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 pleasure and 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 heard her 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. Abu Ali 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 a _home_). 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 position with 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 and seemed 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 were poured 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."
[Illustration: A MOSLEM CEMETERY]
[Illustration: A CHRISTIAN CEMETERY]
Sheikh Haj Hamid's story is that of a rescued Moslem. Let me tell it to
you.
There is to-day in the far East a town built out of the ruins of a city
of great antiquity, in the land where giants once lived, and King Og
reigned (Genesis xiv. 5; Deuteronomy iii. 11, 13).
Some of the Lord's messengers went out there, recently, to gather into
the fold any of His scattered and wandering sheep they might find.
Probably the Gospel had not been preached there for one thousand five
hundred years. The Lord had promised to go before His messengers, and
had assured them that there were sheep in that place who would hear His
voice and follow Him, and, trusting this sure guidance, they started.
"In journeyings, often, in perils of water, in perils of robbers, in
perils in the wilderness, in perils among false brethren," they
searched for the sheep and lambs--and found them. One of the number was
a dignified, gray-haired Moslem sheikh who, on hearing "the call," with
groans and tears asked, "What must I do to be saved, for my sins reach
up to Heaven? What am I to do with them? For forty long years I have
gone daily to the mosque, but never before, until this day, have I heard
of salvation in Jesus Christ." And he wept aloud and cried out: "Won't
you pray for me?" He eagerly received instruction and believed. His last
and oft repeated words to his new-found Christian friends, as they rode
away, were: "Won't you continue to pray for me?"
The Lord Jesus Christ is speaking to His own among Moslems to-day, but
many have never heard of Him. There are more than two hundred million
Moslems in the world. "How can they hear without a preacher?"
Hindîyea's story will also interest you. A Moslem woman lay dying in a
coast town of old Syro-Ph[oe]nicia. She was the wife of an aged
Kâtib--the scribe of the town and the teacher of the Koran. The woman
knew that her end was near, but how could she die? Where was she going?
Her husband had no word of comfort for her, he did not know. She was
greatly troubled and deep waters rolled over her soul. Who could tell
her? Was there no one to stretch out a helping hand?
Suddenly she thought of a foreign lady, a missionary, who was at the
time in her own town, and whose words had once strangely stirred her
heart. Perhaps she would come to her? She did come and on her entering
the room, Hindîyea, endued with new strength and wonderful energy, sat
up in her bed and called out in a loud voice, her great eyes shining
like stars: "Welcome! Welcome! a thousand times welcome! I need you now,
can you teach me how to die? Will you come and put your hands on my head
and bring down God's blessing upon me? Surely you can help me."
Hindîyea was told just in time the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and
went home to God. Christ came for others just like her in the great
Moslem world. Who will go to teach them how to die and how to live?
There is a general belief among Christians that Moslems worship the One
True God--the Almighty God; but this is a mistake, they do not worship
Him at all! They worship the God who has Mohammed for his prophet and
_who is he_? Certainly not the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ.
The call that goes up from thousands of minarets all over the Moslem
world six times a day--"There is no God but God, and Mohammed is his
prophet,"--is in direct conflict with the Word of Truth, that we have
access to our God through His Son, Jesus Christ, for they deny the
Son,--"and this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life,
and this life is in His Son. He that hath the Son hath life, and he
that hath not the Son of God hath not life" (1 John v. 11, 12).
"Who is the liar, but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ. This is
the Anti-Christ, that denieth the Father and the Son. Whosoever denieth
the Son the same hath not the Father: he that confesseth the Son hath
the Father also" (1 John ii. 22, 23).
In direct contradiction to this teaching of the New Testament is Chapter
CXII of the Koran, which, in Sale's translation, is as follows: "My God
is one God, the eternal God, He begetteth not, neither is He begotten,
and there is not any one like unto Him." Also in Chapter XIX: "It is not
meet for God that he should have any Son, God forbid!" Chapter CXII is
held in particular veneration by the Mohammedan world and declared by
the tradition of their prophet to be equal in value to a third part of
the whole Koran. Wherever Islam prevails, or exists, Christ is denied to
be the Son of God. All Moslems deny also the death on the Cross and the
resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ.
There is a clarion call to-day for prayer, prayer for the Moslem World.
When the Christians of evangelical lands begin to pray, the walls of the
strongholds of the enemy will fall, and the chains that have bound
millions of souls for one thousand three hundred years will be broken.
Islam's only hope is to know God, "the Only True God, and Jesus Christ
whom He has sent."
XIII
ONCE MORE IN PALESTINE
The condition of all Moslem women must necessarily be more or less sad
(for under the very best conditions it can never be secure), yet I think
that the lot of Moslem women in Palestine compares favorably with that
of their sisters in India. There is less absolute cruelty. There are
fewer atrocious customs. The lot of widows is easier, and girls are not
altogether despised.
Polygamy is lawful, yet this custom is certainly decreasing with
education and civilization. The Turks have very seldom more than one
wife. My experience of the officials who come from Turkey to hold office
in Palestine, both civil and military, tells me that it is now the
fashion among enlightened Moslems to follow European ways in the matter
of marriage, and I observe that, when men are educated and have
travelled, they seldom care for a plurality of wives.
However, among the Arabic-speaking inhabitants of Palestine men with
more than one wife, both rich and poor, may still be found.
