“The seed of peace lies in the heart of woman. Had she been allowed a say in the world's problems, she would have helped avert many a calamity.”
“Man makes the law, and woman shares its consequences with him. Man declares wars, and woman bends with him beneath their heavy burden...”
The eternal Creator performed His mighty work and stood contemplating it; and behold, He saw a wondrous universe, bounded only by His vast knowledge, and a creation of every kind, numbered only by its all-knowing Maker — all of it glorifying His power, most high, and proclaiming the majesty of His works.
But what has troubled the God? Anxiety is a cloud shimmering across His comely face, perplexity breaks over His radiant features, and displeasure shows in His most holy eyes?...
Come with me to a corner of Paradise, and let us learn the secret. Look!... Do you not see the wondrous creature whom the Creator stamped with the most beautiful and most sacred of all He possessed, in image and in likeness, and whom He willed to be master of all creatures — master in every sense of the word? He armed him with radiant beauty — and is there a weapon deadlier than beauty? — and adorned him with sound reason — and is there a force more potent than reason? — and handed him the keys of Paradise — and is there a treasure richer than that green garden “beneath which the rivers flow”?
Yet this being, who was meant to be master, throws himself down, drained of strength, in this corner of his azure kingdom, sad and despondent, feeling in himself no power to bear the burdens of mastery; and he falls — the fall of the broken-winged eagle — aching and wounded.
O ungrateful one, is this the return for the gifts I have lavished on you? I give, and you deny; I bestow favor, and you are wretched. What ails you, that you should grieve on the day the
crown of kingship is raised upon your brow?...
The human stirred, and gathered himself: My Lord, I am not ungrateful for the favor, nor do I deny the blessing; only I feel a lack in my being with which I cannot be equal to that for which You created me. Paradise with solitude is hell, and happiness misery. May I not have one more blessing, to crown the blessings You have given me, to awaken in me the sense of delight in beauty, and to open before me the secrets of knowledge?...
“Arab civilization is indebted to the freedom that Muhammad gave to woman.”
From that minute woman existed, and to her were handed the keys of her companion's gifts: if she willed, she kindled in him the powers of the mind with which he had been armed, and he delivered his message in life complete; and if she refused, he went back the way he came and offered life nothing new.
As time advanced, behold, brute force lorded it over weakness; woman was subdued for her weakness and robbed of the blessing of the enjoyment of the spirit, and the legend of her creation was recalled only now and then among humanity's great men and its reformers. These men, to whom was opened what was opened to no others, knew that force had conquered nothing but itself on the day it conquered woman, and that the humbling of the weak creature traced the line of disgrace in letters of blood across the brow of the strong companion. So the Redeemer rises with his humane teachings against the darkness of the generations, raises the divine legend from its grave, and champions the strivings of mankind,
restoring to them the leaping spirituality; and behold, woman is once more the breather of genius into minds and the kindler of ardor in breasts; behold, she takes back the role for which she was created and mounts the throne that is set for her.
This universe is wide, and the desert far away, and there is no path by which the new ideas can seep into its sands. So the poor woman remains among the folds of its dunes, degraded — save rarely: now buried alive, now taken captive, and at times denied the right of a free life; a female whose very right to live is subject to the power of arms, while she is too weak to carry arms.
But no!... For here are the sands of the desert trembling at the momentous event; here is the son of Abdullah vanishing from the earth, his spirit borne on the wings of angels, to return carrying to women in his palm a manifest victory, in clear verses, calling them “the comforters, the providers, the rearers,” proclaiming that theirs are rights, in kindness, corresponding to their duties, and quickening in them soul and body together.
These steps of reform were raising humanity from its stumble and carrying it forward — but only for a time; for the lust of worshiping force soon makes the strong forget the role that rests upon respect for woman's right, and forget that this respect is their own essential desire, and that in it lies their true victory. For what great man have we seen in history who did not owe his greatness to woman, and what genius did not draw his genius from the folds of her garment? Napoleon pointed to this when he said: “I have never seen a man of genius without discovering that behind his genius stood a woman.”