Mrs. Faiqa Mudarris, Pioneer of Social Projects in Syria

An illustrated report by Mrs. Layla Fakhoury Kurban

It gives me pleasure to bring to the readers of "The Woman's Voice," from time to time, word of the noble works that woman is carrying out with energy and zeal in the city of Aleppo. It has become clear to me, after living there for some time, that it abounds in benefactors and benefactresses, in good citizens, men and women alike, whose hearts beat with human feeling and love of their people, and who exert tremendous efforts to bring relief to the wretched and to prepare them to be firm props and pillars in building the edifice of the Syrian nation.

It pleases me today to send a word about the "Women's Charitable Association" in Aleppo, presided over by the venerable Miss Faiqa Mudarris. This institution also runs the school of women's crafts. I visited the institution and found it a large old building in the Eastern style: a spacious open courtyard with a pool of water at its center, and ranged along its sides numerous rooms open to light and air. Miss Mudarris is trying to move her institution into a modern building in the center of the city, fulfilling all the conditions of health and beauty. A resolve like hers will surely overcome all the difficulties that stand as obstacles to this aim. Yet the most important thing is not the shell but the pearl settled within it.

The directress showed me into the reception room to await the arrival of the president, whom I had not before had the honor of knowing. Hardly had I settled in my seat when a dignified lady entered the room. I rose in respect, introduced myself, and then said: Are you Miss Mudarris? She answered graciously, in an accent that was a mixture of Egyptian and Iraqi together: "You mean Miss Faiqa? No, I am not she — I am a visitor like yourself." I then understood from her that she was Mrs. Shahira, wife of Mr. Said Fahum, counselor of the Arab League, and that she was now paying a visit to Miss Mudarris, to whom she is bound by ties of friendship and fellowship in women's social services. When she learned the purpose of my visit, honesty and duty would not let her keep from saying: "Do you know whom you are about to see?... A lady who is the first of the ladies of Syria and Lebanon to found women's charitable associations concerned with the wretched laboring classes of her own sex. That was thirty-four years ago, when neither men nor women were thinking of such work. She was then in the prime of her youth and beauty, and she comes, as you know, of the distinguished Mudarris family. But the general condition of woman, sunk as it was to the depths of misery, robbed her of her rest, and she knew no peace of heart until she had turned away from her own personal, human claims and vowed herself to the service of unfortunate women — the women of the towns, who had no land to cultivate and no craft by which to earn an honorable morsel. Their husbands had left them and gone off to the war, and on their heels hunger and disease advanced, ravaging them and their children."

While I was absorbed in this fascinating account, a lady approaching her sixth decade appeared before us, in modest dress, with a cheerful face and eyes radiating light and self-confidence. It was Miss Faiqa Mudarris, president of the association.

We sat talking of her project, and I understood that her resolve to open a crafts school had hardened during the First World War, when she was in the town of Manbij on a visit to her brother and saw with her own eyes the miserable condition to which the people — and woman in particular — had sunk. She said: "I could no longer bear, on top of all I had borne, what I saw in Aleppo, and I became certain that the best means of charity, and of preserving dignity, was to find honorable work for these wretched women, by which they might earn their food and clothing and the clothing of their children. Many family obstacles rose up in the face of my project, but my perseverance removed them all. At last I was able to win my brother over to my side, so I gathered a fair number of girls and brought them to Aleppo, having rented a spacious house, and in a short time I obtained a license to open a crafts school.

The work they were set to was: sewing, embroidery, needlework of every kind, artificial flowers, and carpet-weaving, at the hands of specialists whom I employed for the purpose. No sooner had news of this institution spread than I saw a new kind of unfortunate being dropped at the door of the house under cover of darkness. Their mothers — on whom life had borne down hard, dragging them into the inferno for the sake of a loaf of bread — had left them there, and I was obliged to take in ten of them. I took out a license to open an orphanage. And I used to prevent the mothers from visiting their children, lest they be affected by their morals. Orphan girls came flocking to the institution, but I could accept only a limited number, in view of the enormous expenses the institution required."

