In this article we present a threefold argument—chronological, geographical, and sociocultural—in order to demonstrate that interest in the woman question and the lively and at times charged debate that it stimulated began in Greater Syria in the early nahḍa (awakening) period and persisted throughout, drawing into its orbit leading intellectuals as well as members of the general public and permeating even peripheral areas of Greater Syria. We do so by examining the public reflection of this debate in the early nahḍa press, mainly privately published Beirut journals and newspapers.Footnote ¹

The nahḍa, which played a major role in shaping modern Arab worldviews and self-perceptions, commenced in the first half of the 19th century and lasted until World War I.Footnote ² A key component of this shaping involved the encounter and reconciliation of Arab culture and values with those of the modern world. The exposure to Western ideas, culture, and technology inspired great admiration, but with it came a growing understanding of the need to preserve Arab heritage. The nahḍa period had two partially overlapping facets. The cultural facet, which included a resurgence of linguistic, literary, and journalistic activity, began in the first half of the 19th century and persisted well into the early 20th century; the political facet, which focused on political identity and nationhood, evolved in the latter half of the 19th century, especially in its closing decades, as a response to indirect and direct colonialism.

The woman question was a core issue in this cultural encounter and renegotiation of the nahḍa period, extending over both cultural and political realms. Yet, its early years have not attracted much scholarly attention. Over the past twenty years, with the growing interest in women's history, several studies have considered various aspects of Arab women's lives, the debate on women's political rights, and the significant roles gender played in national discourse and national movements in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.Footnote ³ Although scholars are aware of the ongoing debate throughout the first half of the 19th century concerning women's rights and roles and its importance in shaping the parameters and terms of later discussions, the majority have focused on the turn of the century and on Egypt as a case study.Footnote ⁴ Dagmar Glas, Fruma Zachs, and Marilyn Booth do study this period in depth and address gender issues; however, Glas's and Zachs's studies delve more into general intellectual and cultural developments (although both contain significant information about women's writings and activities), while Booth's exhaustive analysis of women's life writing in the period does not position the evolving public debate between readers and writers at the heart of her study.Footnote ⁵ The early phase of this debate, especially in Greater Syria, to which scholars have paid far less attention, is one of the focal points of this article.Footnote ⁶

We reenvision this early period and the debate concerning women by articulating a threefold argument: chronological, geographical, and sociocultural. First, the years between 1858 and 1900 lie at the heart of this article. We argue that during these four decades, thinkers (male and female) and their readers first turned their attention to an array of gender issues and recast the relationships between men and women as an intrinsic part of an overall scheme of social and political regeneration. The early stage of the debate on women and their rights, which culminated with Qasim Amin's Tahrir al-Marʾa (Liberation of Woman, 1898) and Al-Marʾa al-Jadida (The New Woman, 1900), evolved throughout the 19th century in spurts and bursts, and women played an important role in framing it. This line of argument is not intended to deny the importance of Qasim Amin and his oeuvre but to complicate and broaden the unequivocal statements made by scholars who claim that but for Qasim Amin, “the nineteenth century might have ended without the issue of women's emancipation becoming a public concern.”Footnote ⁷

Second, from a geographical perspective, we emphasize that these issues first came to the fore in Greater Syria. Many pioneers of Arab journalism hailed from this region, and they dominated the field until the early 20th century. Greater Syria, and in particular Beirut, its economic and cultural center, was in the latter half of the 19th century a hub of intellectual ferment, which found expression in the growing numbers of bookstores, printing presses, literary salons, and scientific societies.Footnote ⁸ Only following the repressive measures of the Hamidian regime (1876–1908) was the debate relocated to Egypt, where exiled Syrian intellectuals, writers, and journalists were joined by their Egyptian counterparts.

Third, this study draws the sociocultural contours of the dialogue on women that was developing between writers and readers of newspapers and points out its major themes and sources of influence; it therefore emphasizes the diffusion of ideas. This is an interactive process, not a “top-down” affair; as ideas percolate through a society, they are constantly renegotiated and rearticulated. Dominick LaCapra maintains that ideas are created not solely by individual authors but also by “communities of discourse”—the authors, readers, commentators, and critics who, over time, discuss, revise, and expand on ideas.Footnote ⁹ Our study demonstrates that this dialogue was carried out both within each newspaper and between newspapers and their readers: a lively and active community of discourse debated gender issues, considered their implications, and suggested new courses of action. We establish that the debate on women's issues permeated the middle classes. Both men and women were conversant with its terms, and it involved not just the leading intellectuals but also a broad cross-section of readers. It was not limited solely to Beirut but also seeped into peripheral areas of Greater Syria. The impact of this dialogue reverberated for years as issues of these periodicals continued to be read long after their publication. Readers saved the bound annual volumes, making them part of their library collections and referring to them and lending them out to friends for perusal and entertainment.Footnote ¹⁰

We have based our study on an analysis of five leading journals and newspapers of the period (from 1858 to 1900): Hadiqat al-Akhbar (Beirut, 1858–68, 1881–88), Al-Jinan (Beirut, 1870–86), Al-Muqtataf (Beirut, 1876–84; Cairo, 1885–1900), Thamarat al-Funun (Beirut, 1875–1900), and Al-Hilal (Cairo, 1892–1900).Footnote ¹¹ It focuses mainly on articles, editorials, regular columns, op-ed items, and letters to the editor, all of which suggest the broad outline of the debate on women and highlight certain critical junctures.Footnote ¹² The texts provide a sense of the richness, coherence, and continuity of the debate that developed during the early nahḍa period in Greater Syria and continued in Egypt well into the 20th century. We develop this study in chronological order to demonstrate how arguments were articulated and reformulated. Finally, we consider the ramifications of our threefold argument about the debate on women on future understandings of the nahḍa as a sociocultural phenomenon, not just a cultural and literary one, and on the study of the place of women in modern Arab societies.

