Al-Rusafi and Woman

Since woman is man's half and the backbone of society, she has had a great influence in guiding the rising generation, preparing a sound generation, consolidating the pillars of social life, and steadying the foundations of families one and all. So, in addition to singing of her beauty and her charm, her magic and her allure, and her possession of a sufficient share of shrewdness and intelligence, the poets and men of letters have called upon her to tear the standing veil that bars her from gazing and leaping toward the heights; they have defended her and her precincts, and lavished upon her such devotion, sincerity, love, and energy as spurred her and prompted her to demand the rights which religion entitles her to enjoy in all ease and gladness.

And al-Rusafi is one of those free, realistic thinkers who plunged into the frays of debate and the depths of controversy to defend woman and her usurped rights with warmth and ardor, and showed what strength and competence she possesses — the two that can lead society in a fruitful leadership carrying prosperity and reform — and said of her what may be a matter of pride and reliance in the cause of her advancement and elevation, the raising of her worth and the lifting of her standing, that she might share with man the task and the endeavors laid on the shoulders of societies, in which, were it not for woman's arduous services and her sacred duties, there would never be a happy life in society at all.

If we cast a glance at the diwan of al-Rusafi, who called for the emancipation of woman and her release from the shackles that weigh her down — supporting in this the reforming Egyptian writer, the late Qasim Amin, leader of the women's renaissance, emancipator of woman and her first pioneer — we would find that he — al-Rusafi, we mean — composed eight poems on woman and what concerns her, namely: "Woman in the East," "Our Women," "The Freedom of Marriage among Us," "The Muslim Woman and Education," "The Forsaken Mothers," "To the Veilers," and "The Abasement of Woman among Us." All these poems, besides their delicacy and sweetness, their humane stamp and the artistic beauty that marks them, we find overflowing with vexation and complaint, at the confrontation of the poet-thinker — who consumed himself in the cause of freedom of thought and offered himself as a ransom for the sake of a free life — with the bitter reality which admits that woman does not enjoy her rights.

And in his complaint and vexation the poet is right to the farthest bounds of right; for a free life does not ordain what contradicts it and brings it to the brink of the abyss, nor does it desire what invites pessimism and grumbling in any circumstance whatever; rather the good and honorable life ordains what suits and harmonizes, just as it yields the best and finest of results. And the resounding cries that al-Rusafi loosed and the loud screams he sent up from his depths are a crushing argument and a strong proof of his full feeling for right and reality, and of his deep faith in the greatness of the noble, deep-rooted woman whom human society ought never to do without — nor without her aptitude, her energy, and her readiness in many fields and arenas.

In the poem "Woman in the East" al-Rusafi grieves — a lump in his throat and a moan in his breast — for this rigid East: because its people cling to the husks rather than the honest kernel, flounder in delusions and stumble in the mires of superstitions and mumbo-jumbo, live a life of degradation, hurt, and misery, and refuse to walk the way of the sensible. So they denied women their right and forced them to remain squatting in the corners of the houses, claiming that they are fit for nothing else, and forbade them to go out — and if there was any occasion for going out, then only in the black cloak that spreads weariness and pain, and turns light into darkness and white into black. So he says:

What ails the people of the East, in anguish,
living in humiliation and misery?
That is only because, in their affairs,
they refused to walk the way of the sensible.
They denied women their right, and bore down
upon them with confinement and long immurement,
and they imposed the veil upon them, and refused
them any outing except under a cover.

Then the poet, in his poem "Our Women," utters with all his being his complaint at the life of women shut in the houses, cut off from sharing in the fields of work and the arenas of cooperation with men, and his complaint against the folk sunk in ignorance, who do not distinguish truth from falsehood, reality from fancy, and who reckon the tightening of the veil as belonging to the religious law and leading to it. And if the veil and its tightening were of the law, ought then the dove to be destroyed, and silenced in the branches from pouring forth her warbling and her cooing?
As he says:

Indeed I complain of a custom in our land
by which fate has struck the height of glory with a crack:

it is that our women still
live in ignorance, cut off from the assembly;

and the greatest of my complaints against the folk is that they
count the tightening of the veil as part of the law.

Is it in the law to strip the dove of her feathers,
and to silence her, upon the boughs, from her cooing?

Then he says — and how truthful and apt a saying it is:

We, the unveilers, know better what
the Prophet Muhammad laid down as religion.

Can what the Prophet Muhammad laid down
be a thing at odds with the law of civilization?

And al-Rusafi after this shows his pessimism, in his poem "The Freedom of Marriage among Us," over the conditions that grip the East by the throat and stir in its joints the spirit of decline and pain: for the people whom the flashing glitter of gold tempts, and whom the pleasure of fleeting money sweeps along, force girls to marry old men advanced in years, their backs bowed, out of greed for vast fortune and abundant coin. The poet believes — and his belief is reasonable — that a girl's heart is too precious to be bought with money; it can be chosen only by true love, which binds two hearts with its firm cord in a fast knot; so that if marriage takes place without this immortal love, and without the acquaintance that has its good merits, it is a wearisome affair, and we must fear it for its grievous... painful consequences.

They wronged you, O maiden, in their ignorance,
when they forced you to marry a graybeard;

they coveted his ample money, and so they put
Ash'ab to shame by the excess of those greeds.

A girl's heart is too noble to be bought
with money; rather by love is it won.

Marriage is love; if it takes place
with anything other than love, it is a wearisome thing;

and if marriage takes place without acquaintance
and mutual affection, then better that we turn monks.

And al-Rusafi wonders whenever he reflects on the matter of the backward East and its folk who deserve lament and blame, who have gone to extremes in cheapening woman's worth, robbing her of her rights, and looking upon her with a "carnal look," stormy... unruly... shameless... where he says:

She is the pleasure of the pleasure-takers — and would that
it were made binding that she may not be sold.

though this verse carries within its folds other meanings as well!? For the folk in the East claim — and their claim is false — that every renewal and civilization and release from absurdities within the highest ideals and the true religion is vice, disgrace, and infamy, without knowing what goes on beneath the cloak, and without knowing that their life will not rise or ascend except by rearing the girls with a fruitful rearing that guarantees success and draws women near to men, in a nearness that assures happiness and well-being for all. As he says:

Our folk in the East are in a state at which,
the more I ponder it, the more I wonder.

Say to those who struck the veil upon women:
do you know what goes on beneath the cloaks?

Does the Easterner know that his life
rises when he rears and refines his daughters?

And the East will not rise except when it
brings women near to men, and draws them close.

These are the words of the late Ma'ruf al-Rusafi, which show us the truth of woman in society and in the perishing East that submits to what holds it back — shown in a showing into which not the least doubt can creep. And let not the would-be learned, with their sickly tastes, their short views, and their reactionary minds, suppose that the free poet raves and roams in the valley of winged fancy merely because he is counted among the poets; for there are many poets who portray the human tragedies and their manifold conditions in a realistic, marvelous portrayal that spreads sorrow and regret through souls — and al-Rusafi is one of those great ones, where he says:

And I am no wanderer in the valley of fancy,
though I be counted among the poets.