The Harim and the Purdah: Studies of Oriental WomenCooper, Elizabeth
Religion
The Harim and the Purdah: Studies of Oriental Women
Cooper, Elizabeth
East Asia -- Social life and customs; Women -- East Asia
These Arabs of the desert are proud with a pride we do not understand.
They are proud of their long lineage, of the purity of their blood, of
their unbroken traditions. They are an impulsive, restless people, who,
with their emotional temperament, give impetuosity to everything which
they touch. They are the real adventurers of the world, and their
nervous, high-strung, daring characteristics have become so absorbed
into their very being as to have become permanent marks of their race.
At the seat of all troubles, in countries where the Bedouins are strong,
one finds them ready to do and dare anything that appeals to their
imagination. At the rising of a Mahdi, it is the Arab of the desert who
is his strongest support, who will die for him, who will sweep down like
a holocaust upon the people who do not share with him his beliefs in the
cause, for which he throws his life away with a bravado that makes men
of a more sluggish blood gasp in astonishment. This cause must appeal to
his emotions—those same riotous emotions which never produce, but always
ruin. We are told that the Bedouin is the author of complete desolation,
and that destruction follows in his pathway; that his effects are always
sinister, and that this race brings ruin to any land where they have
been permitted to have full sway. We know he is not a creature of habit,
and that routine, a settled existence, a fixed round of duties, are
things which he does not understand nor practise. He does not reason and
is not practical, yet it is the Arab that has succeeded in sending the
faith of El Islam around the world, and every movement of revival comes
directly from the desert.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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