“TO DEMAND SATISFACTION OF OUR HONOR”: THE EARLY YEARS OF THE DEBATE ON WOMEN

Hadiqat al-Akhbar (The Garden of News), edited and published (biweekly) by Khalil al-Khuri (1836–1907), was the first journal privately published in Beirut. Spanning more than fifty years (1858–1911), some 3,000 issues appeared. Successful early on, the publication acquired 400 subscribers within the first three months. The journal's content varied; it focused heavily on regional news, especially commercial and economic news from Beirut, and carried news and commentary on foreign events, official Ottoman announcements, advertisements, reviews of new books, and serialized original novels as well as excerpts and translations of short stories and novels.Footnote ¹³ It also occasionally printed witticisms, epigrams, and humorous anecdotes, such as this one from July 1858 entitled “The Invention of a New Telegraph”: “If you wish to transmit information quickly from one place to another, you should tell it to a woman and then you will see that in a short time the message will pass from one place to the other faster than the blink of an eye.”Footnote ¹⁴

The journal's women readers, however, failed to see the humor of it. “We expected pleasant perfumes from the flowers of this garden [ḥadīqa] but today we smelled offensive and insulting odors,” begins the letter of an unnamed group of women from Tripoli addressed to the women of Beirut.Footnote ¹⁵ The irate women readers were not only angered by the underlying misogyny in this anecdote but were also upset that their Beirut counterparts did not rise up in defense of their sex. In their letter they fume at al-Khuri, who printed this item depicting all women as foolish, flighty, and indiscreet and claimed that if women did not counter it, they would in effect be conceding its truth: “That which was printed is a common and ill-mannered [ʿamūmiyya] accusation which cannot be accepted by the press, and we have to demand satisfaction of our honor from the inventor of these words.”Footnote ¹⁶ The ensuing public (or at least female) outcry was evidently considerable, for al-Khuri reprinted this letter in the following issue and apologized to his female readers. This brief exchange is the earliest identified example in the Arabic press of a debate (known in Europe as the querelle des femmes) in which women opposed men's unfavorable views of women and emphasized the cultural, rather than just the biological, aspect of gender.Footnote ¹⁷

This exchange raises a host of questions (perhaps more than can be answered here). Who were the women of Tripoli and the women of Beirut to whom the former addressed their letter? Were they members of an organized society (literary or other), or a group of women who met to discuss the journal? How large was Hadiqat al-Akhbar's female readership? Were they among its subscribers, or did they come across it in their homes? Although the precise identification of the journal's readership and the two women's societies eludes us, we do know that several such societies were active in the period. For example, in 1847 Akhawat al-Mahabba (Sisterhood of Love), a women's charitable society, built a school, hospital, and sanitarium, as well as a hostel for wayward girls in Damascus. In 1853, a Maronite women's society was founded in Bikfayya, and in 1857 a women's charitable society, Sayyidat al-Mahabba (Ladies of Love), was established in Beirut, as was a Jesuit-backed women's educational society in Zahle.Footnote ¹⁸ We also know that the early women graduates of the missionary schools, such as Rahil (Ata) al-Bustani (1823–94), and the daughters of prominent families who were educated privately at home, such as author Angelina Nawfal (d. 1865, mother of the leading nahḍa intellectual Niqula Nawfal), were avid readers of a variety of texts. It is more than possible that women such as these were among the readers of the early journals and newspapers.Footnote ¹⁹

The interest in women and their education was shared by men's cultural societies, which held several discussions pertaining to them. For example, in January 1849 Butrus al-Bustani (1819–83, founder of Al-Jinan and father of author Salim al-Bustani), who had a keen interest in women's issues and had long supported women's education, addressed a meeting of the Syrian Society for the Acquisition of Sciences (al-Jamʿiyya al-Suriyya li-Iktisab al-ʿUlum wa-l-Funun) concerning these issues. The society, which included such leading members of the Beirut intelligentsia as Mikhaʾil Mishaqa, Nasif al-Yaziji, and al-Bustani, often discussed matters pertaining to the progress of Arab society, and the members’ wives often participated in these cultural discussions and educational activities.Footnote ²⁰ In al-Bustani's lecture on “The Education of Woman,” he advocated providing women with a broad and solid education to enable them to carry out their marital, maternal, and domestic duties for the benefit of their family, society, and nation.Footnote ²¹

Another author associated with al-Bustani's group, Asʿad Yaʿqub al-Khayyat (b. 1811), also argued in favor of the liberation of women (taḥrīr al-marʾa) and stressed the need for their education in his 1847 travelogue, Sawt min Lubnan (Voice from Lebanon).Footnote ²² These two examples suggest that such ideas were circulating in Beirut society for several years (at the very least) before being expressed publicly in speeches and the media.

