I Believed in Woman

From the depths of the depths of man, ever since man has been, this fevered prayer has gone forth:

"My Lord... I believed in You: You create the thing out of nothing, and You open in the veins of the dust a spirit of Your spirit and a breath of Your breaths, and behold, the dust is a pulse of Your pulses; behold, the dust is a complete man in Your image and Your likeness!...

My Lord!... There is a thirst in me, and You have quenched me with Your blood; there is a hunger in me, and You have fed me from Your very liver; and a bewilderment enfolds me, so that I neither know nor understand...

My Lord... And yet I feel in the depths of the soul a lack writhing within a lack, an emptiness sinking upon an emptiness, an ease crying out in protest! So, my Lord!... I ask You in my own name — I, man, Your speaking statue of genius — to sate my craving, and to fill my being with one of Your storms of fire, showering me with a blaze of love and burning kisses, and tearing up from my roots the stillness of the soul and the wretchedness of solitude."

And there was morning and there was evening, and behold, the speaking statue of genius was cradling his dreams and his hopes in the arms of another speaking statue of genius... and the miracle was accomplished... and woman was!!...

And life breaks loose upon life, and death wrestles with death, and the world resounds with chants and trills of joy, in which there is something of the hoarseness of death and something of the wakefulness of life; and behold, the corners of history are radiant with love, thronged with religion, filled with faith; behold, the mountain passes of the ancient past are colored with a thousand and one colors; and behold, woman is penciling the eyelids of time with a brush dipped in magic — mightier than time and fresher than time!!...

And there was Ashtarout!... the holy kiss strayed from heaven, and the gift of the gods to the children of earth! I believed in her... chanting to her beloved Tammuz the burning chants:

"Like the tree in its crown,
so does my face shade your face,
and like a precious jewel
I hide you within me.
By night I give you your cover,
and by day your robe.
Fear not, fear not,
O little one whom I have reared!"

And so you see, gentlemen, that woman came into this world scattering blossoms and sweet things upon the earth and coloring life with the colors of art, poetry, and beauty; so man honored her, and set her in the highest place in his own soul, and raised statues to her of every kind and shape, and worshipped her as the painter worships his canvas, the poet his poem, and the believer his prayer and his shrine...

And there was the Shulamite... "she whom the sun has darkened, who kept her kids where the shepherds were; she whom they stayed with cakes of raisins and comforted with apples, for she was sick with love... the first Lebanese woman... from Hermon... from the lions' dens... from the mountains of the leopards...

Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm. For love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave; its flames are flames of fire, a very blaze of the Lord. Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it. If a man gave all the substance of his house for love, it would be utterly scorned."

And there was the Virgin...! that purified, refined one, the lady of women and the best of mothers.

I believed in her, pouring out her tears, generous and abundant, at the feet of the Crucified, her eyes nailed to the wood of the cross, wailing until her wailing cut the very heartstrings; writhing, distracted in mind and thought, her heart aflame, her bowels rent, preparing the embalming spices and the perfumes for the body of her beloved son — and so teaching the whole world a magnificent lesson in the sacrifice of mothers...

And there was the Magdalene!... the gate of hell, the stone of the tomb, and the very den of sins...

I believed in her!... The defilements of earth drag her down to earth; the demons of lust gnaw within her inward parts; the volcanoes of evil, sin, and transgression erupt in her body... Then she sees the Master... after His tidings had filled her ears; eye meets eye, heart beats toward heart, and behold, the God hidden within Him enfolds her wholly, to slay the beast of lust hidden within her; and behold, she is a Magdalene made pure, a believer shedding the tears of repentance, wetting the Master's feet and drying them with her loosed jet-black hair...

And there was the Age of Ignorance!... and there was Layla, daughter of Lukayz... Layla the Chaste...