Among the uneducated rich men (and by the term uneducated, I mean those
who have not completed their studies in Egypt or Europe) you will often
find one having two wives. Also among the landowners, or sheikhs of
villages, who travel from place to place to overlook their property, you
will be told that they have a wife in each village living with a
suitable retinue of servants. The Arabic word for the second wife means
"the one that troubles me." This word is used in 1 Samuel i. in the
story of Hannah, and is translated "adversary." I know of an educated
gentleman, living in a large city, who added a young bride to his
family, but his first wife was treated with every consideration. The
rich can afford to put their wives in different suites of apartments
with different servants, and by this means quarrelling is prevented; but
the case is very different among the poor.
Not long ago a sad case came under my own notice. A prosperous
pharmacist was married to a very nice woman, and they were a happy
couple with sons and daughters growing up around them. By degrees, the
wife perceived a change in her husband's temper. If anything went wrong,
he immediately threatened her, not with divorce, but to introduce a
second wife into their happy home. This threat he finally carried out,
and the wife had the chagrin of welcoming the bride, and she was obliged
to behave pleasantly over the business. These two women appear to live
in harmony, there is no alternative, for over the first wife Damocles'
sword hangs but by a hair. But you can imagine the bitterness in her
heart, her anger against the husband, and her hatred of the bride. You
can imagine also the loss of respect for their father which the sons
will feel.
Among the poorer classes it is the usual thing to find a man with two
wives. One of these is old. She acts as housekeeper, and is consulted
and considered by the husband. The other is usually quite a young woman,
who must obey the older wife and treat her as a mother-in-law. These two
are generally fairly happy, and, as a rule, live in peace. I have seen a
man with three wives, all under the same roof. He acts impartially to
all--but the quarrelling among themselves and among their children in
his absence is very sad. The effect of polygamy upon the home is most
disastrous. What effect it may have on the domestic happiness of the man
I cannot say, but one can make a guess and that not a very favorable
one!
Divorce is easy, inexpensive, and very prevalent; and it is no uncommon
thing to hear that a man has had ten or eleven wives and that a woman
has had eight or nine husbands. For an angry man to say the words, "I
divorce you," and to repeat them three times, swearing an oath by the
Prophet, is enough to oblige the object of his wrath to leave his house;
carrying with her a bed, a pillow, a coverlet, and a saucepan, together
with the clothes which she had from her own family at her marriage. She
returns to her father's house, or to the nearest relation she has,
should he be dead, until another marriage is arranged for her.
Among the richer classes divorce seldom occurs; and, if the wife has
children and devotes herself to the comfort of her husband, she may feel
her position tolerably secure. Should she fall ill, however, it is rare
that a husband permits her to remain in his house, for he has not
promised to cherish her in sickness and in health. He will send her to
her own family till he sees how the illness will turn; and, more than
probably, she will be told in less than a month that she is divorced,
and that her husband has married another. How often in our Palestine
hospitals do we try to comfort and soothe the poor sick women in their
feverish anxiety to get well, for fear of this dreaded Damocles' sword
falling on their unhappy heads!
Among the poorer classes divorce is extremely prevalent. If a woman has
no child, she is immediately divorced, and is returned to her own
family, who arrange for a second marriage, generally in about ten days
from the time she is divorced. Should she again have no child, her lot
will indeed be a sad one. She must then be content to be the wife of
some blind or crippled man, who, perhaps, will also exact a sum of money
from her relations for his charity in marrying her. If a woman be
divorced after she has had children, she must leave them with the
husband, to be probably harshly treated by her successor or successors.
If the father dies, the children are supported by his brothers or
relations, while the widow marries again. It is seldom that a widow is
permitted to take a child, or children, to her new home. There is no
difficulty in providing for orphan girls; they are much sought after in
marriage, for the law excuses a young man from foreign military service
if he can prove that his wife is an orphan. This means that he would not
be able to leave her alone during his absence. Such orphans are
generally taken into the houses of their future husbands as little tiny
girls of four or five years old, where they are trained by the
mother-in-law, and grow up as daughters. By this means the husband is
exempt from paying any sum of money for his bride.
We must not forget that the marriages of Moslems are wholly without
affection, and that the only way in which the husband can enforce
obedience from his ignorant and listless wife is by the law of divorce.
She will obey him and work for him simply from the fear of being turned
away. When a woman has been divorced four or five times, she finds a
difficulty in getting a husband; for the report spreads that it "takes
two to make a quarrel," that her tongue is too sharp and her temper too
short. I have been asked what becomes eventually of the woman who has
been frequently divorced. Finally she remains with the old or very poor
man who has married her in her old age. Or, possibly, if she is a widow
with a grown-up son, he will support her until death relieves him of
what he feels to be only a burden. The insecurity of a Moslem wife's
position quite precludes any improvement in herself, her household
arrangements, or in her children's training. She does not care to sew,
or to take an interest in her husband's work. She does not economize, or
try to improve his position, for fear that, if he should find himself
with a little spare money, he would immediately enlarge his borders by
taking another wife! Therefore, a Moslem woman's house is always
poor-looking and untidy. She keeps her husband's clothes the same, that
he may not be able to associate with wealthy men and envy their
pleasures. Here we see the wide gulf between Christianity and Islam. The
wife, whom God gave to be the "help," and whose price is far above
rubies, has been debased by the prophet Mohammed, into the "chattel" to
be used, and when worn out, thrown away!
The Christian woman's home in Palestine is generally clean and tidy. Her
interests are identical with those of her husband. She is glad to work
to help the man, that the position of both may be improved.
I do not think the rich man ill-treats his wife. I have found him
invariably kind and indulgent. In Palestine the women have plenty of
liberty. It is a mistake to say that they are shut up. To begin with,
they live in large houses with gardens and courtyards enclosed. They go
out visiting one another, to the public baths, and to the cemetery
regularly once a week, where they meet and commune with the spirits of
departed friends.