Table of Contents

THE

Women of the Arabs.

---

CHAPTER I.

STATE OF WOMEN AMONG THE ARABS OF THE JAHILIYEH, OR THE "TIMES OF THE IGNORANCE."

In that eloquent Sura of the Koran, called Ettekwir, (lxxxi.) it is said, "When the girl buried alive shall be asked for what sin she was slain." The passage no doubt refers to the cruel practice which still in Mohammed's time lingered among the tribe of Temîm, and which was afterwards eradicated by the influence of Islam. The origin of this practice has been ascribed to the superstitious rite of sacrificing children, common in remote times to all the Semites, and observed by the Jews up to the age of the Captivity, as we learn from the denunciations of Jeremiah. But in later times daughters were buried alive as a matter of household economy, owing to the poverty of many of the tribes, and to their fear of dishonor, since women were often carried off by their enemies in forays, and made slaves and concubines to strangers.

So that at a wedding, the wish expressed in the gratulations to the newly-married pair was, "with concord and sons," or "with concord and permanence; with sons and no daughters." This same salutation is universal in Syria now. The chief wish expressed by women to a bride is, "may God give you an arees," i.e. a bridegroom son.

In the Koran, Sura xiv, Mohammed argues against the Arabs of Kinaneh, who said that the angels were the daughters of God. "They (blasphemously) attribute daughters to God; yet they wish them not for themselves. When a female child is announced to one of them, his face grows dark, and he is as though he would choke."

The older Arab Proverbs show that the burying alive of female children was deemed praiseworthy.

The Koran also says, that certain men when hearing of the birth of a daughter hide themselves "from the people because of the ill-tidings; shall he keep it with disgrace, or bury it in the dust." (Sura xvi.)

It is said that the only occasion on which Othman ever shed a tear, was when his little daughter, whom he was burying alive, wiped the dust of the grave-earth from his beard!

Before the Seventh Century this practice seems to have been gradually abandoned, but was retained the longest in the tribe of Temîm. Naman, king of Hira, carried off among his prisoners in a foray, the daughter of Kais, chief of Temîm, who fell in love with one of her captors and refused to return to her tribe, whereupon her father swore to bury alive all his future female children, which he did, to the number of ten.

Subsequent to this, rich men would buy the lives of girls devoted to inhumation, and Sa Saah thus rescued many, in one case giving two milch camels to buy the life of a new-born girl, and he was styled "the Reviver of the Maidens buried alive."

The following Arabic Proverbs having reference to women and girls will illustrate the ancient Arab ideas with regard to their character and position, better than volumes of historic discourse:

The position of woman among the Arabs before the times of Mohammed can be easily inferred from what has preceded. But there is another side to the picture. Although despised and abused, woman often asserted her dignity and maintained her rights, not only by physical force, but by intellectual superiority as well. The poetesses of the Arabs are numerous, and some of them hold a high rank. Their poetry was impromptu, impassioned, and chiefly of the elegiac and erotic type. The faculty of improvisation was cultivated even by the most barbarous tribes, and although such of their poetry as has been preserved is mostly a kind of rhymed prose, it often contains striking and beautiful thoughts. They called improvised poetry "the daughter of the hour."

The queen of Arabic poetesses is El Khunsa, who flourished in the days of Mohammed. Elegies on her two warrior brothers Sakhr and Mu'awiyeh are among the gems of ancient Arabic poetry. She was not what would be called in modern times a refined or delicate lady, being regarded as proud and masculine in temper even by the Arabs of her own age. In the eighth year of the Hegira, her son Abbas brought a thousand warriors to join the forces of the Prophet. She came with him and recited her poetry to Mohammed. She lamented her brother for years. She sang of Sakhr:

Again, she lamented him as follows:

The poet Nabighah erected for her a red leather tent at the fair of Okaz, in token of honor, and in the contest of poetry gave her the highest place above all but Maymûn, saying to her, "If I had not heard him, I would say that thou didst surpass every one in poetry. I confess that you surpass all women." To which she haughtily replied, "Not the less do I surpass all men."

The following are among the famous lines of El Khunsa, which gave her the title of princess of Arab poetesses. The translation I have made quite literal.

