Sawt al-Mara — English Edition

Last month the Jordanian authorities surprised the world with the news that woman has been given half her political rights: the educated woman now has the right to vote — she has a say in the election of the people's representatives, though her ambition to be elected herself was not considered!... It is a benevolent gesture, even if all of us wished her a complete right, after the example of her two sisters in Lebanon and in Syria.

I said that this decision came as a surprise to the informed circles of the world, which have followed, and still follow with interest, the women's movements — vigorous in Egypt and moderate in Iraq — and how, up to now, they have ended in disappointment. It seems to me that at the head of modern Jordan there is a certain wisdom!.. And at times I wonder: could Her Majesty Queen Dina — young, cultivated, and understanding — be behind this happy surprise?!

It is, in any case, a blessed step, a positive weapon in the hand of the unarmed woman; and it is in the nature of a weapon to strengthen the morale of the one who bears it and to redouble her desire for action — and so to drive the mass of Jordan's women along the road of the true renaissance, one that takes in every department of their lives alike.

The eye of the world today is upon the women of Jordan. What response will follow upon this gesture, and into what activity will their united collective conscience burst forth?

And may the turn of our Egyptian and Iraqi sisters come next!...

He put it well who said: 'The spring of Damascus and the autumn of Beirut.' For Damascus in springtime — where is Paradise beside her! Sprawling gardens surging with color: in their courts the birds sing at the top of their throats, and blossom and flower breathe their fragrance through every corner...

And Beirut in autumn is a young girl glorying in her confident youth... What most captivates you in her is this quiet, expectant beauty. As if autumn nature, with us, were forever dreaming, and its dream haunted by a longing for a far-off beloved whose distance it can no longer bear with patience!..

And our sea in autumn — oh, its loveliness! What a blue veil plays coquettishly upon its face! What a refreshing breeze meets you from its flanks, so that you forget, in an instant, that here the heat once scorched you, your strength gave way, and the sweat streamed from your brow!

Beirut's autumn is, beyond doubt, a blessing to its people — provided it does not lengthen and stretch beyond all bounds, till the eyes of the farmers turn about in dread, and our mother the earth sleeps hungry beside her withered crops!

We have praised You, O Lord! You have granted us delight of the eye wherever the eye may light; grant it to us now as a bountiful rain, to quench in the heart of the earth her long-stored yearning, O Reliever of hardship and Giver of blessings! Burst the heavens open with water, that the seeds may stir in the bowels of the soil, that its veins may breathe forth every lovely leafing thing, and that every living creature and every lifeless thing may sway, a smile of thanks upon its lips!