I believed in her... kindling a raging war between her people, the Arabs, and the Persians, because these had sought to assault her honor:

Would that al-Barraq had an eye to see
what affliction and misery I endure.
Your sister has been tortured — woe upon you! —
with abominable torment, morning and evening.
They shackled me, they chained me, they struck
the seat of chastity in me with the rod.
The foreigner lies: he shall not come near me
while any last remnant of life is in me.
Beware the shame upon your posterity,
and upon you, so long as you remain in this world.

And there was Islam!... and there was Khadija, the pure woman, the Mother of the Believers, and the wife of the Trustworthy Prophet...

I believed in her, of whom the noble Arab Prophet says:

"No, by God, God never gave me a better in her stead: she believed in me when the people disbelieved, and she held me true when the people called me liar, and she comforted me with her wealth when the people denied me; and God granted me children by her, and by no other among people. And truly I love whoever loved her..."

She it was who knew, by her wisdom and her insight, how to sit enthroned, serene and secure, in her husband's heart; he spent with her the flower of his youth, and took no other wife beside her, and loved no one as he loved her. And he went on remembering her all his life, and honoring her friends and her acquaintances...

I believed in her as a mother, of whom the Arab Prophet says:

"Be dutiful to your mother; then your mother, then your mother, then your mother, then the next of kin and the next. And if your father and mother call you, answer your mother — for Paradise lies beneath the feet of mothers."

And there was the Umayyad age!... the age of the Arab woman in her literary freedom and her social life... the age of Wallada, and of Aisha daughter of Talha, and Jamila, and Azza al-Mayla, and Layla al-Amiriyya, and Buthayna, and many others besides...

And there was Sukayna!... the jewel of the necklace, daughter of the Imam Husayn, and granddaughter of Fatima, the Prophet's daughter... the witty, playful woman!...

I believed in her, keeping company with the great men of Quraysh, the poets gathering about her. People blamed her because, as they claimed, she had been cheated in exchanging her property at al-Zawra for a palace in al-Aqiq called al-Buraydi. So she goes out with her slave girls and walks in al-Aqiq when its stream is flowing, until she comes to the torrent and sits upon its bank, dipping her feet in the flood, and then she says: "So much for the one who was cheated! By God, this one hour in this palace is better than al-Zawra!"...

I believed in her, making of her house a Kaaba for men of letters and men of learning, to which the poets of her age made pilgrimage — the likes of Jarir, al-Farazdaq, Kuthayyir, Jamil, and others — anticipating by this accomplishment the famous literary women of the West, the likes of Mademoiselle de Lespinasse, Madame Récamier, and Madame de Girardin.

And shall I complete the chain and undo its links, link by link, that you may believe, gentlemen, in the power of this creature they call woman? By God, she lies latent within you as the very life that moves you and drives you lies latent. And what aspect of civilization, modern or ancient, would you have me set before you that you may believe? Nay, what aspect of art, of love, of beauty, of history, of learning has not been the shadow of a woman??

Come, glorify woman with me, for in her you find nothing but your own souls.

Come, believe with me that the power of woman is greater than the power of thrones!

Did not Mrs. Simpson — an ordinary woman, like many of our own women — shake the greatest throne standing in the modern age?

Did not Edward the Eighth, as he renounced the throne of Britain, declare:

"I have found it impossible to carry the burden of kingship and its responsibility as I ought without the help and support of the woman I love"?

And now, what is it that has carried us from city to city — nay, what is it that has tempted you to leave your warm homes and to sit listening to poets who bless and orators who blaspheme? It is woman! It is woman!!

Indeed I believed in you, my ladies, who labor in the cause of the wretched and the destitute!! The pain of privation is bitter, stinging, pitiless; and there is no way, madam, to uproot it or to soften it save the sweetness of your hand, the freshness of your smile, and the tenderness of your feeling.

And when you have done this — and behold, you are doing it — then know that man is the first of the believers in you, for you are then the shadow of a god!!

Musa Sulayman
The American University of Beirut