The most ancient Arab poetess, Zarîfeh, is supposed to have lived as long ago as the Second Century, in the time of the bursting of the famous dyke of Mareb, which devastated the land of Saba. Another poetess, Rakâsh, sister of the king of Hira, was given in marriage, by the king when intoxicated, to a man named Adi.

Alas, in these days the Moslem Arabs do not wait until blinded by wine, to give their daughters in marriage to strangers. I once overheard two Moslem young men converging in a shop, one of whom was about to be married. His companion said to him, "have you heard anything about the looks of your betrothed?" "Not much," said he, "only I am assured that she is white."

In a book written by Mirai ibn Yusef el Hanbali, are the names of twenty Arab women who improvised poetry. Among them are Leila, Leila el Akhyalîyeh, Lubna, Zeinab, Afra, Hind, May, Jenûb, Hubaish, Zarifeh, Jemîleh, Remleh, Lotifeh, and others. Most of the verses ascribed to them are erotic poetry of an amatory character, full of the most extravagant expressions of devotion of which language is capable, and yet the greater part of it hardly bearing translation. It reminds one strikingly of Solomon's Song, full of passionate eloquence. And yet in the poetry of El Khunsa and others, which is of an elegiac character, there are passages full of sententious apothegms and proverbial wisdom.

---

CHAPTER II.

STATE OF WOMEN IN THE MOHAMMADAN WORLD.

Our knowledge of the position of women among the Mohammedans is derived from the Koran, Moslem tradition, and Moslem practice.

I. In the first place, the Koran does not teach that women have no souls. Not only was Mohammed too deeply indebted to his rich wife Khadijah, to venture such an assertion, but he actually teaches in the Koran the immortality and moral responsibility of women. One of his wives having complained to him that God often praised the men, but not the women who had fled the country for the faith, he immediately produced the following revelation:

In Sura iv. it is said:

In Sura xxxiii:

II. Thus Mohammedans cannot and do not deny that women have souls, but their brutal treatment of women has naturally led to this view. The Caliph Omar said that "women are worthless creatures and soil men's reputations." In Sura iv. it is written:

The interpretation of this last injunction being left to the individual believer, it is carried out with terrible severity. The scourging and beating of wives is one of the worst features of Moslem domestic life. It is a degraded and degrading practice, and having the sanction of the Koran, will be indulged in without rebuke as long as Islamism as a system and a faith prevails in the world. Happily for the poor women, the husbands do not generally beat them so as to imperil their lives, in case their own relatives reside in the vicinity, lest the excruciating screams of the suffering should reach the ears of her parents and bring the husband into disgrace. But where there is no fear of interference or of discovery, the blows and kicks are applied in the most merciless and barbarous manner. Women are killed in this way, and no outsider knows the cause. One of my Moslem neighbors once beat one of his wives to death. I heard her screams day after day, and finally, one night, when all was still, I heard a dreadful shriek, and blow after blow falling upon her back and head. I could hear the brute cursing her as he beat her. The police would not interfere, and I could not enter the house. The next day there was a funeral from that house, and she was carried off and buried in the most hasty and unfeeling manner. Sometimes it happens that the woman is strong enough to defend herself, and conquers a peace; but ordinarily when you hear a scream in the Moslem quarter of the city and ask the reason, it will be said to you with an indifferent shrug of the shoulder, "that is only some man beating his wife."

That thirty-eighth verse of Sura iv. is one of the many proofs that the Koran is not the book of God, because it violates the law of love. "Husbands love your wives," is a precept of the Gospel and not of the Koran. Yet it is a sad fact that the nominal Christians of this dark land are not much better in this respect than their Moslem neighbors. The Greeks, Maronites and Papal Greeks beat their wives on the slightest provocation. In the more enlightened towns and cities this custom is "going out of fashion," though still often resorted to in fits of passion. Sometimes the male relatives of the wife retaliate in case a husband beats her. In the village of Schwire, in Lebanon, a man beat his wife in a brutal manner and she fled to the house of her brother. The brother watched his opportunity; waylaid the offending husband, and avenged his sister's injuries by giving him a severe flogging. In Eastern Turkey, a missionary in one of the towns noticed that not one woman attended church on Sunday. He expostulated with the Protestants, and urged them to persuade their wives to accompany them. The next Sunday the women were all present, as meek and quiet as could be wished. The missionary was delighted, and asked one of the men how they persuaded them to come? He replied, "We all beat our wives soundly until they consented to come!" This wife-beating custom has evidently been borrowed by the Christian sects from their Moslem rulers and oppressors, and nothing but a pure Christianity can induce them to abandon it.

