One Thousand and One Nights

by Richard Burton

  Next to the service of the husband or master, the care of her children, and attending to other indispensable domestic duties, the most important occupation of the wife is that of spinning or weaving or needle-work. “Sitting for an hour employed with the distaff is better for women,” said the Prophet, “than a year’s worship; and for every piece of cloth woven of the thread spun by them they shall receive the reward of a martyr.” — ´Áisheh, the Prophet’s wife, thus declared the merit of spinning:— “Tell the women what I say: There is no woman who spins until she hath clothed herself but all the angels in the Seven Heavens pray for forgiveness of her sins; and she will go forth from her grave on the day of judgment wearing a robe of Paradise and with a veil upon her head, and before her shall be an angel and on her right an angel who will hand her a draught of the water of Selsebeel, the fountain of Paradise; and another angel will come to her, and carry her upon his wings, and bear her to Paradise. And when she enters Paradise, eighty thousand maidens will meet her, each maiden bringing a different robe; and she will have mansions of emeralds with three hundred doors, at each of which will stand an angel with a present from the Lord of the Throne.”[] — The arts above mentioned are pursued by the females in the ḥareems of the middle and higher classes. Their leisure-hours are mostly spent in working with the needle; particularly in embroidering handkerchiefs, head-veils, etc., upon a frame called mensej, with coloured silks and gold. Many women, even in the houses of the wealthy, replenish their private purses by ornamenting handkerchiefs and other things in this manner, and employing a delláleh (or female broker) to take them to the market, or to other ḥareems, for sale.[]

  The separation of the sexes undoubtedly promotes the free intercourse of people of the same sex and of different ranks, who thus are able to associate together, regardless of difference of wealth or station, without the risk of occasioning unequal matrimonial connections. This separation is therefore felt by neither sex as oppressive, but is regarded by them as productive of results which constitute the Muslim’s chief enjoyments, — the highest degree of domestic comfort, and the most free and extensive society of his fellow men. Thus it is with both sexes; and neither would give up the pleasure that they hence derive for a different system of society, somewhat extending their domestic intercourse, but often destroying the pleasures of home, and contracting into a compass comparatively narrow the fellowship which they enjoyed abroad.

  I must now remark upon some other effects of the same system. First, the restriction of intercourse between the sexes before marriage renders indispensable, to some, the facility of divorce; for it would be unjust for a man who finds himself disappointed in his expectations of a wife, whom he has never before seen, not to be enabled to put her away. Secondly, it sometimes renders indispensable the licence of polygamy; for a man who finds his first wife unsuited to him may not be able to divorce her without reducing her to want; and the licence of polygamy becomes as necessary in this case as that of divorce in another. Thirdly, the liberty of polygamy renders the facility of divorce more desirable for the happiness of women; since, when a man has two or more wives, and one of them is dissatisfied with her situation, he is enabled to liberate her. Fourthly, the licence of divorce often acts as a check upon that of polygamy; for the fear of being obliged, by the influence of his first wife, or by that of her relations, to divorce her if he take a second, often prevents a man from doing this. Thus both these licences are required by the most important principle of the constitution of Muslim society, and each is productive of some moral benefit. In considering the question of their expediency, we should also remember that barrenness is much more common in hot climates than in those which are temperate.

  The Christian scheme is plainly opposed to polygamy; but as to divorce, some have contended that it only forbids putting away a wife against her will, unless for one cause.[] Christians are often most unjust in their condemnation of Muslim laws and tenets, and especially condemn those which agree with the Mosaic code and the practices of holy men; such as polygamy (which Moḥammad limited), divorce, war for the defence of religion, purifications, and even minor matters.[] Moḥammad endeavoured to remove one of the chief causes of polygamy and divorce, by recommending that a man should see a woman whom he proposed to take as his wife.[] We might imagine that he could have made these practices less common than they now are, and always have been, among his followers, had he given more licence, allowing the man to enjoy a limited association with the object of his choice in the presence of her female or male relations (the former of whom might be veiled), without infringing further the general law of the separation of the sexes. But he saw that such liberty would very seldom, if ever, be allowed: scarcely any parents among the Arabs, except those of the lower classes, permit the little licence which he recommended. Instead of condemning him for allowing a plurality of wives, I think we should be more reasonable if we commended him for diminishing and restricting the number. I think, too, that as Moses allowed his people for the hardness of their hearts to put away their wives, and God denounced not polygamy when the patriarchs practised it, we should be more consistent as believers in the Scriptures if we admitted the permission of these practices to be more conducive to morality than their prohibition, among a people similar to the ancient Jews to whom Moses allowed such liberty. As to the privilege which Moḥammad assumed to himself, of having a greater number of wives than he allowed to others, I have elsewhere remarked,[] that, in doing so, he may have been actuated by the want of male offspring as much as impelled by voluptuousness.