I said: And until when did you keep these refugee girls?

She answered: I did not allow a girl to leave the institution until she had reached the age of thirteen and had mastered a craft by which to secure her living, and I would find her work in a wholesome moral atmosphere.

I said: And what is the place of learning in this crafts institution?

She said: Though I never studied at a high school — I learned the elements of Arabic reading and writing at home — I realized that learning is the foundation of everything. So at the start I set about teaching reading and writing myself, together with some women teachers. When the mothers learned of this they protested strongly against it, for learning in those days was in their eyes unnecessary for girls... if it was not indeed a corrupter of their morals...

Some members of my own family likewise objected to me on this score, for they believed the position of a schoolmistress to be work unbefitting me... But I paid no heed to anyone's talk and went straight forward on my path. I had to take out another license, to open a school. There are now in our institution 270 pupils and 65 orphan girls, and besides the trades they learn, we present pupils for the examinations of the primary certificate and the proficiency certificate. Those in whom we discern the intellectual capacity to pursue higher studies we send to the Syrian University, to specialize in medicine, the law, and the like. Last year we sent three orphan girls to the University.

I said: And how is the necessary money collected?

She answered: I began the work relying on God and on myself, for many years; then a number of the wealthy ladies of the city joined me, and we would pay out of our own pockets and collect contributions from the commercial houses. There are also people who send us assistance in the form of vows and gifts.

Nor has the Ministry of Education forgotten us: it appointed four women teachers for us at its own expense. Lately we have begun to cooperate with the Women's Union association in Aleppo, which concerns itself with providing clothing for the orphan girls. The Fadila Shelter, too, joined us recently. And we sought an agreement with the Awqaf association, so that it might carry out this great task in the fullest manner; but we were unable to reach an understanding, and we found that it was an initiative ahead of its time. So we gave up the idea, and I held fast to the project, after having been on the point of abandoning it because of my failing health."

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I toured the spacious school, seeing the craft classes and the academic classes, the dormitories and the dining rooms, and was delighted by the order, cleanliness, and arrangement, and by the handiwork and artificial flowers, which call forth admiration and pride. And I saw the room in which Miss Faiqa sleeps, so as to watch over these pearls so dear to her heart, day and night. Although some of the school's women teachers sleep there, her heart is not at ease unless she herself looks after them all, leaving her own house amid the orchards and flowers. She does not repair to this "villa" except when she feels her health in dire need of recreation and rest.

I thought of this good work that Miss Faiqa is doing, and of this social service she has rendered her nation and her homeland for more than 34 years, overcoming the thorny obstacles that rose up in her way. I thought of the orphan girls and foundling girls who have come out of this institute and become cultivated women and mistresses of homes. I thought of the despairing women whose fate would have been misery, wretchedness, and vagrancy — what a calamity they would have been to themselves and to their surroundings, had not a living vein throbbed in the heart of one virtuous lady. I thought, and thought long; then I chanced to glance toward the wall of the room, and my eye fell on a large, beautiful picture of Joan of Arc — that French girl who was roused to a fierce war against the English soldiers who were trampling the sanctities of her country. And then something cried out within me: here is Joan of Arc before me, in flesh and blood; here is the girl whose heart God kindled with love of humanity and of the children of her people, so that it set her ablaze in a war against hunger, disease, and illiteracy, casting traditions to the winds and offering her money, her youth, and her health as a living sacrifice, well pleasing before God and men.

The French government has instituted a national holiday, celebrated yearly, for "Joan of Arc," and the Catholic Church has numbered her among its saints. Will the Syrian government, then, appraise its "Joan of Arc" at her true worth? And will the Awqaf association give generously and free the hand of Miss Mudarris — now that her devotion has shone forth — to bring this workshop of human souls out into the place, and into the form, that befit it??