III. Some have supposed that there will be no place in the Moslem Paradise for women, as their place will be taken by the seventy-two bright-eyed Houris or damsels of Paradise. Mohammed once said that when he took a view of Paradise he saw the majority of its inhabitants to be the poor, and when he looked down into hell, he saw the greater part of the wretches confined there to be women! Yet he positively promised his followers that the very meanest in Paradise will have eighty thousand servants, seventy-two wives of the Houris, besides the wives he had in this world. The promises of the Houris are almost exclusively to be found in Suras, written at a time when Mohammed had only a single wife of sixty years of age, and in all the ten years subsequent to the Hegira, women are only twice mentioned as the reward of the faithful. And this, while in four Suras, the proper wives of the faithful are spoken of as accompanying their husbands into the gardens of bliss.

An old woman once desired Mohammed to intercede with God that she might be admitted to Paradise, and he told her that no old woman would enter that place. She burst into loud weeping, when he explained himself by saying that God would then make her young again.

I was once a fellow-passenger in the Damascus diligence, with a Mohammedan pilgrim going to Mecca by way of Beirût and Egypt, in company with his wife. I asked him whether his wife would have any place in Paradise when he received his quota of seventy-two Houris. "Yes," said he, looking towards his wife, whose veil prevented our seeing her, although she could see us, "if she obeys me in all respects, and is a faithful wife, and goes to Mecca, she will be made more beautiful than all the Houris of Paradise." Paradise is thus held up to the women as the reward of obedience to their husbands, and this is about the sum and substance of what the majority of Moslem women know about religion.

Women are never admitted to pray with men in public, being obliged to perform their devotions at home, or if they visit the Mosques, it must be at a time when the men are not there, for the Moslems are of opinion that the presence of women inspires a different kind of devotion from that which is desirable in a place set apart for the worship of God.

The Moslem idea of woman is vile and degraded. A Moslem absent from home never addresses a letter to his wife, but to his son or brother, or some male relative. It is considered a grievous insult to ask a Moslem about the health of his wife. If obliged to allude to a woman in conversation, you must use the word "ajellak Allah," "May God elevate you" above the contamination of this subject! You would be expected to use the same expression in referring to a donkey, a dog, a shoe, a swine or anything vile. It is somewhat like the Irish expression, "Saving your presence, sir," when alluding to an unpleasant subject.

A Greek christian (?) in Tripoli came to an American Missionary physician and said, "there is a woman, 'ajell shanak Allah' here who is ill. I beg your pardon for mentioning so vile a subject to your excellency." Said the doctor, "and who may it be?" "Ajellak, it is my wife!"

I remember once meeting the Mohammedan Mufti of Beirût in Dr. Van Dyck's study at the printing press. The Mufti's wife, (at least one of them,) was ill, and he wished medical advice, but could not insult the Doctor by alluding to a woman in his presence. So he commenced, after innumerable salutations, repeating good-morning, and may your day be happy, until he could decently proceed to business. "Your excellency must be aware that I have a sick man at my house. May God grant you health! Indeed, peace to your head. Inshullah, it is only a slight attack!" "He has pain in his back, headache, and he will not eat." "Has he any fever?" "A little." "I will come and see her this afternoon." "May God increase your good. Good morning, sir!"

The Mohammedan laws with regard to polygamy, inheritance and divorce, are a decided advance on the Pagan Arabs of "the Ignorance."