By 1858, female readership was significant enough for al-Khuri to address their overt challenge and to disown authorship of the anecdote, claiming that he only reprinted it from an English newspaper. Al-Khuri acknowledged that considerable pressure was exerted on the editorial staff regarding this item; he may have felt the need to set the record straight and therefore published the letter of the women of Tripoli. Al-Khuri, who was committed to female education, did concede in future issues the importance of his female readers, and many of his editorial choices were made with them in mind.Footnote ²³ He published translations of popular French works that dealt with women, for example, and works written by women. These included novels by Fanny Reybaud (1802–70)—such as Mademoiselle de Malepeire (1855), the sensationalist tale of a young, bourgeois woman disinherited by her family after her marriage to a farmer, whom she eventually murders—and by Gabrielle Anne Cisterne de Courtiras, Vicomtesse de Saint-Mars (“Countess Dash,” 1804–72), a member of Alexandre Dumas fils’ circle and the author of several best-selling historical romances and works concerning women, such as Le livre des femmes (1864), a witty guide to marriage. Al-Khuri also published pieces by journalist Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr (1808–90, later editor of Le Figaro).Footnote ²⁴ A year later, when al-Khuri was tempted to publish lengthy excerpts from Karr's Les femmes (1853), which contains disparaging comments about women, he refrained from doing so, citing explicitly his fear of female readers’ adverse reactions.Footnote ²⁵

These popular examples suggest that al-Khuri sensed that issues concerning women and marriage were of growing importance to his readers. Indeed, the main theme of al-Khuri's novella, Way . . . Idhan Lastu bi-Ifranji (Alas . . . I Am Not a Foreigner, 1859–61), the earliest known attempt at modern Arabic fiction, was marriage. The novella's protagonist, an Aleppo merchant affecting Western manners, wants to marry off his young, educated daughter to an imposter posing as a foreigner although she and her mother believe she should marry her Arab suitor. This novella anticipates a theme that eventually came to dominate Salim al-Bustani's social novels (serialized in the press) two decades later.

Like many other Arab writers and intellectuals of the nahḍa period, al-Khuri and al-Bustani distinguish between modernization and Westernization. The modernization of Arab society was not to be a mere imitation of the West but one in which selected ideas and institutions from the West would be used as a tool to advance their society. Al-Khuri's (and al-Bustani's) choice to work out this sociopolitical issue on gendered bodies suggests that the status of women both within and without marriage was a core issue requiring intense social consideration—and that both men and women were invested in the project even at this early stage.

In the following years, exchanges such as the one between al-Khuri and his female readers did not recur. Perhaps this lull was a byproduct of the civil war (1860–61) in Damascus and Mount Lebanon, which shifted attention to other, more pressing issues, but when the first issues of Al-Jinan appeared a decade later, a lively exchange between writers and readers on the woman question reemerged. Al-Jinan, the first Pan-Arabic publication, was founded by Butrus al-Bustani and circulated throughout Greater Syria, Iraq, and Egypt. American missionary Henry Harris Jessup claimed that the local circulation was about 1,500; it even reached subscribers in various European capitals. Al-Jinan published local and international news and commentary, articles, and original novels in Arabic as well as translations of French, Italian, and English fiction.Footnote ²⁶ From its inception, women and their lives were an issue for consideration and debate, and several women, including some of the more influential figures of the time, such as Adelaide (Idlid) al-Bustani and Maryana Fathallah Marrash (1838–1919, sister of Fransis Marrash),Footnote ²⁷ published their writing in the journal under their own names.

Much of the original Arabic fiction serialized in Al-Jinan has female protagonists and raises issues concerning marriage, female education, and the social role of women. The first volume includes a two-part novella by Adelaide al-Bustani (“Henry and Amelia”) as well as Jibraʾil Sadqah's article “On the Rights of Women,” in which he asserts the mental and physical equality of men and women. Sadqah views the two genders as complementary, likening them to different parts of the body: “Is it possible to argue that the hand is more important than the mouth?”Footnote ²⁸ Both the authors and Al-Jinan's second editor, Salim al-Bustani, were aware of the periodical's large female readership and often directly addressed it. Salim al-Bustani acknowledged its influence on his editorial decisions: “If we were not sure that these novels were read by a lot of (kathīrāt) women, we would not place them into the many issues that concern them.”Footnote ²⁹

In an 1871 article, Wastin Masarra of Alexandria, whose husband “permitted” her to read the journal, describes the great impact reading articles and stories written by women had on her.Footnote ³⁰ She is particularly impressed by an earlier article by the Aleppo-based author and poet Maryana Fathallah Marrash, “The Beauty Spots of the Garden.” Educated at home and in missionary schools, well-traveled Marrash was fluent in Arabic, French, and English and is known to have hosted an influential literary salon in her home during this period. In this elegant (almost poetic), richly textured article, Marrash defends her sex from the slurs of poets who, in her opinion, at times characterize women as cowardly and avaricious. Marrash challenges these assertions’ veracity and claims that it is women's inferior social position that inhibits them from cultivating nobler qualities. Rather than blindly imitate male qualities, she suggests, women should develop their own, such as high moral standards and knowledge.Footnote ³¹

Inspired by Marrash's example to expound her own views on female education, Masarra calls upon women readers to insist on their right to enter “the gardens of culture and knowledge” (al-ʿulūm al-adabiyya) as well as the sciences, despite possible male discouragement. This knowledge, she contends, will enable them to improve men, better raise their children, and thereby gain men's respect and love. Masarra's explicit appeal to her female readers is significant: many writers, and all of the women writers in Al-Jinan, display awareness of their growing female readership and directly appeal to them, alternately cajoling, reasoning with, and berating them to take a more active stance concerning their life choices, from education (their own and their children's) to marriage to family life.

