sailing from Bahrein to Abu Thabi we went straight east to the coast of Oman and then along its shores all the way to Muscat by camel. It was the longest camel journey that ever I made, and when I reachedMuscat I was convinced that the camel is not only the ship, but the hardship of the desert.
“The Missionary Review of the World†Map of Oman
“The Missionary Review of the World†Map of Oman
The town of Abu Thabi from which we started is situated on a sort of island formed by the back-water of its harbour. A chasm about two hundred yards wide, and even at low water, four or five feet deep protects the town against desert invasion, and a fort has been built close to this water barrier. After our camels had waded through the water breast deep and nearly soaked our luggage, we began the desert journey. For three hoursthe road was as level as a table and equally barren; then we passed some outcropping rocks called the devil’s castle. All that day and the next we rode through sandy deserts with scarcely any vegetation, resting at noon under the shade of a blanket roped over our two boxes. It was hot indeed, and the water in our water skins had taken on a bad taste after the long and jerky ride. We had dates and made some soup from condensed vegetables, but the Bedouins of our party caught big lizards and made a boiled mess of them, with rice. They were displeased that we did not share their meal.
On Sunday we arrived at an Arab encampment and rested. They made a feast for us of fresh milk, and at night killed a fat kid, and made cakes baked on hot ashes. At nine o’clock that night we left our Bedouin friends, and rode on until past midnight, always due east by the stars. It was very cold at night in the desert. These extremes of temperature are trying, but not unhealthy. The following day we came across a poor nomad girl who was lost in the desert and nearly dying of thirst. She had been seeking for a strayed camel, and had then missed all traces of the road herself. For two days she had been alone in the desert, and had almost given up hope. Our guide gave her some water and dates and showed her the nearest way to the encampment. All this stretch of country as far as Bereimy is a wide wilderness of sand for miles and miles in every direction; not level sand, but sand in big folds andbillows a hundred feet high, that change with every storm.
It was a delightful change to reach the oasis of Bereimy with its seven villages, joined by streams of fresh water, and date plantations, as well as high mango trees and gardens of vegetables. Beyond this oasis the mountain road passed numerous villages to Obri and Dank. We took the shorter road through Wady-el-Jazi, direct to Sohar. The Arabs in this part of the world are perpetually at war with each other. Everybody gets up armed and goes to bed with a rifle by his side. Even little boys carry a dagger in their belts, and old men will part with anything rather than their shotguns. We met with no mishap by the way, however, and reached Sohar safely, but we did not go to Muscat by sea because there was no wind. Instead we encouraged each other to stick to our rough camel saddles for four days more, which made the entire distance from Abu Thabi to Muscat nearly three hundred miles.
The whole country is most interesting. In spite of continual warfare, the peasants seem to find time to cultivate every fertile spot, and raise all sorts of crops. We saw barley, wheat, sesame, vegetables and even tobacco. In one village we rested on the wide threshing floor where the old-fashioned instrument with sharp teeth, of which the Bible speaks, lay idle. The Oman plow is much better than those in North Arabia. There they plow with a crooked stick, whose sharp prongis strong enough to break up the sandy loam, but in this mountain region the peasants make a real coulter of iron and fit it to a heavy frame, braced to an upright handle of three bars set at right angles. The dress of the men and women is quite distinct from that in other parts of Arabia, and their houses are built like castles. Nearly every well is protected by a fort, and villages only a mile or two apart often carry on war with each other for many, many years. This is the chief obstacle to travel in the hill country of Oman.
Before you forget our journey across this part of Arabia, I want you to think of an Arab praying in the desert. One of the names the Arabs give to the desert is the “Garden of Allah,†because they say there is nothing but God; no other life, or sound or scene to distract one’s attention; only the great blue vault above, without a cloud, and the wide stretch of sand and rock all around the horizon. No wonder that the desert has been God’s training school for many of His prophets and teachers. Think of Moses, and Elijah and Paul and Christ.