The Pagan Arabs allowed any number of wives. The Koran allows only four to any believer, the prophet himself having peculiar privileges in this respect. The modern practice of Mohammedans in taking a score or more of wives is directly contrary to the Koran. The Pagan Arabs suffered no woman to have any part of the husband's or father's inheritance, on the ground that none should inherit who could not go to war, and the widows were disposed of as a part of their husband's possessions. The Koran says, (Sura iv.) "Women ought to have a part of what their parents leave." A male shall have twice as much as a female. But a man's parents, and also his brothers and sisters are to have equal shares, without reference to sex. "God commandeth you to give the male the portion of two females. If she be an only daughter, she shall have the half. Your wives shall have a fourth part of what ye leave, if ye have no issue."

Among the Pagan Arabs, divorce was a mere matter of caprice. The Koran says, (Sura ii.) "You may divorce your wives twice (and take them back again). But if the husband divorce her a third time, it is not lawful for him to take her again, until she shall have been actually married to another husband, and then divorced by him." I have known cases where the husband in a fit of passion has divorced his wife the third time, and, in order to get her back again, has hired another man to marry her and then divorce her. A rich Effendi had divorced his wife the third time, and wishing to re-marry her, hired a poor man to marry her for a consideration of seven hundred piastres. He took the wife and the money, and the next day refused to give her up for less than five thousand piastres, which the Effendi was obliged to pay, as the woman had become the lawful and wedded wife of the poor man.

No Mohammedan ever walks with his wife in the street, and in Moslem cities, very few if any of men of other sects are willing to be seen in public in company with a woman. The women are closely veiled, and if a man and his wife have occasion to go anywhere together, he walks in advance and she walks a long distance behind him. Nofel Effendi, one of the most learned and intelligent Protestants in Syria, once gave me the explanation of this aversion to walking in public with women, in a more satisfactory manner than I had ever heard it before. Said he, "You Franks can walk with your wives in public, because their faces are unveiled, and it is known that they are your wives, but our women are so closely veiled that if I should walk with my wife in the street, no one would know whether I was walking with my own wife or another man's! You cannot expect a respectable man to put himself into such an embarrassing position!" No Moslem woman or girl would dare go into the street without a veil, for fear of personal chastisement from the husband and father, and the Greek, Maronite and other nominal Christian women in Syria shrink from exposing their faces, through fear of insult from the Mohammedans.

When European women, either residents or travellers, pass through the Moslem quarter of these cities of Syria and Palestine, with faces unveiled, they are made the theme of the most outrageous and insulting comments by the Moslem populace. Well is it for the feelings of the most of these worthy Christian women, that they do not understand the Arabic language. The Turkish governor of Tripoli was obliged to suppress the insulting epithets of the Moslems towards European ladies when they first began to reside there, by the infliction of the bastinado.

In 1857, the Rev. Mr. Lyons in Tripoli, hired Sheikh Owad, a Moslem bigot, to teach him the Arabic grammar. He was a conceited boor; well versed in Arabic grammar, but more ignorant of geography, arithmetic and good breeding than a child. One day Mrs. Lyons passed through the room where he was teaching Mr. L. and he turned his head away from her and spat towards her with a look of unutterable contempt. It was the last time he did it, and he has now become so civilized that he can say good morning to the wife of a missionary, and even consent to teach the sacred, pure and undefiled Arabic to a woman! I believe that he has not yet given his assent to the fact that the earth revolves on its axis, but he has learned that there are women in the world who know more than Sheikh Owad.

In ancient times Moslem women were occasionally taught to read the Koran, and among the wealthier and more aristocratic classes, married women are now sometimes taught to read, but the mass of the Moslem men are bitterly opposed to the instruction of women. When a man decides to have his wife taught to read, the usual plan is to hire a blind Mohammedan Sheikh, who knows the Koran by heart. He sits at one side of the room, and she at the other, some elderly woman, either her mother or her mother-in-law, being present. The blind Sheikhs have remarkable memories and sharp ears, and can detect the slightest error in pronunciation or rendering, so they are employed in the most of the Moslem-schools. The mass of the Mohammedans are nervously afraid of entrusting the knowledge of reading and writing to their wives and daughters, lest they abuse it by writing clandestine letters to improper persons. "Teach a girl to read and write!" said a Mohammedan Mufti in Tripoli to me, "Why, she will write letters, sir,—yes, actually write letters! the thing is not to be thought of for a moment." I replied, "Effendum, you put your foot on the women's necks and then blame them for not rising. Educate your girls and train them to intelligence and virtue, and then their pens will write only what ought to be written. Train the hand to hold a pen, without training the mind to direct it, and only mischief can result." "Saheah, saheah," "very true, very true," said he, "But how can this be done?"