  “On the subject of polygamy,” says a writer who has deeply studied Muslim institutions and their effects, “a European has all the advantage in discussion with a Turkish woman, because her feelings are decidedly on the side of her antagonists; but then she has a tremendous power of reply, in the comparison of the practical effects of the two systems, and in the widely spread rumours of the heartlessness and the profligacy of Europe. All the convictions of our habits and laws stand in hostile array against the country where the principle of polygamy is admitted into the laws of the state; but yet, while we reproach Islamism with polygamy, Islamism may reproach us with practical polygamy, which, unsanctioned by law and reproved by custom, adds degradation of the mind to dissoluteness of morals.”[]

  It should further be remarked that by sanctioning polygamy Moḥammad did not make the practice general: nay, he could not. It is a licence for the hard-hearted, which restrains them from worse conduct, and in some cases, as already shown, a resource for the tender-hearted. “The permission,” observes the author just cited, “does not alter the proportions of men and women. While, therefore, the law of nature renders this practice an impossibility as regards the community, it is here still further restrained among the few who have the means of indulging in it, both by the domestic unquiet that results from it, and by the public censure and reprobation of which it is the object.”

  I have remarked in a former work that polygamy “is more rare among the higher and middle classes [in Egypt, and I believe in other Arab countries] than it is among the lower orders; and it is not very common among the latter. A poor man may indulge himself with two or more wives, each of whom may be able, by some art or occupation, nearly to provide her own subsistence; but most persons of the higher and middle orders are deterred from doing so by the consideration of the expense and discomfort which they would incur. A man having a wife who has the misfortune to be barren, and being too much attached to her to divorce her, is sometimes induced to take a second wife, merely in the hope of obtaining offspring; and from the same motive he may take a third, and a fourth; but fickle passion is the most evident and common motive both to polygamy and to repeated divorces. They are comparatively few who gratify this passion by the former practice. I believe that not more than one husband among twenty has two wives.”[]

  I hope I have shown that though I consider polygamy as necessary in the constitution of Muslim society, to prevent a profligacy that
would be worse than that which prevails to so great a degree in European countries, where people are united in marriage after an intimate mutual acquaintance, I consider it as a necessary evil. When two or more wives of the same man live together, or when they visit each other, feelings of jealousy are generally felt and often manifested, and especially on the part of the wife or wives who cannot claim precedence by having been married before the other or others, or by reason of being more favoured by the husband.[] The wife first married usually enjoys the highest rank: therefore parents often object to giving a daughter in marriage to a man who has already another wife; and it frequently happens that the woman who is sought in marriage objects to such a union. The law provides in some measure against the discomforts arising from polygamy, by giving to each wife a claim to a distinct lodging, affording conveniences for sleeping, cooking, etc.; and further enjoins the husband to be strictly impartial to his wives in every respect. But fruitfulness and superior beauty are qualifications that often enable a second, third, or fourth wife to usurp the place of the first; though in many cases, as I have already remarked, the lasting favourite is not the most handsome.

  There are, however, many instances of sincere affection existing in the hearts of fellow-wives. The following story of two wives of the father of El-Jabartee, the modern Egyptian historian, related by himself, and of undoubted truth, is a pleasing example. — Speaking of the first of these two wives, the historian says, —

  “Among her acts of conjugal piety and submission was this, that she used to buy for her husband beautiful slave girls, with her own wealth, and deck them with ornaments and apparel, and so present them to him, confidently looking to the reward and recompense which she should receive [in Paradise] for such conduct. He took, in addition to her, many other wives from among free women, and bought female slaves; but she did not in consequence conceive any of that jealousy which commonly affects women. Among other strange events which happened was the following. When the subject of this memoir [the author’s father] performed the pilgrimage in the year 1156 [A.D. 1743-44], he became acquainted at Mekkeh with the sheykh ´Omar El-Ḥalabee who commissioned him to purchase for him a white female slave, having such and such qualifications. So when he returned from the pilgrimage, he searched for female slaves among the slave-dealers, to choose from them such a one as was wanted, and ceased not until he found the object of his desire, and bought her. He brought her to his wife, to remain with her until he should send her with a person to whom he was commissioned to entrust her for the journey; and when the period at which she was to depart arrived, he informed his wife of it, that she might prepare the provisions for the way, and other necessaries. But she said to him, ‘I have conceived a great love for this maid, and I cannot endure separation from her: I have no children, and I have taken her as a daughter.’ The girl Zeleekhá also wept, and said, ‘I will not part from my mistress, nor ever leave her.’ ‘Then what is to be done?’ he asked. She answered, ‘I will pay her price from my own property, and do thou buy another.’ He did so. She then emancipated the girl, gave her to him by a marriage-contract, prepared her paraphernalia, and furnished for her a separate apartment; and he took her as his wife in the year 1165. The former wife could not bear to be separated from her even for an hour, although she had become her fellow-wife, and borne him children. In the year 1182, the [emancipated] slave fell sick, and she [the first wife] fell sick on account of her [friend’s] sickness. The illness increased upon both of them; and in the morning the slave arose, and looked at her mistress when she seemed about to die, and wept, and said, ‘O my God and my Lord, if Thou hast decreed the death of my mistress, make my day to be before her day.’ Then she lay down, and her disease increased, and she died the next night; and they wrapped her up by the side of her mistress. And her mistress awoke at the close of the night, and felt her with her hand, and began to say, ‘Zeleekhá! Zeleekhá!’ They said to her, ‘She is asleep.’ But she replied, ‘My heart telleth me that she is dead: and I saw in my sleep what indicated this event.’ They then said to her, ‘May thy life be prolonged!’[] And when she had thus ascertained the event, she raised herself, and sat up, and said, ‘No life remaineth to me after her.’ And she wept and wailed until the day appeared, when they began to prepare for the speedy burial of the slave; and they washed the corpse before her, and carried it to the grave. Then she returned to her bed, and fell into the agonies of death, and died at the close of the day; and on the following day they carried her corpse to the grave in like manner.”[]

