[Sidenote: The veil.] Nor is the veil, albeit under the circumstances a necessary precaution, less detrimental, though in a different way, to the interests of Moslem society. This strange custom owes its origin to the Prophet's jealous temperament. It is forbidden in the Koran for women to appear unveiled before any member of the other sex with the exception of certain near relatives of specified propinquity.[77] And this law, coupled with other restrictions of the kind, has led to the imposition of the _boorka_ or _purdah_ (the dress which conceals the person and the veil) and to the greater or less seclusion of the harem and zenana. [Sidenote: Society vitiated by the withdrawal of the female sex. Mohammedan society, thus truncated, incapable of progress. The defects of Mohammedan society.] This ordinance and the practices flowing from it must survive, more or less, so long as the Koran remains the rule of faith. It may appear at first sight a mere negative evil, a social custom comparatively harmless; but in truth it has a more debilitating effect upon the Moslem race perhaps than any thing else, for by it _woman is totally withdrawn from her proper place in the social circle_. She may, indeed, in the comparatively laxer license of some lands be seen flitting along the streets or driving in her carriage; but even so it is like one belonging to another world, veiled, shrouded, and cut off from intercourse with those around her. Free only in the retirement of her own secluded apartments, she is altogether shut out from her legitimate sphere in the duties and enjoyments of life. But the blight on the sex itself from this unnatural regulation, sad as it is, must be regarded as a minor evil. The mischief extends beyond her. The tone and framework of society as it came from the Maker's hands are altered, damaged, and deteriorated. From the veil there flows this double injury. The bright, refining, softening influence of woman is withdrawn from the outer world, and social life, wanting the gracious influences of the female sex, becomes, as we see throughout Moslem lands, forced, hard, unnatural, and morose. Moreover, the Mohammedan nations, for all purposes of common elevation and for all efforts of philanthropy and liberty, are (as they live in public and beyond the inner recesses of their homes) but a truncated and imperfect exhibition of humanity. They are wanting in one of its constituent parts, the better half, the humanizing and the softening element. And it would be against the nature of things to suppose that the body, thus shorn and mutilated, can possess in itself the virtue and power of progress, reform, and elevation. The link connecting the family with social and public life is detached, and so neither is _en rapport_, as it should be, with the other. Reforms fail to find entrance into the family or to penetrate the domestic soil where alone they could take root, grow into the national mind, live, and be perpetuated.