It has begun to be done in Syria. From the days of Mrs. Sarah L. Smith to the present time, Moslem girls have been taught to read and write and sew, and there are many now learning in the various American, British and Prussian schools. But it will be long before any true idea of the dignity of woman enters the debased minds of Arab Mohammedans. The simple fact is that there is no moral purity or elevation among the men, and how can it be expected among the women. The Moslem idea of woman is infinitely lower than the old Jewish idea. Woman in the time of Christ was highly honored. Believing women followed Christ throughout Galilee and Judea, and although enemies stood watching with hateful gaze on every side, not one word of insinuation was ever lisped against them. It is a most sadly impressive fact to one living in Syria at the present day, that the liberty and respect allowed to woman in the days of our Saviour would now be absolutely impossible. In purely Greek or Maronite or Armenian villages, the women enjoy far greater liberty than where there is a Moslem element in the population. And it is worthy of remark and grateful recognition, that although Christianity in the East has sunk almost to a level, in outward morality, with the Islamic and semi-Pagan sects, there is a striking difference between the lowest nominal Christian community and the highest Mohammedan, in the respect paid to woman. Ignorant and oppressed as the Greek and Maronite women may be, you feel on entering their houses, that the degrading yoke of Moslem brutality is not on their necks. Their husbands may be coarse, ignorant and brutal, beating their wives and despising their daughters, mourning at the birth of a daughter, and marrying her without her consent, and yet there are lower depths of coarseness and brutality, of cruelty and bestiality, which are only found among Mohammedans. I once suggested to a Tripoli Moslem, that he send his daughters to our Girls' School, then taught by Miss Sada Gregory, a native teacher trained in the family of Mrs. Whiting, and he looked at me with an expression of mingled pity and contempt, saying, "Educate a girl! You might as well attempt to educate a cat!"

Not two months since, I was conversing with several of the aristocratic Mohammedans of Beirût, who were in attendance at the commencement of the Beirût Protestant Medical College. The subject of the education of girls was introduced, and one of them said, "we are beginning to have our girls instructed in your Protestant schools, and would you believe it, I heard one of them read the other day, (probably his own daughter,) and she actually asked a question about the construction of a noun preceded by a preposition! I never heard the like of it. The things do distinguish and understand what they read, after all!" The others replied, "Mashallah! Mashallah!" "The will of God be done!"

Some ten years ago, an influential Moslem Sheikh in Beirût, who was a personal friend of Mr. Araman, the husband of Lulu, brought his daughter Wahidy (only one) to the Seminary to be instructed, on condition that no man should ever see her face. As Mr. Araman himself was one of the teachers, and I was accustomed to make constant visits to the school, she was obliged to wear a light veil, which she drew adroitly over her face whenever the door was opened. This went on for months and years, until at length in recitation she would draw the veil aside. Then she used to listen to public addresses in the school without her veil, and finally, in June, 1867, she read a composition on the stage at the Public Examination, on, "The value of education to the women and girls of Syria," her father, Sheikh Said el Ghur, being present, with a number of his Moslem friends.

---

CHAPTER III.

THE DRUZE RELIGION AND DRUZE WOMEN.

The great expounder and defender of the Druze religion is Hamzé, the "Universal Intelligence," the only Mediator between God and man, and the medium of the creation of all things. This Hamzé was a shrewd, able and unprincipled man. In his writings he not only defends the abominations of Hakem, but lays down the complete code of Druze doctrine and duty.

