Routledge Revivals
Moslem Women Enter a New World
First published in 1936, this book surveys the changing place of women across the contemporaneous Muslim world, focusing on several nations where they constituted a demographic majority Iraq, Iran, Egypt, Palestine, Trans-Jordan, Turkey, Syria and one where they did not, namely India. It begins by outlining some of the areas of change, for example regarding the veil, purdah and divorce. This is followed by in depth examinations of the progress of female education, their changing economic roles, improving health standards, their widening interests and the pressure for change on Islam in general. This title is would be of interest to students of the sociology of religion and the contemporary position of women in Muslim societies.
Moslem Women Enter a New World
Ruth Frances Woodsmall
First published in 1936
by George Allen & Unwin
This edition first published in 2017 by Routledge
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1936 Ruth Frances Woodsmall
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Publisher's Note
The publisher has gone to great lengths to ensure the quality of this reprint but points out that some imperfections in the original copies may be apparent.
Disclaimer
The publisher has made every effort to trace copyright holders and welcomes correspondence from those they have been unable to contact.
A Library of Congress record exists under LC control number: 37002337
ISBN 13: 978-1-138-22672-2 (hbk)
ISBN 13: 978-1-315-39686-6 (ebk)
MOSLEM WOMEN ENTER A NEW WORLD
by
Ruth Frances Woodsmall
FIRST PUBLISHED IN 1936
All rights reserved
PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY
UNWIN BROTHERS LTD., WOKING
TO MY SISTER
WHO FIRST STIMULATED MY INTEREST
IN THE EAST
THE American University of Beirut serves as a means for the exchange of ideas between the Orient and the Occident. It is therefore a privilege for the University to include in its series of Social Science publications Miss Woodsmall's volume Moslem Women Enter a New World.
The book tells how the traditional customs of the East are being treated by a post-war generation. A great renaissance is taking place in Asia. As in all periods of transition, there are radicals who go to extremes and others who defend their cherished customs by calling upon moral precept and canon law. It is inevitable that such a comprehensive volume should contain material of a controversial nature, but even those who may disagree with some of the author's interpretations will doubtless appreciate the importance of the material.
The University does not seek through this book to promote some particular point of view. As Miss Woodsmall explains in her Foreword, the book represents her personal observations and she assumes full responsibility for her own remarks and conclusions. She has endeavoured to describe what is taking place in an objective and scientifically minded way.
Since Miss Woodsmall was intimately connected with the growing girls and young women of Istanbul for a long period of years, she gained a clear understanding of the social problems of the Near East. She has also been able to observe the customs of Muhammadan women in a great many countries and in a leisurely way. Her material has been gathered by constant travel, by intimate conversations with all kinds of people, by first-hand observation and by careful reading of recent newspapers and periodicals.
Miss Woodsmall is sympathetic with movements which are enabling Moslem women to enter new spheres of activity. On the other hand, her concluding chapter explains that she is aware of the danger of too rapid change and hopeful that the best qualities of Eastern life may be preserved. She has always been an understanding friend of the East. Her book shows that her great concern is to see young Moslems adjust themselves to the modern world, without losing touch with spiritual values.
We are living in one of the most important yet baffling eras that the world has ever known. Moslem Women Enter a New World gives such valuable first-hand information, that it helps to clarify a fundamental problem of our age,woman's place in modern life.
BAYARD DODGE
BEIRUT
April 1936
Although the University has its own system of transliteration, the Arabic names in Miss Woodsmall's book have been spelt as they are usually written in popular English books, so as to avoid confusing the reader.
SOME books are written to fulfil the definite objective of travel or residence abroad; others are the inevitable result of a period of foreign experience. Of this latter type the present effort to portray the changing life of Moslem women is an illustration. Through the post-war years of living and journeying in the East, this subject has been for me an absorbing interest. Like a constant friend, who could not be forgotten after life has moved on to new associations, it has craved expression on the printed page.
During nine years in Y.W.C.A. service in Turkey and Syria, the transformation of the Near East, especially in Turkey, gripped my attention. From the balcony of our residence in Taxim Square, witnessing as from a box seat in a play the main events of the change in Turkey, I realized that I was also witnessing the drama of the changing East. The swift sequence of events in Turkey constantly lured me on to seek to know more of the meaning of change that lay behind its external evidence and especially to lift the veil in order that I might catch some glimpse of what was happening in the life of Moslem women.
Such an opportunity came through a travelling fellowship of the Rockefeller Foundation, which made possible over a year and a half of leisure to journey through the Near EastTurkey, Syria, Egypt, Palestine and Trans-jordan, across the Syrian desert to Mosul and Baghdad and thence over the Iraq border across the high plateaus and mountain passes of Iran, visiting Teheran and Ispahan and less frequented places. Finally this journey of discovery brought me to India with its great Moslem centres like Lucknow and Agra, Delhi and Lahore. To see and try to understand more fully the changing life of Moslem women were the only terms of reference for my study; I was free from any compulsion save that of the Inner urge of an absorbing interest.
This book represents then the composite of some years of active service followed by a no less active period of a freelance pursuit. The quest to understand the changing East has led me to seek knowledge in many placesin cities, towns and villages, in schools and hospitals, in homes of many types, secluded harems and modern apartments. I have tried to view the East through many eyesthose of foreign observers, diplomats of my own and other countries, officials, missionaries, nationalist leaders in many spheres, conservative sheikhs, defenders of the Faith, and modern youth impelled by other loyalties than religion, Moslems and non-Moslems, peasant women untouched by modern progress, women leaders in civil and national life, and women whose life is bounded by the four walls of the harem.
