Classes to teach the girls of the royal family

The rest of the members of the royal Hashemite family kept pace with (King Faisal) in his zeal for woman's education: his brother, the late King Ali ibn al-Husayn, opened a class for his daughters like the special class opened in King Faisal's palace. And the late Queen Aliya was in the front rank of the pupils who came forward to learn and to study, with true zeal and desire.

Two princesses with the people

Among the shining facts to which I think it worth pointing in the telling of these memories is that the Princesses Badia and the late Jalila, daughters of the late King Ali, studied at the Central Girls' School, attending regularly like the other pupils, and shedding over the atmosphere of study that pure spirit on whose horizon glow the majesty of kingship and the beauty of devotion to learning and of hearkening to the light of reason.

Add to this his stand in encouraging the entry of girl students into the higher institutes, as happened when the first girl student entered the Medical College.

In short... King Faisal was the first to trace the lines of the women's renaissance we witness today throughout the length and breadth of the country — in the form of schools, or scholarly missions abroad, or associations, or in the form of elements that meet upon the field of work with that steady success which has proved the truth of the King's intuition and the reach of his conclusions. And the women's renaissance in this country will remain indebted for its very existence to his efforts, for ever and ever.

In supporting woman, King Faisal was aware, in his conscience and his humanity, of rights that distant time

had buried alive; and he worked to loosen their bonds and to supply them with the means of life and of light.

King Faisal defined his view, saying: "The backwardness which the Eastern woman suffered in the past is what robbed her of her character and made her forget her personality. If we go back to history, we find that man's selfishness and woman's ignorance are what dragged the two of them down into this decline. I do not wish to compare the Eastern woman's past with her present, nor to pass judgment on her future, for that hangs upon the new development that embraces the whole world, from which I hope she will win the amplest good and the greatest happiness.

"And there is an important question with which those who call for the emancipation of woman concern them-selves, and which they name her 'economic advance-ment': namely, making her able to do for herself, for her sex, and for her country whatever she can do. This question, in my view, is the most important thing to strive for and to turn minds toward; for mere propa-ganda for woman's freedom, and her imitation of the Western woman, does not achieve the goal sought from the woman's renaissance. And I believe that all this my country has studied, and given the greatest care...

"Yes... woman today is like a youth newly come out into the world after spending long years in prison, or within the walls of schools and their closed classrooms: she may go to extremes in her opinions and her actions, as such a youth goes to extremes, and she may be struck with wandering and vanity, as he is; but before long her affairs will come right, she will recover her senses, and she will become a useful member — nay, an important member — of social life, indispensable to every society that seeks happiness and progress..."