It is the belief of many, and said to be the orthodox view among the Druzes that their system as such is to last exactly 900 lunar years. The date of the Druze era is 408 Hegira, or 1020 a.d. The present year, 1872, corresponds to the year 1289 Anno Hegira, so that in nineteen lunar years the system will begin to come to an end according to its own reckoning, and after 1000 years it will cease to exist. Others have fixed this present year as the year of the great cataclysm, but the interpreters are so secret and reserved in their statements, that it is only by casual remarks that we can arrive at any idea of their real belief. Lying to infidels is such a meritorious act, that you cannot depend on one word they say of themselves or their doctrines. Their secret books, which were found in the civil wars of 1841 and 1845, have been translated and published by De Sacy, and we have a number of them in the original Arabic manuscripts in the Mission Library in Beirût. From a chapter in one of these, entitled "Methak en Nissa," or the "Engagements of Women," I have translated the following passages, to show the religious position of women, as bearing upon my object in describing the condition of Syrian females.

"Believers are both male and female. By instruction women pass from ignorance to knowledge, and become angels like the Five Ministers who bear the Throne: i.e., the Doctrine of the Unity. All male and female believers ought to be free from all impurity and disgrace and dishonor. Believing women should shun lying (to the brethren) and infidelity and concupiscence, and the appearance of evil, and show the excellency of their work above all Trinitarian women, avoiding all suspicion and taint which might bring ill upon their brethren, and avoiding giving attention to what is contrary to the Divine Unity.

"We have written this epistle to be read to all believing women who hold to the Unity of Hakem, who knows His Eternity and obey their husbands. But let no Dai or Mazûn read it to a woman until he is well assured of her faith and her religion, and she shall have made a written profession of her faith. He shall not read it to one woman alone, nor in a house where there is but one woman, even though he be worthy of all confidence, lest suspicion be awakened and the tongue of slander be loosed. Let there be assembled together at least three women, and let them sit behind a curtain or screen, so as not to be seen. Each woman must be accompanied by her husband, or her father, or brother or son, if he be a Unitarian. The Dai in reading must keep his eyes fixed on his book, neither turning towards the place where the women are, nor casting a glance towards it, nor listening to them. The woman, moreover, must not speak a word during the reading, and whether she is affected by a transport of joy, or moved by an impression of respect and fear, she must carefully abstain from showing her feelings either by smiles or tears. For the smiles, the tears, and the words of a woman may excite man's passions. Let her give her whole attention to the reading, receive it in her heart, and apply all the faculties of her mind to understand its meaning, in order clearly to conceive the true signification of what she is listening to. If she finds any passage obscure, let her ask the Dai, (the preacher,) and he shall answer, if he can, and if not, promise to ask those who are more learned, and when he has obtained the solution he must inform her, if she be deemed worthy.

"The highest duty of Unitarian women is to know our Moulah Hakem and the Kaim Hamzé. If they follow Him, let them know that He has released them entirely from the observance of the Seven Arbitrary Pillars of the Law (of Islam) which are (1) Prayer, (2) Fasting, (3) Pilgrimage, (4) Asserting, There is no God but God and Mohammed is the Prophet of God, (5) Giving tithes, (6) War on infidels, (7) Submission to authority. But on the other hand, all believing women must perform the Seven Religious Duties: The First and greatest is Truth in your words: (i.e. to the brethren and sisters); the Second is, To watch reciprocally over the safety of the brethren; the Third is, to renounce wholly and entirely whatever religion you may have previously professed; the Fourth is, To keep yourselves apart, clear and distinct from all who are in error; the Fifth is, To recognize the existence of the Unity of our Lord in all ages, times and epochs; the Sixth is, To be satisfied with His will and His works, whatever they may be; The Seventh is, To abandon and resign yourselves to all His orders whether in prosperity or adversity. You must keep these Seven Commandments, and keep them strictly secret from all who are of a different religion. If the Druze women do all this and fulfil their duties, they are indeed among the good, and shall have their reward among the 159 Angels of the Presence and among the Prophets who were Apostles, and be saved from the snare of the accursed Iblîs (Diabolus). Praise then to our Lord Hakim, the praise of the thankful! He is my hope and victory!"

