him at his palace, in the presence of his consort Queen Huzaima. He spoke to them at length, setting forth how Islam had comprehended the condition of woman, acknowledged her rights, and laid down tolerant principles that guaranteed her social standing and respected her mental faculties and her human self. And he pointed to the interpretations and rulings that had been foisted in over long ages, depriving woman of the simplest rights and locking her behind a bolt of harsh judgments and false accusations.

He then passed swiftly to the good omens of the women's movement in Iraq and his delight in the Club's mission in the cultural and social fields, favoring it with no small share of his interest and encouragement; and he openly declared to them his resolve to present a house in which the Club's activity might settle, and from which would go forth his call for the existence of the new woman, equal to her national and social responsibilities.

Faisal, woman's champion

I have related this incident to say that, in its very simplicity, it holds features of that splendid picture which the modern history of Iraq has preserved of Faisal, king of the Shatt and the Two Rivers... and the desert plain — a picture that lifts the veil from a captivating side of the founder-King's life which, alas, the pens of writers have not yet entered upon, and which the works and books of the historians have not treated: Faisal's concern for woman, and for the movement that first showed its horn with the dawn of the new kingship and the edifice to come. It makes plain to the eye that the clash of politics, the gathering of efforts, and the mustering of forces for

the battle out of which the light was to break in Iraq never for a moment turned the King's attention from that vast frozen energy, cowering behind veils and screens. Indeed, King Faisal himself declared, in a press interview he gave to Major Dudley Heathcote more than a quarter of a century ago: "The touchstone of woman's advancement is the home, and upbringing and education..."

"... And if I measure the progress of the Eastern woman against what I see around me of the march toward freeing ourselves upon lofty foundations, I may say that these principles will triumph and prevail in the future, and woman will then be an active and effective agent in the direction of affairs... And if we see our women surmounting the obstacles, sharing with man the struggle for the higher life and helping him toward progress, we must not be astonished; for life, especially in our time, calls for this cooperation, and demands of man and woman that they work side by side for all that makes for man's happiness and the good of society."

King Faisal was the first champion of the Iraqi woman's struggle, looking with a prophetic eye toward what might come of the release of that imprisoned energy, were it well directed, its way smoothed for its appearance, and its course turned in the right direction.

Nor was King Faisal one to be ignorant of the stubborn obstacle standing in the path of such attempts to raise woman up, free her mind, and take her by the hand; but neither did he leave despair any way into his soul, for he held that time and knowledge were warrant enough for the smoothing of difficulties.