Part 2

We turn the pages of the Koran with eager hope that we may find in the writings of this man some teaching that shall lead to the uplifting of woman. The most hopeful word the Koran has for woman is in the second chapter: “Whoso doeth good works and is a believer, whether male or female, shall be admitted to Paradise.” The practical exegesis of a woman’s “good works” is, obedience to the husband. Without that good work she can not enter Paradise. Again in the fourth chapter, entitled “Women,” we read, “Men shall have pre-eminence above women, because of those advantages wherein God hath caused the one to excel the other, and for that which they expend of their _substance in maintaining their wives_. The honest women are obedient, careful in the absence of their husbands, for that God preserveth them by _committing them to the care and protection of the men_. But those, whose perverseness ye shall be apprehensive of, rebuke and remove them into separate apartments and chastise them.” The degraded and degrading practice of scourging and beating wives, having the sanction of the Koran, will be, in the words of Dr. Jessup, “indulged in so long as Islam as a faith prevails.”

[Sidenote: Polygamy.]

Note the polygamous teaching of the Koran. “Every Moslem is allowed four free wives and as many concubines as his right hand possess;” and the faithful are positively promised that in Paradise they shall have seventy-two houris for wives, besides the wives they have here.

[Sidenote: Divorce.]

According to the Koran, the husband may divorce a wife without warning or assigning a reason. The husband has only to say, “Thou art divorced.” Even life may be taken at the will of the husband. Woman is practically a chattel. A Mohammedan being asked, “What is the price you pay for a good wife,” replied; “About the same as for a mule, twelve or fourteen pounds.”

[Sidenote: Estimate.]

A polite Mohammedan would not speak of his wife without using the same apologetic formula he would use if he were speaking of a donkey or a hog. Indeed so degrading is the orthodox Mohammedan’s idea of womanhood, we cannot mention it here. The Koran says nothing about a woman’s praying, therefore she is excluded from the Mosques at the hours of prayer. Behold a religion that practically excludes one-half the human race! It was not until Mohammed was fifty-eight years of age, and the husband of many wives, and had under his own roof experienced what the Moslem women of to-day declare, when there is more than one wife “there is fire in the house,” that he wrote in the Koran the “ordinance of veil,” that badge of jealous subjugation, which marks an era in the degradation of women in all the Orient. The regulation costume shrouds the women from the head to the ankle in a cotton or silk sheet of black or white. Around the head is tied a yard long linen or cotton veil in which before the eyes is a piece of open work about the size of a finger which is the only look out and ventilator. No part, not even a hand or an eye, can be seen.

See the picture; with fearful foot-steps, with no hope in man, with little knowledge of the “All Father,” no knowledge of Him who said, “Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden,” for twelve cycling centuries, an unceasing ghostly procession has marched from birth to death.

Theckla, a Christian martyr of the first century, standing in the arena at Antioch, bemoans in her prayer the shame of all women in her unclothing. The clothing of woman in the veil of the false prophet is a shame to all womanhood. “The whole life of a Mohammedan woman is mirrored in that pathetic Arabic proverb ‘The threshold weeps for forty days whenever a girl is born.’” The spider’s web which once saved the life of Mohammed has, as by the hand of a Vulcan, been forged into a chain which in this nineteenth century in the name of religion dares hold woman, and through her, 200,000,000 of mankind in a singularly hopeless degradation.

[Sidenote: Persia.]

The sacred books of Zoroaster give women a higher place than any other Ethnic religion. Women are given the same religious rites as men, yet even here “woman’s first duty is obedience to her husband, and disobedience is a crime so heinous as to receive punishment after death.”[14]

[14] The Vendidas.

On the death of a chief in Central Africa hundreds of his wives are buried alive,[15] a sacrifice for his convenience in the spirit land.

[15] Cameron.

Miss Mary C. Collins, who has lived many years among the North American Indians, says, “The Indian is a religious man, and it is his religion that makes him cruel.”

The story becomes monotonous. All non-Christian religions degrade women, and as woman is, so is all society.

To-day the all-sufficient Christian evidence, is the immeasurable contrast between heathen and Christian society.

“THE WORKS THAT I DO BEAR WITNESS OF ME, THAT THE FATHER HATH SENT ME.”――_John 5:36._

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Transcriber’s Notes:

――Text in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_).

――Punctuation and spelling inaccuracies were silently corrected.

――Archaic and variable spelling has been preserved.