TURKISH WOMEN AWAKEN.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXX, Issue 3467, 6 March 1912, Page 8

TURKISH WOMEN AWAKEN.

WHAT THE KORAN AIMED AT.

. Nothing in the world to-day i.s more rignificant than the attempt to liberate th© women of Turkey. Thousands of the finest men of Turkey, gentle and simple alike, are trying to break dic-wn the ancient prejudices which confine women to the seclusion of their home;.. The .cultivation and chafm of many Turkish women has been to-d more tuan onoe by M. Pierre Loti. Behind. the lattices the women read tie most advanced naves, works of sociology, the latest poetry, and discuss the world. But their lives at best, and under the kindest of husband's and fathers, lack vitality. It is true that for many years there has been a reaction among the best families,of Turkey in favor of a larger liberty for Women, but at every hand the Koran, with its texts forbidding the participation of women in a free life, has confronted these advanced thinkers, and made progress impossible. _ Now it appears that new interpretations are being put upon the precepts of Mohammed. Scholars, both masculine and feminine, are finding historical explanations for Mohammed’s views in regard to women, and are discovering texts which, indicate that under favorable conditions lie placed men and women upon the, same footing. Hie sequestration of women, we /are now told, arose from a. desire, to protect them from the, brutality of men rather than from a wish to militate against them. The assistance given by Tu 'lrish ladies to the cause rsf the revolutionists in the recent overthrow of Sultan Abdul Hamid has had a strong effect upon the “young” patriots. The sale of ornaments, the hiding of dangerous documents. and the verbal encouragement given by the women to their husbands and sons, are not easily forgotten by these Orientals, who are awakening to a new and more liberal . outlook upon life.

The spirit in Persia and in India is the same. All over India the Moslems are sending their daughters to school and educating them; and a number of talented Indian women are taking partin journalism and in educational life, and are making propaganda for their sex. The mioist passionate patriots of “young Turkey” realise that the}’ cannot found a strong constitutional government upon a.society which sees onehalf of its members sequestered, and practically enslaved.