It is useful to compare the views of Maryana Marrash and Wastin Masarra with those of poet Fransis Marrash (1837–73),Footnote ³² who speaks in favor of women's education but with a kind of wariness, even an anxious tone. In “The Woman between Barbarity and Civilization,” the first of two articles, he argues that the best way to lead a woman to civilization is to educate her, for “the woman is the sole source from which springs human life; she is the source of education, morals and manners.”Footnote ³³ In his second article, “On Female Education,” Marrash elaborates on the kind of knowledge a woman should be exposed to: reading, writing, arithmetic, geography, grammar, and domestic arts. Because he believes that man was created before woman, just as “the source is created before that which is derived from it,” she is therefore intended to be his helpmeet. He argues accordingly that woman's education should focus on “that which is helpful to man.” Echoing Rousseau, Marrash claims that “there is no need for woman to delve into the sciences,” because it will entail not only losing her femininity but also “even position[ing] herself above man.”Footnote ³⁴

Farida Shakkur, writing two years later, embraces a female education program similar to Fransis Marrash's, stressing that “our weakness (ḍaʿfunā) is ignorance, which causes men to belittle us.” Contrary to Marrash, she stresses that men and women possess equal intellectual abilities and insists that women could contribute to the general progress of society as well as to the welfare of their families. Shakkur explicitly notes her reluctance to enter into this debate on female education but was emboldened (jasārī) to do so by the thought that her example would encourage other young women to express their views. Given her acknowledgement of Al-Jinan's large female readership, this comment suggests that the women who weighed in on this early debate were well aware of their function as role models for a future generation of women writers.Footnote ³⁵

Later male intellectuals, such as Salim al-Bustani, Salim Kassab, and Wadiʿ al-Khuri, were less wary than Fransis Marrash and proposed an additional role for their female readers, suggesting that their education (and involvement in that of their children) and their household management would prove of great service to the nation, which “expects them to do so and will reward their endeavors.”Footnote ³⁶ In an address to the graduates of an American missionary school for girls (published later in Al-Jinan), Kassab argues that both sexes have a complementary role to play in human society.Footnote ³⁷ He believes that the status of women reflects the state of the homeland (waṭan) and their advancement benefits the country (maṣlaḥat al-bilād).Footnote ³⁸ Because he views the family as the most important “link” (al-ṭalaqa) in the “chain” (silsila) of the nation, women are accorded a special role as “the educators of the [next] generation and its progenitors [wālidāt al-jīl].” If women are ignorant and superstitious, their sons will be so, but if they are educated and knowledgeable, the homeland (waṭan) and its sons (abnāʾuhu) will be so too.Footnote ³⁹

THE WOMAN QUESTION MEETS MODERN SCIENCE

Soon after Al-Jinan first appeared, two other journals, Al-Muqtataf and Thamarat al-Funun, surfaced almost concurrently in Beirut, and once again the debate concerning women attracted significant attention. Al-Muqtataf (The Gleaning) was a monthly journal devoted to the advancement of the arts and sciences founded in 1876 by Yaʿqub Sarruf (1852–1927) and Faris Nimr (1857–1951), both graduates of (and instructors at) the American Syrian Protestant College. In 1884, the editors and journal manager Shahin Makariyus left Beirut for Egypt, where they continued publishing the journal. It usually featured a few original articles written in Arabic and summaries of proceedings of scientific societies as well as summaries, selections, and translations of scientific news and articles and book reviews selected from a variety of journals such as Scientific American, Science, the Nineteenth Century, and the Times.Footnote ⁴⁰

Although several women (including Yaqut Sarruf and Maryam Nimr Makariyus) had previously published scientific articles in the journal, the first article concerning women appeared in 1882. During the next few years the journal published several more on women's education, their role in children's education, and women and the medical profession, as well as summaries of lectures on dress and fashion and biographical sketches (such as those of Madame Roland and Madame de Staël) written by readers using pseudonyms and by well-known intellectuals such as Salim al-Bustani, Wadiʿ al-Khuri, and Yaqut Sarruf. These articles—replete with intertextual references to the work of classical and Arab historians (such as Herodotus, Xenophon, ʿAli ibn al-Athir, and Abu al-Fidaʾ), discussions of and allusions to notable women (such as Catherine the Great and philosopher Catherine Trotter Cockburn), more modern thinkers (Descartes, Pascal, John Stuart Mill, Mary Wollstonecraft, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and François Xavier Joseph Droz), and articles published in other journals (such as Al-Jinan and Lisan al-Hal)—demonstrate that a lively community of readers read, contemplated, debated, and wrote on various aspects of the woman question.

