They show it in their
strut, in their looks, and almost in every word. “I am such an one, the
son of such an one,” is a common expletive, especially in times of
danger; and this spirit is not wholly to be condemned, as it certainly
acts as an incentive to gallant actions. But it often excites them to
vie with one another in expensive entertainments and similar vanities.
The expression, so offensive to English ears, Inshallah Bukra—Please God,
tomorrow—always said about what should be done to-day, is here common as
in Egypt or in India. This procrastination belongs more or less to all
Orientals. But Arabia especially abounds in the Tawakkal al’ Allah, ya
Shaykh!—Place thy reliance upon Allah, O Shaykh!—enjoined when a man should
depend upon his own exertions. Upon the whole, however, though alive to
the infirmities of the Madani character, I thought favourably of it,
finding among this people more of the redeeming point, manliness,
[p.22]than in most Eastern nations with whom I am acquainted.
The Arabs, like the Egyptians, all marry. Yet, as usual, they are hard
and facetious upon that ill-treated subject—matrimony. It has exercised
the brain of their wits and sages, who have not failed to indite
notable things concerning it. Saith “Harikar al-Hakim” [(]Dominie Do-All)
to his nephew Nadan (Sir Witless), whom he would dissuade from taking
to himself a wife, “Marriage is joy for a month and sorrow for a life,
and the paying of settlements and the breaking of back (i.e. under the
load of misery), and the listening to a woman's tongue!” And again we
have in verse:—
“They said ‘marry!’ I replied, ‘far be it from me
To take to my bosom a sackful of snakes.
I am free—why then become a slave?
May Allah never bless womankind!’”
And the following lines are generally quoted, as affording a kind of
bird’s-eye view of female existence:—
“From 10 (years of age) unto 20,
A repose to the eyes of beholders.[FN#35]
From 20 unto 30,
Still fair and full of flesh.
From 30 unto 40,
A mother of many boys and girls.
From 40 unto 50,
An old woman of the deceitful.
From 50 unto 60,
Slay her with a knife.
From 60 unto 70,
The curse of Allah upon them, one and all!”
Another popular couplet makes a most unsupported assertion:—
“They declare womankind to be heaven to man,
I say, ‘Allah, give me Jahannam, and not this heaven.’”
Yet the fair sex has the laugh on its side, for these railers at
Al-Madinah as at other places, invariably marry.
