Page:The young Moslem looks at life (1937).djvu/100

 86 with you in our meeting will give encouragement to some of the timid members of our group."

On the appointed day we took our way through the narrow streets of that Oriental city, whose houses with their high, blank, unwindowed walls facing the public roads were substantial brick and mortar witnesses to that blighting custom of secluding women that for centuries has prevailed through the world of Islam. Back of the custom, of course, lies the rationalizing idea that the modesty and protection of women require it. But through the course of centuries it has worked such havoc with the home and family life of the Moslems, and particularly with the women, by keeping them in a state of virtual imprisonment, that it is not surprising that the younger generation of both men and women are beginning to rebel and to seek for some respectable way of escape from the absurd requirements of a seventh century religious law, which now stands in the way of progress in these modern times. Little wonder that Sayyid Ibrahim, B.A., LL.B., and his young friends were making every effort to break through their orthodox Moslem society, or evade its conventions, so that they might establish their families in houses where the doors and windows would be open on all sides to admit the fresh air and the health-giving, purifying sunlight; where their wives and their children might know the joy of a normal mingling of the sexes in proper social