DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.11448#0096
63
THE CRESCENT AND THE CROSS. [chap, xi
but they are permitted to do so. They are not enjoined to pray ;
but the Prophet seemed to think it could do them no harm, pro-
vided they prayed in their own houses and not in the mosques,
where they might interfere with, or share, the devotion of those
Who had real business there.
As may be supposed, there being some difficulty on the sub-
ject, woman's faith burns high at the prospect of a pilgrimage to
Mecca ; and numbers, accordingly, of those doubtful immortali-
ties join themselves to each caravan that issues from the gates of
Cairo. The privations they undergo, and the hardships they
surmount are incredible ; yet the mortality among them is not
so great as that of the men in proportion to their numbers.
When arrived at Mecca, a new difficulty arises: the most im-
portant part of the pilgrimage is performed on the summit of
Mount Arafat, about twenty miles from Mecca, whereon Abra-
ham is said to have brought Isaac to the sacrifice. No woman
is allowed to approach this most holy spot without her husband ;
and as many of them are not possessed of these appendages, they
are obliged to borrow or to hire such for the occasion, faithfully
repaying to the accommodating man the loan of his liberty on
their return from the mountain, by a divorce at Mecca.
After all that has been asserted by philo-Moslemites on the
subject, I am convinced that Moslem women have no chance of
the Moslem man's heaven worth talking of, except in one case,
and this exception proves the rule. If a Mahometan in paradise
should feel that his wife's company was essential to his happiness
she would be re-created for him there: thus Mahomet confers
upon his follower that divinest privilege, which, in another sense,
the Queen of Navarre declared was the poet's also—that of con-
ferring immortality on her he loves !
In fine, women receive no religious education; they seldom,
if ever, pray; and their heaven, if they have one, is some
second-hand sort of paradise, very different from that of their
husbands—unless, as I have observed, " by particular desire.'
Is not this in itself a sufficient commentary on the position
which she occupies in the Moslem world 1 And what must be
the blindness, the selfishness, and the bigotry of a mind, that can
lend itself to such a doctrine ? While the stars in the brigh)
THE CRESCENT AND THE CROSS. [chap, xi
but they are permitted to do so. They are not enjoined to pray ;
but the Prophet seemed to think it could do them no harm, pro-
vided they prayed in their own houses and not in the mosques,
where they might interfere with, or share, the devotion of those
Who had real business there.
As may be supposed, there being some difficulty on the sub-
ject, woman's faith burns high at the prospect of a pilgrimage to
Mecca ; and numbers, accordingly, of those doubtful immortali-
ties join themselves to each caravan that issues from the gates of
Cairo. The privations they undergo, and the hardships they
surmount are incredible ; yet the mortality among them is not
so great as that of the men in proportion to their numbers.
When arrived at Mecca, a new difficulty arises: the most im-
portant part of the pilgrimage is performed on the summit of
Mount Arafat, about twenty miles from Mecca, whereon Abra-
ham is said to have brought Isaac to the sacrifice. No woman
is allowed to approach this most holy spot without her husband ;
and as many of them are not possessed of these appendages, they
are obliged to borrow or to hire such for the occasion, faithfully
repaying to the accommodating man the loan of his liberty on
their return from the mountain, by a divorce at Mecca.
After all that has been asserted by philo-Moslemites on the
subject, I am convinced that Moslem women have no chance of
the Moslem man's heaven worth talking of, except in one case,
and this exception proves the rule. If a Mahometan in paradise
should feel that his wife's company was essential to his happiness
she would be re-created for him there: thus Mahomet confers
upon his follower that divinest privilege, which, in another sense,
the Queen of Navarre declared was the poet's also—that of con-
ferring immortality on her he loves !
In fine, women receive no religious education; they seldom,
if ever, pray; and their heaven, if they have one, is some
second-hand sort of paradise, very different from that of their
husbands—unless, as I have observed, " by particular desire.'
Is not this in itself a sufficient commentary on the position
which she occupies in the Moslem world 1 And what must be
the blindness, the selfishness, and the bigotry of a mind, that can
lend itself to such a doctrine ? While the stars in the brigh)