Did you ever hear of missionaries who were jail-birds? Well, that has been my experience. This is how it was.
The day after Christmas about ten years ago it was decided that we make a tour to the mainland of Arabia from the island of Bahrein, our station. The picnic basket was packed with fresh bread and canned meats and good things, and we also took along extra clothing, a box of books and some medicines for the people. Our Arab servant had a hard time of it to secure a boat that would take us over because the people were still suspicious of Christians and were not at all anxious to have them begin work in new places. After a boat had been secured whose captain was willing for a good consideration to allow Christians to travel with him we still waited. When one travels by native boat in Arabia there is always delay; it may be a couple of hours or it may be a few days. Time and tide and the Arab temper are equally unreliable in the Persian Gulf. It is no use fussing and getting impatient. That only makes the Arab more immovable.
At four o’clock a small boat came as close to the shore as the water would allow, and then we rode out on donkeys through the surf to the tossing boat, and in this small“jolly-boat†we were taken to the native ship where we settled on the poop-deck with all our belongings. The deck of this little sailing craft did not measure more than six feet by four, and so we had to sit close or we would fall overboard. The man at the tiller can manage on three or four square inches of room, and his bare toes cling to the edge of the boat just like a monkey on the bough of a tree. The sail was hoisted and away we went for about three hours. Then the wind dropped and we were becalmed almost in sight of shore until the next morning. After prayers at daybreak the sail was again hoisted, and the awkward paddle oars which the Arabs use were taken out to help increase the speed. Finally, after a severe struggle we arrived at our destination.
The pretty little town of Darain stood out clearly in the bright sunlight, and we were glad that at last we were to reach the mainland of Arabia. I was the first Christian woman that had ever landed on this part of the coast. There was a ride through the shallow water of about a quarter of a mile, and our Arab host was kind enough to send out a choice of vehicles for my use,—a chair, a horse and a donkey. I chose the donkey as the safest and mounted and splashed through the surf to the land. The rest of our party followed. We were then conducted to the guest chamber in the tower,—a large airy room with about twenty window frames and no windows, only shutters; so that when the wind blew the dust from the desert, the wooden shutters were fastened, and the lightand air had to be shut out also. Our host was very cordial and laid no special restraint upon us, although he too was suspicious that we had come to begin missionary work in earnest in his village,—a thing which he would not allow. He treated us royally and with genuine Arab hospitality, but yet his suspicion was evident because he kept us away from another guest of his, the Turkish governor of Katif, as he did not wish him to know that he had friends among the Christians. After three days of entertainment we went on board our boat again on the way to Katif. We landed there in a few hours but found ourselves in a real “hornet’s nest.†Our very best and most winning smiles could not melt the harshness of the custom-house officials. They said our passports were not properly made out, and the motion was soon made and carried that we should be returned whence we came at once.
Fortunately, there was no boat ready to take us back, and it was not our intention to be turned back without at least attempting to dispose of some of the Gospels which we had brought with us and to win the confidence of some of the people. We were not despondent because even in this inhospitable place there was a man who was anxious to receive us and who invited us to come and stay at his home. We were so happy for a few brief hours. The man’s wife prepared a guest meal and received us very courteously. They gave us a well-furnished room and we were delighted to see that this Moslemwas already a Bible reader, for in one of the alcoves of the room was a well-thumbed New Testament.
But no sooner did we begin to unpack our things than a gruff voice from below called for us to come down immediately and bring all our belongings. A lank-looking individual, who said he was a police agent, compelled us to follow him, and so we went through narrow, dirty alleys and smelling streets, and were finally conducted into the courtyard of a large tumble-down house, the steps all crumbling and indescribably filthy. After struggling up the steep, irregular stairway, we were shown into a small room in a part of the house quite by itself, which opened out on to a small roof. It had no windows and only one dingy door.
