Our Moslem Sisters
A Cry of Need from Lands of Darkness
Interpreted by Those Who Heard It
EDITED BY
ANNIE VAN SOMMER
AND
SAMUEL M. ZWEMER
New York Chicago Toronto
Fleming H. Revell Company
London and Edinburgh
Copyright, 1907, by
FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY
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Chicago: 80 Wabash Avenue
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INTRODUCTION
This book with its sad, reiterated story of wrongand oppression is an indictment and an appeal. Itis an indictment of the system which producesresults so pitiful. It is an appeal to Christianwomanhood to right these wrongs and enlighten thisdarkness by sacrifice and service. At the recentMohammedan Educational Conference in Bombaythe president of the gathering, the Agha Khan, himselfa leading Moslem, spoke very trenchantly of thechief barriers to progress in the Moslem world.The first and greatest of these barriers in his opinionwas "the seclusion of women which results in keepinghalf the community in ignorance and degradationand this hinders the progress of the whole."Surely the ignorance and degradation of one-halfof a community which has a world population of233 millions is a question that concerns all wholove humanity.
The origin of the veil of Islam was, as is wellknown, one of the marriage affairs of Mohammedhimself, with its appropriate revelation from Allah.In the twenty-fourth Surah of the Koran womenare forbidden to appear unveiled before any memberof the other sex, with the exception of near relatives.[Pg 6]And so by one verse the bright, refining, elevatinginfluence of women was forever withdrawn fromMoslem society. The evils of the zenana, theseraglio, the harem, or by whatever name it is called,are writ large over all the social life of the Moslemworld. Keene says it "lies at the root of all themost important features that differentiate progressfrom stagnation."
In Arabia before the advent of Islam it was customaryto bury female infants alive. Mohammedimproved on the barbaric method and discovered away by which all females could be buried alive andyet live on—namely, the veil. How they live on,this book tells! Its chapters are not cunningly devisedfables nor stories told for the story's sake.Men and women who have given of their strengthand service, their love and their life to amelioratethe lives of Moslem women and carry the torchof Truth into these lands of darkness write simplythe