In the Land of Mosques & Minarets. Mansfield Milburg Francisco

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СКАЧАТЬ O Mohammed, Prophet of God. Ruler of Mecca and Medina and Lord of all Mussulmans now and always.”

      This finishes the service of the mosque.

      From the opaque obscurity of the maze of the mosque’s interior one comes suddenly again into the light of day. To a burning African landscape from the humidity of a cloister.

      Woman’s position in Islam is peculiar. It is not according to our notions of what is right and proper, and there is no looked-for or hoped-for emancipation to be thought of. The question is both a social and a religious one. Those few Europeans who have really studied the harem as an institution have found, however, that its establishment and continuance is a plan that works well, and that the majority of these supposedly unhappy wives really love their husbands, and their destiny. If this is so, what business is it of ours to criticize the conduct of the ménage of the Arab or the Turk. The Prophet himself said that woman was the jewel and the perfume of this world.

      Theoretically the Mussulman idea is that man is the superior creature physically, and that it is his business alone to mingle and rub shoulders with the world, leaving his wives, members of the fragile sex, to raise his family, embellish his life and console him in time of grief. All other things apart, surely these are good enough principles for anybody to found domestic bliss upon. And these are the principal tenets of the domestic creed of the Moslem. He is often not the villain he is painted. To continue the words of the Prophet – Mohammed said one day to his companions: “Would you know the most valuable possession of man? It is, then, an honest woman. She charms the eye, and is obedient, and guards his reputation intact during his absence from home.” Really the Islamic faith goes a bit farther, for it counsels man to “cloister his wife as a prevention of jealousy and doubt, the mortal poisons, the terrible unpitying destroyers of conjugal quietude.” This, too, seems good advice, like many other of the precepts of the Koran.

      Many of these Arab women were born within the harem’s walls, and know not any other modes of life as preferable to their own. They regard the daily round of liberty of the European woman as an unreal, undesirable state. The harem has been the theatre of their joys since infancy, and they have become so habituated to it that their life of seclusion becomes a second nature. They would not flee the sill of the great doorway into the outer world if they could, and their only change of locale is to pass from the harem of the husband of their mother to that of their spouse. In the harem the Arab woman is cared for with an unthought-of luxury. All the goods and chattels that their husband values most go to enrich the harem walls and floors. The harem is a sumptuous, glorious apartment compared to the simplicity with which the master of the house surrounds himself in his own quarters.

      It is the opinion of that indefatigable traveller and student of exotic things, Edmond de Amicis, that the Arab concedes nothing to the European in his chivalrous treatment of woman. “No Arab dares lift an offending hand against a woman in public.” “No Arab soldier, even in the tumult of attack, would think of maltreating even the most insolent of womenkind.” And yet Europeans of most nationalities have been known to do both these things.

      In her cloister, or to be more exact, in her boudoir, the Arab woman, and particularly the mother, receives the most respectful homage and solicitude from all the household. According to the Koran the children are admonished to respect the persons of those who bore them, and a verbal declaration of the Prophet is set down as: “A child may gain Paradise only by following in the footsteps of its mother.”

      The educated and advanced Arabs of the towns have done much to disabuse the public of any false preconceived ideas concerning Arab womenfolk. Contrary to common belief the Arab woman is often the intellectual and social equal of her spouse. It was only the absurd jealousy of the old-school Mussulmans that annihilated for ever the faculties of their wives.

      The portrait gallery of celebrated Mussulman women is not large, but one does not forget Zobeïdah, who inspired and aided the illustrious Haroun-Al-Rachid. Islam is not in its decadence, but its sponsors are awakening to the fact that they must keep abreast of the times.

      The Friday promenade of the Mussulman woman of the towns to the cemetery is her only outing, the only day off allowed her. She makes as much of it as possible, but it is a sad proceeding at best.

      The Arab tomb is, generally speaking, a thing of simplicity, a simple slab bearing the Arab words for the sentiment “Hic jacet.” The exception is in the marabout tombs or koubas, which are often monumental, though of comparatively small dimensions, well built, symmetrical, and surmounted by a dome or cupola.

      The word marabout signifies first of all a holy man of the Mohammedan sect, a réligieux in fact, one whose vows, life and service is devoted to his God. Furthermore the same word is applied to the tiny mosque-like tombs distributed throughout the Arab peopled lands, which are served by a marabout. The two entities have become somehow indistinguishable as to name.

      The mosque-marabout is practically a tiny house of worship, its four box-like walls surmounted by one great dome or others smaller, with never, never a minaret, the invariable adjunct of a full-grown mosque. The quaint, kindly welcome of the marabout of Algeria and Tunisia will long remain in the memory of those who have come under its influence, as did the author in the course of some months’ sojourn in a little desert oasis, peopled only by indigènes and the small garrison of a French military post. An excursion to visit the marabout in his humble dwelling, some kilometres away under another little clump of palm-trees, was an almost weekly occurrence. Conversation was difficult, but we all sat and looked at each other and made signs, and nodded, and clasped hands, and again nodded a farewell, the white-clad marabout’s kindly, bearded face lighting up meanwhile as if in appreciation of the glimmer of light from the outside world which had filtered through to his tranquil abode. Nothing ever more belied the words of a proverb than a marabout. The French have a remark in which he is made out an ugly, uncouth man: “Affreux comme un marabout.” The illustration herewith belies these words.

      If you are a clergyman of the Christian church, and there are many “conducted tourists” of that order in Algeria to-day, you need have no hesitancy in making your profession of faith known to the marabout. Say simply that you are a “marabout d’Aïssa.” He will recognize and respect your religion, which is more than the Confucian or Buddhist will, who simply rolls his tongue in his cheek and smiles blandly. The Mohammedan’s religion is a very plausible and a very well-working one. He has no false gods or idols. That’s a good thing of itself. And superstition plays a very small part therein. That’s another good thing. The marabout is not a Mussulman priest, but a member, merely, of a religious order, – a monk virtually, and, as there are communities of monkish orders elsewhere, there are also whole tribes in Africa composed entirely of marabouts. They are looked up to by the Mussulman faithful as shepherds of the flock in the absence of a specially credentialled priest or father.

      The marabouts are most numerous in Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia, though their vocation properly belongs to the entire Mussulman religion.

      A whole tribe of the sect of marabouts, under the pretext of wishing to be free to practise their rites away from worldly contaminating influences, voluntarily exiled themselves centuries ago in the Atlas range bordering the northern limits of the Sahara. This was in 1050. From this procedure these religionists grew to such power and influence that they became virtually political rulers as well. They conquered the kingdoms of Fez and Morocco, and even sought to conquer Spain, emigrating to the southern peninsula in vast numbers, only to be chased from there to seek a refuge in Majorca, which they were able to do because of the bounty of the Mussulman King of Cordova, to whom the suzerainty belonged. Here they were known under the name of Almoravides, and to them was due the invention of the Spanish money known as maravédis.

      The marabout is caricatured a little, too, in the name given to a fat-bellied copper coffee-pot frequently met with in the Mediterranean countries. Balzac describes the batterie СКАЧАТЬ