This phase differs from the previous one by the overt references to the texts that shaped the authors’ thinking. Although we could discern the influence of American anthropologist Lewis Henry Morgan in Fransis Marrash's work or hear the echoes of the notion of the “republican mother” in al-Bustani's and Kassab's writings, rarely were such works cited explicitly, as they were from this point onward.Footnote ⁴¹ A brief glance at the works cited and the examples of “women worthies” brought forth to bolster arguments suggests that these 1880s authors (as well as many of their readers) were highly conversant with the work of the leading thinkers of their age, sharing an in-depth knowledge of both Arabic and European literary and historical texts.

Not of all the articles were celebratory in tone, however. In 1883, Shams Shahada of Zahle wrote a piece berating members of her sex for their indifference and failure to work hard enough to propel women further. Men alone do not hold women back, she declares; it is women who settle for very little.Footnote ⁴² Citing earlier articles by Salma Tannus and Maryam Jurji Ilyan as well as pieces by Yaʿqub Sarruf and Salim al-Bustani, which call for women's education as a way of ameliorating their status, Shahada argues that women have failed to take the path set out for them by these writers but instead have satisfied themselves with trifles:

She asserts that if one mistakes superficial mannerisms (such as the privilege of sipping one's coffee or entering a room before a man) for women's rights, one does not comprehend the truths of natural progress, which require women to exert themselves and work hard, relying only on themselves and God. It is important to note that Shahada was among a small but significant group of women and men (such as Hannih Yanni of Tripoli, Amin Abu Khater of Zahle, and later Maryam Khalid of Deir al-Qamar, in Mount Lebanon) who lived outside Beirut, yet they too were drawn into the debate on women, establishing that this discussion had permeated well into the periphery.Footnote ⁴⁴

Many of Al-Muqtataf's biographical articles on notable women are polemical and serve as an opening for the author to develop the case in favor of women's education and rights. In 1885 Maryam Makariyus (1860–88) published a short piece on al-Khansaʾ, the 7th-century poet on whose life she had lectured previously to the female literary society Bakurat Suriya. Here she does not just criticize biographers’ practice of ignoring the role al-Khansaʾ's mother played in her education, but she also complains that contrary to Europe, where the life of such a woman would garner great interest, “we will lay such jewels [jawāhir] aside.” Given the important role Makariyus's mother played in her upbringing, her emphasis on and sensitivity to other mothers’ impact on the intellectual lives of their daughters is perhaps unsurprising. Makariyus also reemphasizes to her readers, women in particular, the importance of reading as a way to build a moral character and gain useful knowledge of the world. In accordance, she suggests that her readers peruse edifying texts, such as those on the lives of notable women, and not just entertaining ones, such as novels.Footnote ⁴⁵

The voices of men, who were more critical of women's quest for equality, are not absent from the pages of Al-Muqtataf. In 1886, Amin Abu Khatir of Zahle, who presented himself as a proponent of women's rights, argues that while women's demands for equality have increased, they have neglected many of their domestic duties and have not demonstrated their ability to exercise restraint (especially when spending money on frivolities). He admits that a few exceptional women have combined new rights with older duties; however, “it would be incorrect to reach a decision for all women based on their example.”Footnote ⁴⁶

In the same year, in a debate on women's rights (ḥuqūq al-nisāʾ) between Najib Antunyus of Alexandria and Wadiʿ al-Khuri of Beirut, Antunyus stresses women's supposed “limited energies.” In an earlier issue, al-Khuri argues in favor of greater equality for women, citing in particular their mental and intellectual prowess through examples of women rulers in ancient Egypt and in France and pointing out that some modern nations recognized this by granting women the right to vote in municipal elections (in Britain) and state elections (in the western United States). Antunyus contradicts him, arguing that because women's physiological makeup differs from that of men, full equality will never be achieved. He maintains that girls’ mental powers cannot equal boys’; if and when they do, surely the girls’ bodies will be weak and disease prone. He concludes that all those who tell women that they can equal men and permit them to step out of the home will live to see both home and human society in ruins. Antunyus echoes the views of several prominent European and American physicians of the 1870s who insisted that biological differences dictated differences in male/female behavior and social roles. Arguing that females possessed only a limited amount of energy, these doctors claimed that diverting energy away from reproduction to other activities (especially intellectual ones) would ruin their health and perhaps even lead to sterility.Footnote ⁴⁷

This trend toward using scientific (or pseudoscientific) arguments, especially biological and genetic ones, grew over time. In 1887 Shibli Shumayil (1850–1917) argued in favor of male physical and intellectual superiority by drawing heavily on his medical training and on the work of European and American thinkers and scientists, such as mathematician and sociologist Adolphe Quételet (1796–1874), anthropologist and geneticist Francis Galton (1822–1911), and psychologist and sociologist Gustave Le Bon (1841–1931), whose findings were used extensively in conjunction with the work of Charles Darwin and Herbert Spencer in discussions concerning women's education and political rights.Footnote ⁴⁸ Shumayil asserts that within the human species, sexual dimorphism is at its greatest: as a species advances or a nation becomes more civilized, males gain precedence over females. He enumerates males’ “superior” physical and intellectual attributes, arguing that women's “weaker” bodies and “slower” mental cognition result in their more devious and cunning nature and their ability to use only the “weapons of the weak” (silāḥ al-ḍaʿīf). Although women rulers had appeared in less advanced societies, even there they inherited the throne, Shumayil claims, rather than ascended to it due to their leadership skills or intellectual qualities. In any case, this phenomenon had no bearing on the status of ordinary women. He situates himself opposite those who call for the equality of the sexes and argues that the gender differences result from different educations and physical activities. Shumayil suggests that rather than denigrate woman as Schopenhauer does or extol her à la Diderot, “we need to situate her in her true place, as an important member of human society, who follows after man and his development and helps him, and this will regulate the human family.”Footnote ⁴⁹