Bedouin Women and their Children
Bedouin Women and their Children
A smoky lamp without a chimney was brought in which lit up the darkness but also showed the dirt. Many generations of men and insects had lived there, and marked up every space on the walls. When we protested and said we preferred to stay elsewhere, we were told to remain; that we were prisoners, and that we were not permitted to go to any other place. While my husband was led off to the governor by himself I waited. It took him over an hour to try to persuade the great official to allow us liberty, but it was all to no purpose. We must remain in these lodgings which he had provided. There were soldiers on each landing, he told us, and they were warned to protect us and not to let us pass out. So we settled down to the inevitable. The kind Arab fromDarain was also in Katif, and later on in the evening he brought the jail-birds some quilts and rags to make them a little more comfortable. We did our best to rest, but it was almost impossible, and we were glad to see the first streak of dawn. Determined not to stay in the house any longer, we prepared a meal from our lunch basket, packed our few belongings and started to find our way to the street. The ragged individuals called soldiers murmured as we passed but did not stop us and we were out in the road and some distance from the governor’s house when our servant whom we had not seen until now came after us and said we must not go; that the governor wanted us and wanted us at once.
I began to protest, but was finally persuaded to return and to my great surprise was conducted into a room gorgeously furnished where a nice-looking meal was being set on a small table. The governor arose and received us very politely, inquiring after our health and comfort. We swallowed our wrath and told him in the best Arabic possible that we were quite well and hoped his lordship was also. He then invited us to breakfast and would not accept a refusal. We wondered what would happen next. After we had explained our errand and stated our desire to sell books to the people and talk to them about religion, he said he would permit us to stay with the custom-house officer, but that we must not distribute or sell a single book and that a soldier must go with us wherever we went. It was his belief that the people might do us harmunless we were well guarded, and that as they had never before seen Christians it was entirely unsafe for us to distribute books or sell them among Mohammedans as fanatical as those in this part of Arabia. Thanking him for his kindness and accepting his apologies for keeping us as jail-birds during the night, we left his rooms and started walking through the streets. A soldier guard followed us, but when we refused to pay them for their service as guards and guides, they turned their backs and went away. And so in this land of misrule and intolerance, this uttermost province of the Turkish Empire, we were once more free.
To the American schoolboy a Moslem school and school-books would appear the dullest things possible. Yet the Arab boys do enjoy school for there is always something to distract the attention, especially if the teacher is a shopkeeper. While a customer bargains, or the water carrier passes, or the coffee-house man brings the daily “cup of cheer,†or, in the case of a woman teacher, callers come, all eyes and ears are open not towards the lesson but the conversation and the sights.
The earliest andonlytext-book is the Koran or portions of it cheaply lithographed on common paper. There are no pictures in their primers, for a Moslem tradition says that Mohammed cursed all who would paint or draw men and animals. There is neither singing nor prayer when school opens. Mohammed said, “Singing or hearing songs causeth hypocrisy to grow in the heart even as rain causeth corn to grow in the field.†The school has no special building, but may be in the corner of a mosque or in the yard of the teacher; or part of his shop (if he is a merchant) will form the schoolhouse. There is no furniture except mats and folding bookstands. These look like tiny sawbucks. The schoolmaster sits amongst hisboys on the floor, and they all drone out their lessons together. There are no grades, neither is there order in the schoolroom. One lad may be at the alphabet; another one as far as counting numbers; a third child may be spelling out the first chapter of the Koran, while others are reading from the middle of the book at the top of their voices. The education of a boy should begin at the age of four years, four months and four days. On that day he is taught to say the Bismillah, or opening chapter of the Koran. Soon after that he may be sent to one of the day-schools to learn the alphabet.
When a boy has finished the reading of the whole of the Koran for the first time and has learned the rudiments of writing, he graduates from the primary school. On this occasion he has a rare holiday. Dressed in fine clothes, perhaps mounted on horseback, he visits the neighbours, receives gifts and sweetmeats and brings a handsome present to his tutor. If he does not intend to become a doctor of divinity or of herbs, this is the end of his school-days, and the lad is put to learning a trade or helping his parents.