What can you expect of the women, if the teachers are thus warped with hypocrisy and falsehood. They receive you politely. Dr. De Forest used to say, that there is not a boor in the Druze nation. But their very politeness confounds you. The old Druze women are masters of a pious religious phraseology. "We are all sinners." "The Lord's will be done." "Praise to His name." "He only can command." "The Lord be merciful to us." "He orders all things," and yet they will lie and deceive, and if not of the initiated class, they will swear in the most fearful manner. The Okkal cannot swear, smoke or drink, but they tell a story of a village where the people were all Okkal, and things having reached a high pitch of excitement, they sent for a body of Jehal or the non-initiated to come over and swear on the subject, that their pure minds might be relieved! When they talk in the most affectingly pious manner, and really surpass you in religious sentiment, you hardly know what to do. Tell them God knows the heart. They reply, "He alone is the All-knowing, the Searcher of the hearts of men." You shrink from telling them in plain language that they are hypocrites and liars. You can tell them of the personal love of a personal Saviour, and this simple story will affect and has affected the minds of some of them more than all logic and eloquent refutation of their foggy and mysterious doctrinal system.

They respect us and treat us politely for political reasons. During the massacres of 1860, I rode from Abeih to Beirût in the midst of burning villages, and armed bodies of Druzes passed us shouting the war song "Ma hala ya ma hala kotal en Nosara," "How sweet, oh how sweet, to kill the Christians," and yet as they passed us they stopped and most politely paid their salams, saying, "Naharkum Saieed," "May your day be blessed," "Allah yahtikum el afiyeh," "God give you health!"

When a Druze Sheikh wishes to marry, he asks consent of the father without having seen the daughter. If the father consents, he informs her, and if she consents, the suitor sends his affianced presents of clothes and jewelry, which remain in her hands as a pledge of his fidelity. She is pictured to him as the paragon of beauty and excellence, but he is never allowed to see her, speak to her, or write to her, should she know how to write. His mother or aunt may see her or bring reports, but he does not see her until the wedding contract is signed and the bride is brought to his house.

The following is the marriage ceremony of the Druzes. It is read by the Kadi or Sheikh, and in accordance to the Druze doctrine that they must outwardly conform to the religion of the governing power, it is a purely Mohammedan ordinance.

"Praise to God, the original Creator of all things; the Gracious in all His gifts and prohibitions; who has decreed and fixed the ordinance of marriage; may Allah pray for (bless) our Prophet Mohammed, and his four successors! Now after this, we say that marriage is one of the laws given by the prophets, and one of the statutes of the pious to guard against vice; a gift from the Lord of the earth and the heaven. Praise to Him who by it has brought the far ones near, and made the foreigner a relative and friend! We are assembled here to attend to a matter decreed and fated of Allah, and whose beginning, middle and end he has connected with the most happy and auspicious circumstances. This matter is the blessed covenant of marriage. Inshullah, may it be completed and perfected, and praise to Allah, the Great Completer! Amen!

"In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate. He is my portion and sufficiency. May Allah pray for his pure prophet!"

This is the marriage contract between the person named A. son of —— of the village of —— in the district of —— in Lebanon, and his betrothed named B. the daughter of —— of the village of —— she being a maiden of full and marriageable age, with no legal obstacles to her marriage. (May Allah protect her veil, and have mercy on her relatives and friends!)

In view of the mercies of Allah and his prophet Mohammed, they pay fifty piastres ($2.00) of full and lawful number, weight and measure, of the Imperial mint of our Moulah the Sultan, (may the exalted and merciful One give him the victory!) and of new white silver. The agent of the husband is —— and of the wife is ——.

It is the absolute and bounden duty of the husband to provide clothing for the body of his wife and a crown for her head, and of the wife to give him his due honor and rights and do his work, and Allah will be with those who fear Him, and not suffer those who do well to lose their reward.

	SignedSheikh——(seal)
	seal
Witnesses	seal
	seal

A whole week is given up to festivity before her arrival, and the retinue of the bride mounted on fine horses escort her amid the firing of musketry, the zilagheet shrieks of the women, and general rejoicing, to the bridegroom's house. Col. Churchill describes what follows: "The bride meantime, after having received the caresses and congratulations of her near relatives, is conducted to a chamber apart and placed on a divan, with a large tray of sweetmeats and confectionery before her, after which all the females withdraw and she is left alone, with a massive veil of muslin and gold thrown over her head and covering her face, breasts and shoulders down to the waist. What thoughts and sensations must crowd upon the maiden's mind in this solitude! not to be disturbed but by him who will shortly come to receive in that room his first impressions of her charms and attractions! Presently she hears footsteps at the door; it opens quietly; silently and unattended her lover approaches her, lifts the veil off her face, takes one glance, replaces it and withdraws."