Women responded quickly to Shumayil. Appearing together in later issues under the general title “Difaʿ al-Nisaʾ ʿan al-Nisaʾ” (The Defense of Women by Women), four responses point to the widespread reverberations of this debate. Although she politely acknowledges Shumayil's status and reputation, M.A.Y. of Damascus expresses reservations concerning his overall argument. She objects to his comparison between women and lower species of animals and reiterates that women have to receive an education, which will build up their bodies and minds. She insists that even if a woman may not equal a man in physical strength, she will surely be able to exceed him in knowledge and morals.Footnote ⁵⁰ Rahil Hajjar of Cairo criticizes the validity of Shumayil's biological argumentation, stressing that the “facts” that Shumayil brought to corroborate his case could be interpreted otherwise or were merely opinions. In her closing remarks Hajjar hints that this debate has attracted wider public attention: “I hope that it is indeed true, as some people have reported, that he has retracted some of his views.”Footnote ⁵¹

Third respondent Maryam Makariyus is far more emphatic in her objections, perhaps confident in her cultural status as a leading intellectual figure both in Greater Syria and Egypt. Although she, too, pays nodding respect to Shumayil, she stresses that men of his stature should be even more careful with their words. Finding his article disrespectful and even insulting to women, Makariyus claims Shumayil conflates “what is” with “what is good.” Demonstrating a strong working knowledge of medical, biological, and anthropological studies claiming to establish women's inferiority through scientific and quantitative means, Makariyus expresses her “wonder” that findings of differences between the sexes are always interpreted as favoring men; she calls these interpretations mere opinions, not facts.Footnote ⁵²

Maryam Matar of Cairo adopts an even more forceful tone. Laying niceties aside, she demands, “I want someone to tell me what made Shibli Shumayil attack us?” Noting Shumayil's disregard of women's work in their “little kingdoms,” she shifts the burden of proof on to men, pointing out that although women are quite capable of doing the same work as men, men cannot claim to exhibit the same proficiency in women's work.Footnote ⁵³

In a later issue Khalil Saʿd of Cairo joins in, and as the title of his piece indicates, he positions himself firmly on the side of Shumayil's biological arguments, although he does concede that woman is a nobler creature than man.Footnote ⁵⁴ Shumayil feels compelled to rebut the “ladies” challenging him. He adamantly maintains that the two sexes are different and equality between the two impossible. Although admitting that education has an impact on women's status, he insists that women have other duties. He likens any project designed to promote equality of the sexes to an attempt to equate the body's parts despite their inherently different functions. Analogizing between the human body and human society, Shumayil insists that each sex plays a vital role in human society. Woman's “natural place,” however, is that of man's helpmate.Footnote ⁵⁵

The debate initiated by Shumayil culminated a gradual process during which traditional modes of argumentation and justification based on philosophy and religion made way for more secular and scientific arguments, a shift that paralleled similar changes in Europe and America. Articles concerning women's education and their role in society appeared sporadically throughout the 1890s in Al-Muqtataf; the main thrust of the debate, however, seems to have shifted to the numerous women's journals (such as Al-Fatat and Anis al-Jalis)Footnote ⁵⁶ that appeared in the 1890s and to Al-Hilal (The Crescent), founded by yet another Syrian émigré, author and novelist Jurji Zaydan (1861–1914).Footnote ⁵⁷

In 1894, for example, an argument regarding the capabilities and rights of women erupted among readers of Al-Hilal—one that bears a striking similarity to the debate in Al-Muqtataf almost a decade earlier both in favor of and against women's rights. The debate was sparked by an op-ed piece sent by Zaki M. of Istanbul, who expresses surprise that no one had yet responded to an earlier reader's question, “Should women demand all the rights of men?” Zaki claims that the more appropriate question is whether women have the ability and skills to do so. Citing bedouin and Spartan women's physical strength, the intellectual prowess of famous queens and women philosophers, and the achievements of contemporary women in Europe and the United States with degrees in law and medicine, he asserts that women have clearly demonstrated both their skills and intellectual abilities and therefore can demand “all the rights of men.”Footnote ⁵⁸

Zaki's piece immediately drew numerous reader responses (including in other journals) in a drawn-out exchange, with Dr. Amin al-Khuri (of Damyat) arguing the case against women and Jirjis Ilyas al-Khuri (of Tripoli), Bahiyya (of Alexandria), Maram Antaki (of Aleppo), Istir al-Azhari, Jabir Dumit, and two anonymous women (all of Beirut) arguing in favor of women.Footnote ⁵⁹ This debate resurrected many arguments found earlier in Al-Muqtataf. Al-Khuri brings forth numerous biological and evolutionary studies and revives many pseudoscientific arguments to bolster his case against women's educationFootnote ⁶⁰ while the others adopt the discourse of rights to elaborate on the virtues of the educated woman and her contribution to home and society.Footnote ⁶¹ When the debate showed no signs of abating after an entire year, the editors stepped in and terminated it.