  CHAPTER X.

  SLAVERY.

  A slave, among Muslims, is either a person taken captive in war, or carried off by force, and being at the time of capture an infidel; or the offspring of a female slave by another slave or by any man who is not her owner, or by her owner if he does not acknowledge himself to be the father: but the offspring of a male slave by a free woman is free. A person who embraces the Mohammadan faith after having been made a slave does not by this act become free, unless he flies from a foreign infidel master to a Muslim country and there becomes a Mohammadan. A person cannot have as a slave one whom he acknowledges to be within the prohibited degrees of marriage. The slaves of the Arabs are mostly from Abyssinia and the Negro countries: a few, in the houses of very wealthy individuals, are from Georgia and Circassia.

  Slaves have no civil liberty, but are entirely under the authority of their owners, whatever may be the religion, sex, or age, of the latter; and can possess no property, unless by the owner’s permission. The owner is entire master, while he pleases, of the person and goods of his slave, and of the offspring of his female slave, which, if his, or presumed to be his, he may recognize as his own legitimate child, or not: the child, if recognized by him, enjoys the same privileges as the offspring of a free wife; and if not recognized by him, is his slave. The master may even kill his own slave with impunity for any offence; and he incurs but a slight punishment (as imprisonment for a period at the discretion of the judge) if he kills him wantonly. He may give away or sell his slaves, excepting in some cases which will be mentioned; and may marry them to whom he will, but not separate them when married. A slave, however, according to most of the doctors, cannot have more than two wives at the same time.

  Unemancipated slaves, at the death of their master, become the property of his heirs; and when an emancipated slave dies, leaving no male descendants or collateral relations, the master is the heir; or, if the master be dead, his heirs inherit the slave’s property. As a slave enjoys less advantages than a free person, the law in some cases ordains that his punishment for an offence shall be half of that to which the free is liable for the same offence, or even less than half: if it be a fine or pecuniary compensation, it must be paid by the owner to the amount, if necessary, of the value of the slave, or the slave must be given in compensation.

  When a man, from being the husband, becomes the master, of a slave, the marriage is dissolved, and he cannot continue to live with her but as her master, enjoying, however, all a master’s privileges, unless he emancipates her, in which case he may again take her as his wife with her consent. In like manner, when a woman, from being the wife, becomes the possessor, of a slave, the marriage is dissolved, and cannot be renewed unless she emancipates him, and he consents to the re-union.

  Complete and immediate emancipation is sometimes granted to a slave gratuitously, or for a future pecuniary compensation. It is conferred by means of a written document, or by a verbal declaration (expressed in the words, “Thou art free,” or some similar phrase) in the presence of two witnesses, or by returning the certificate of sale obtained from the former owner. Future emancipation is sometimes covenanted to be granted on the fulfilment of certain conditions, and more frequently to be conferred on the occasion of the owner’s death. In the latter case the owner cannot sell the slave to whom he has made this promise: and, as he cannot alienate by will more than one-third of the whole property that he leaves, the law ordains that if the value of the said
slave exceeds that portion, the slave must obtain and pay the additional sum. When a female slave has borne a child to her master, and he acknowledges the child to be his own, he cannot sell this slave, and she becomes free on his death.

  Abyssinian and white female slaves are kept by many men of the middle and higher classes, and often instead of wives, as requiring less expense and being more subservient; but they are generally indulged with the same luxuries as free ladies, their vanity is gratified by costly dresses and ornaments, and they rank high above free servants; as do also the male slaves. Those called Abyssinians appear to be a mixed race between negroes and whites, and are from the territories of the Gallas. They are mostly kidnapped and sold by their own countrymen. The negro female slaves, as few of them have considerable personal attractions (which is not the case with the Abyssinians, many of whom are very beautiful), are usually employed only in cooking and other menial offices. The female slaves of the higher classes are often instructed in plain needlework and embroidery, and sometimes in music and dancing. Formerly many of them possessed sufficient literary accomplishments to quote largely from esteemed poems, or even to compose extemporary verses, which they would often accompany with the lute.