He then returns to the grand reception-room, takes his seat at the head of the divan amid the throng of Sheikhs and other invited guests. He maintains an imperturbable silence, his mind being supposed to be absorbed by one engrossing object. It may be delight. It may be bitter disappointment. It is generally past midnight when the party breaks up and the family retires.

A plurality of wives is absolutely forbidden. If a Druze wishes to divorce his wife, he has merely to say, "You had better go back to your father," or she, the woman, wishes to leave her husband, she says, "I wish to go back to my father," and if her husband says, "Very well, go," the divorce in either case holds good, and the separation is irrevocable. Both parties are free to re-marry. Childlessness is a common cause of divorce.

The birth of a son is the occasion of great rejoicing and presents to the family. But the birth of a daughter is considered a misfortune, and of course not the slightest notice is taken of so inauspicious an event. This holds true among all the sects and peoples of Syria, and nothing but a Christian training and the inculcation of the pure principles of gospel morality can remove this deeply seated prejudice. The people say the reason of their dislike of daughters is that while a son builds up the house, and brings in a wife from without and perpetuates the family name, the daughter pulls down the house, loses her name, and is lost to the family.

The wealthier and more aristocratic Druze sitts or ladies are taught to read by the Fakih or teacher, but the masses of the women are in brutish ignorance. You enter a Druze house. The woman waits upon you and brings coffee, but you see only one eye, the rest of the head and face being closely veiled. In an aristocratic house, you would never be allowed to see the lady, and if she goes abroad, it is only at night, and with attendants on every side to keep off the profane gaze of strangers. If a physician is called to attend a sick Druze woman, he cannot see her face nor her tongue, unless she choose to thrust it through a hole in her veil. In many cases they suffer a woman to die sooner than have her face seen by a physician.

The Druzes marry but one wife at a time, and yet divorce is so common and so heartlessly practiced by the men, that the poor women live in constant fear of being driven from their homes.

In Abeih, we were startled one evening by the cry "Rouse ye men of self respect! Come and help us!" It was a dark, rainy night, and the earthen roof of a Druze house had fallen in, burying a young man, his wife and his mother, under the mass of earth, stones and timber. They all escaped death, but were seriously injured, the poor young wife suffering the most of all, having fallen with her left arm in a bed of burning coals, and having been compelled to lie there half an hour, so that when dug out, her hand was burned to a cinder! For several days the husband refused to send for a doctor, but at length his wife Hala was sent to the College Hospital (of the Prussian Knights of St. John) in Beirût where Dr. Post amputated the hand below the elbow.

One would naturally suppose that such a calamity, in which both so narrowly escaped death, would bind husband and wife together in the strongest bonds of affection and sympathy. But not so in this case. The poor young wife is now threatened with divorce, because she is no longer of any use to her husband, and her two little children are to be taken from her! She lies on her bed in the Hospital, the very picture of stoical resignation. Not a groan or complaint escapes her.

She said one day, "Oh how glad I am that this happened, for it has taken away all my sins, and I shall never have to suffer again in this world or the next!" This is the doctrine of the Druzes, and, cold and false as it is, she has made it her support and her stay.

Dr. Post and Mrs. Bliss have pointed her to the Lamb of God "who bore our sins in His own body on the tree," and she seems interested to hear and learn more.

Her younger sister is in the Beirût Seminary. May this poor sufferer find peace where alone it can be found, in trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ, whose blood cleanseth from all sin!

The cruelty of her husband, sanctioned as it is by the religious code of the Druzes, may be the means of opening her eyes to the falsity of that heartless Christless system, and lead her to the foot of the Cross!

Christians, who read these lines, pray for Hala of Abeih!

SITT ABLA.

for whom I have suffered the loss of all things