Before we turn back to the debate itself, let us focus again on the glimpses of the “community of discourse” surrounding these journals and newspapers. Yaqut Sarruf's brief obituary of Nasra Ilyas of Tripoli (1862–88), for example, provides a rare insight into the working of one such community, a circle of female intellectuals (and friends), writers for and readers of these journals. Sarruf (d. 1937) states that after relocating to Egypt in 1885 with her friends Maryam Makariyus and Nasra Ilyas, the three women lived near each other and met regularly to talk about such issues as the “condition of the woman in the East” and the importance of women's education, as well as to discuss new books and newspaper and journal articles.Footnote ⁶²

Such regular meetings, both single sex and mixed company, also took place in Beirut. ʿAnbara Salam al-Khalidi (1897–1986), a writer and feminist from a distinguished Sunni-Muslim Beirut family, tells in her memoirs that in her grandparents’ home (the al-Barbirs) in the 1860s and 1870s a weekly, mixed-company gathering read and discussed the news and articles published in “the journals of the Bustanis [such as Al-Jinan] and the Qabbanis [Thamarat al-Funun].”Footnote ⁶³ Sisters and authors Anisa (1883–1906) and ʿAfifa Shartuni (1886–1906) also reported many such gatherings where, following the appearance of newspaper articles on the subject, the issue of women's equality, including political equality, was fiercely debated.Footnote ⁶⁴

During these years several important books on women's issues, such as those by ʿAʾisha Taymur (1840–1902) and princess Nazli Hanim (granddaughter of Ibrahim Pasha), were published. Readers also attended or read reports of speeches on the woman question before literary and charitable societies, such as that of ʿAmir Amin Arslan in 1892.Footnote ⁶⁵ Readers also learned of the organized struggle for women's suffrage elsewhere. In 1899 Yaqut Sarruf, a member of the International Council of Women, spoke at the organization's annual meeting and reported to her readers about the address of President Ishbel Hamilton-Gordon (1857–1939) and American educator and suffragist May Wright Sewell (1844–1920) describing the advances in women's political equality in the United States.Footnote ⁶⁶

These journals and writers did not always look to European or American writers and thinkers for inspiration. In 1899 Al-Muqtataf ran a two-part article, “The Woman in Islam,” by the liberal Indian-Muslim jurist and politician Syed Ameer ʿAli (1849–1928), whose work fit in with the general tone of the pro-women discourse in Greater Syria and Egypt. ʿAli was a strong proponent of equal education for men and women. Drawing heavily upon the example of early and medieval Muslim women teachers, rulers, diplomats, intermediaries, and innovators, ʿAli establishes that women can carry out all these activities in keeping with the Prophet's teachings.Footnote ⁶⁷ These issues, such as the progressive education appropriate for Muslim women and their role in society, most interested the readers and writers of the last of the journal under consideration, Thamarat al-Funun (Fruits of Knowledge).

FROM EQUALITY IN DIFFERENCE TO WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE

The driving force behind Thamarat al-Funun (1875–1908) was ʿAbd al-Qadir al-Qabbani (1847–1935), a well-established scion of a wealthy Beiruti-Muslim family. Al-Qabbani had studied in al-Bustani's al-Madrasa al-Wataniyya. Later, with other Muslim notables, he established a philanthropic society (al-Maqasid al-Khayriyya) that promoted education among Muslims; they founded elementary schools for boys and girls and in 1875 began Thamarat al-Funun, which enjoyed a large Muslim readership.Footnote ⁶⁸

In 1875, Beiruti-born author Maryam Nahhas (Nawfal) (1856–88) chose this forum to announce her forthcoming book, Mithal li-Kitab Maʿrid al-Hasnaʾ fi Tarajim Mashahir al-Nisaʾ (The Fine Woman's Exhibition of Biographies of Famous Women, 1879).Footnote ⁶⁹ Even in this relatively short notice, intended to find subscribers for her book, Nahhas expounds upon her views on the condition of women. “After I saw the condition of my [female] compatriots [banāt waṭanī], who are not interested in progress, I decided to advance them on this matter. I decided to write a dictionary.” Nahhas compiled and wrote biographies of Arab and Persian women renowned for their knowledge and courage.Footnote ⁷⁰ Nahhas's notice is the sole reference to the women question in Thamarat al-Funun for the following fifteen years, but once the debate began in the early 1890s, it did not abate.Footnote ⁷¹

Several characteristics distinguish the debate in Thamarat al-Funun from the discussion in other journals. First, readers were absent: the editor and the (mostly unidentified) writers in the journal do the talking, although at times they respond to articles and debates in other journals. Perhaps, as one of the few Beirut-based journals, it was wary of stirring a more widespread (and perhaps uncontrollable) debate that would draw the attention of the ever-vigilant Ottoman censor. Second, the discussion about women is embedded within a larger, general debate on the family, the modern Muslim family in particular. Hence, one does not find an abundance of specific writings on women's education, rights, and activities but instead a variety of articles on breastfeeding, child nurses, and women's fashions, within which are inserted views and comments about women and their social roles. An in-depth reading of the issues of Thamarat al-Funun from the last decade of the 19th century indicates that its writers view the family, rather than the individual, as the basic sociopolitical unit. These intellectuals do not conceive of women (or men for that matter) as individuals distinct from their instrumental, relational, and sexually discrete social roles.

