WOMEN IN THE SUDAN.

Wanganui Chronicle, Issue 12856, 1 November 1912, Page 5

WOMEN IN THE SUDAN.

TREATMENT OF WOMEN BY MO"

LEMS

(Dr. Karl Kumm, F.R.G.S.)

Women amongst the pagans are moro or less free, or only treated badly, if they aro tho weaker; but as soon as tho men become Mohammedans, the women become slaves and worse than slaves. Under Islam, woman is a chattel in her husband's hands, whom he is authorized to punish for wrongdoing by beating, stoning or imprisonment until death. In case a woman is guilty of breaking the marriage, tic, -the Koran ■provides (p. 52): "If any of your women bo guilty . . . produce four witnesses from among you against them, and if they bear witness against them imprison them in separate apartments until death releases them." Tho punishment in tho early days of Mohammedanism was incarceration sintil death, but later on that cruel doom was mitigated, and married women were allowed to bo stoned. (Sale, p. 55.) Mohammedans aro also allowed and even commanded, to beat their wives. Honest women are beaten by men whenever the latter choose. "Remove them into separate apartments and chastise them" (p. SS), says the Koran. What a contrast to tho law of love and the law oi" Christ! As a result, wo have ; s;ccnes like- the following:— I A missionary in North Africa, in one : of tho inland Moho.mmedan towns, used' J ■to $ro up in tho evenings to the roof of her hon^o to enjoy the cool air. Night, by night there she heard curious cries and wailing from the next courtyard. Anxious to find out who was in ! trouble, one evening, when nobody was near, she stepped over the low parapet i wall, walked to the edge of the roof, and peered down into the next courtyard. What did she see? At the foot of the opposite wall she saw a hole about the size of the door of a dog's kennel, and by the side of this hole a woman, chainied hand and foot, fastened to the wall,, ! weeping. The missionary called out: I "Why are you weeping?" but the poor thing got frightened and hid away in tho hole. By dint of kind and sympathetic words the missionary coaxed her out again, and at last drew the following story from her :— ; " Many months ago I disobeyed my husband. He beat me frightfully. H© chained me to the wall. He has beaten mo every day since, and he has .said ho is going to beat me to death. That is why I am crying." ; There is no law in any Mohammedan ! country to protect this woman. The Koran itself gives its voice against her. I have sat at my window in tho native quarter of Alexandria, Egypt, watching the ATab life in, bh© lane* below. One of the woman had a little boy was very fond of making mud pies in front of the house. I saw her one afternoon step into the doorway and call the little fellow. "Come in darling; don't get your clothes so dirty. Come in, sweet one." No answer from the little four-year-old. Tho mother stepped into the road, looking about to set> that there were no metx near to see her. She laid kind, motherly hands on the child to take him into ! win house. "Come, little one. I will give you sweets; come!" Her husband was at that moment coining round the next corner, and stood still to see what would happen. What did happen was this: The child turned round on his mother, and, doubling up his little, dirty f?st, he beat her' right in tho face, and snarled, "Bint el fcelb!" (daughter of a dog!) tearing himself loose. The father stepped up. To do what? To give the little scoundrel a solid thrashing? Oh, no; to pat his brave little son on the back, smile upon him, and say: "Brave little boy! Thou magnificent little fellow!'" Proud of a son ; that could treat a mother thus. It makes one mad to see these things repeated again and again under one's very eyes. The restricted lives, the sufferings and ill-treatment of Moslem women are the fault of Mohamet's teaching; the fault of the faith of Islam, according to which there is no heaven for our mothers, no Paradise for old

women. . A missionery in Egypt, visiting the houso of' a rich Bey to preach the Gospel to the women, was reading to them out of the Scriptures, with quite a littio crowd seated around her. Suddenly tho chief wife stood up. "What is this to us?" she said; "we aro only women. Why do you not go to the men with this teaching, this religion and this Book ? There is no ganat vl fardous (Paradise) for us. Go to the men. Wo are like cattle; when we die, wo aro gone. Wo have no souls." Tho very idea that they are human beings seems driven out of them. Tho Pagan women of the Sudan are, in our generation, in tho dreadful danger of being handed over, as a whole, to Islam—to worse slavery than that land has ever known since the curse of Ham has rested on the children of Ham.