WOMEN OF TURKEY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19220, 8 January 1926, Page 12

WOMEN OF TURKEY.

PREACHING IN MOSQUES. THE LAND OF SURPRISES. The new Turkey presents an almost ceaseless stream of picturesquo surprised; writes the* diplomatic correspondent of fLondon paper. The Constantinople branch of the Turkish Women's Union recently addressed to the representative of the Director for Religious Institutions in th* vilayet a request that members of thj union be permitted to preach what they described as " civic sermons V in the locai mosques. The official in question invited the ladies to explain the exact charactet of their proposed addresses, pointing that mosques could not be used for purelj secular addresses, while the Grand Mufti of Constantinople was the proper authority to approach in the matter of religious addresses. Whereupon the lady president of the association, in question replied in the following terras:—

" My sisters are anxious to follow the Government . in its secularist path. Preaching does not consist merely in the exposition of things known to everyone. We all know how to carry out ceremonial washing and to fast. Bui our object is other than this. It is to extirpate from the minds of our sisters the prejudices with which they were formerly inoculated by ignorant Ho'dfas. . . . We are told that there exists no tradition in support of our claim. Well, then, we mean to create this secularist tradition for the benefit of the people."