An example of how such general articles in Thamarat al-Funun led to comments on women can be found in “Marriage and the Birthrate in Europe,” which outlines the “breakdown” of the modern family due to men's and women's interests outside the home. The author notes similar developments occurring in Arab society, “especially among Christian families”; therefore, the sons and “daughters of the East” (banāt al-sharq) should hold on to their marriages come what may.Footnote ⁷² These kinds of comments resurface throughout the debate on women in Thamarat al-Funun, where suggested reform measures concerning women are unfavorably compared to what Arab women already have.

Another such commentary is found in the 1893–94 issues. An earlier report about dress reform at the Chicago World's Fair was reprinted from Kawkab Amrika (Star of America).Footnote ⁷³ The report notes that several American women viewed the corset as harmful to women and their health and were advocating a looser outfit for women, one that closely resembled “the dress of Eastern women” (malābis al-sharqiyāt). The later report (also reprinted from Kawkab Amrika) concerns a group of suffragists who wore “the Bloomer costume” in public in Topeka. The editor of Thamarat al-Funun commented briefly: “This is the proof for some of our women that our original dress was sensible.”Footnote ⁷⁴ This wary tone, suggesting that Arab women should examine cautiously imports from the West (dress or behaviors) and that seemingly novel ideas could already be found in Arab and/or Muslim cultures, echoes throughout the debate on dress reform in the press. In 1896, for example, an article on the corset in Al-Hilal details and illustrates its debilitating effects on the body's internal organs; the author comments that “it is strange that with us it [the corset] has been adopted by educated women, and even though they understand its harm, they continue to use and admire it.”Footnote ⁷⁵

One of the most important thinkers receiving significant attention in Thamarat al-Funun was French dramatist and essayist Ernest Wilfred Legouvé (1807–1903), a highly influential writer on the woman question. His major work, Histoire morale des femmes (1849), was later translated into several other European languages and had a strong influence on Norwegian and German feminists. The Thamarat articles refer to a later, abbreviated version, La question des femmes (1881). Legouvé argues in favor of “equality in difference” and “called for women's emancipation in the name of the very principles reclaimed for subjugation by its adversaries—tradition and sexual difference.” Legouvé grounds his call for emancipation on women's differences from men and on their social role as mothers. By insisting on linking the two sexes through the institution of marriage, he lays to rest the fear of the sexual emancipation of women.Footnote ⁷⁶ Perhaps more important, Legouvé does not reject the important role of religion in family life, in particular in the lives of women and children. Given its insistence on sexual difference and complementarity between males and females, the need for restructuring the family, moral motherhood, and in particular the distancing from sexual emancipation, French feminist thought, such as Ernest Legouvé’s, was very appealing to many Arab thinkers and readers of the nahḍa period.

Throughout 1899–1900, Thamarat ran a thirteen-part article that included translated excepts of Legouvé's work, preceded by an introduction by ʿAbd al-Basit Fathallah, who compared Legouvé's views and demands to the status of Muslim women under shariʿa.Footnote ⁷⁷ Fathallah argues that in many instances Muslim women enjoy a much higher status than their European counterparts; for instance, married Muslim women are not required to turn over their earnings to their family. He concludes that returning to the basic teachings of Islam will only increase human happiness, because “there is no need to imitate the West and its women.”Footnote ⁷⁸ Although Fathallah concedes that women play an important role in the happiness and development of the nation, he cautions against excess and stresses that the advancement of women (which he favored) should follow shariʿa.Footnote ⁷⁹

Three years earlier, an anonymous Muslim intellectual writing in Al-Hilal made the same argument. The author claims that the contemporary young, educated woman is able to join in conversations on culture and science because she understands cause and effect; a reader of books and newspapers, she develops her mind cognizant of her rights and duties. She is a source of happiness to her husband, bringing wisdom and light to her family. However, he cautions, there are women who exceed this role: “How should we react to this, as it happens in the homes of the most respected people?” The author suggests that because each culture and society has its own customs and pace of development, one should not try and imitate another.Footnote ⁸⁰

This fear that Arab women might imitate the forward and improper behavior of foreign women also seeps into the writing of another reader, Wadiʿ Abu Raziq of Melbourne, Australia, who wrote an op-ed piece for Al-Muqtataf in 1896 reporting on a public meeting in Melbourne in which women demanded suffrage. Abu Raziq not only mocks this demand as contrary to nature, but he also compares women to Russian nihilists in the destabilizing effect they would have on society.Footnote ⁸¹ Although there is nothing particularly unusual in the style and content of this piece, the response to it certainly was: it provoked one of the earliest demands for female suffrage in the mainstream nahḍa press.

An anonymous author, styling herself “one of the readers,” launched an attack on Abu Raziq. Not content with a defense of her sex, she demands women's political rights and articulates a strong pacifist worldview. She outlines her vision of a world in which women participate in public life, where peace reigns, where government is free of corruption and vice, and where money saved can combat poverty. In making her case, she taunts Abu Raziq: what is the proof that the “natural order” prevents women from exerting themselves in public life? Compared to the exertion at home at even the easiest of domestic chores, “what woman cannot write her name on a note and place it in a ballot box [ṣundūq al-intikhāb] every two or three years?”Footnote ⁸²