Al-Ahram : Diwan of contemporary life (544)

Two of a kind

The debt owed by civilisation to women was a topic once grappled by Taha Hussein and Mai Ziyadeh, two of Egypt's literary giants. The good-natured spar over the issue included the apple Eve ate and why man should thank women for walking upright. Professor Yunan Labib Rizk presents both sides of the eternal argument

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Mai Ziyadeh would have been a household name to readers of Al-Ahram and other Egyptian newspapers had she done nothing save give her famed lectures at the American University in Cairo (AUC). These lectures, especially those on the already sensitive issue of the status and conditions of women in Egypt and the Middle East in general, tended to stir considerable controversy, sometimes escalating to full- scale battle. One instance of note is the lecture she gave on Friday 16 March 1934 because on this occasion she provoked a response from another literary figure who was also a household name, the famous writer Taha Hussein. Battle, however, is too strong a word for the exchange that took place on this occasion; intellectual "sport" would perhaps be more appropriate.

Before proceeding, a word on the AUC lecturer is in order. Mary Elias Ziyadeh, as was her original name, was born in Lebanon and immigrated to Egypt with her father who founded Al-Mahrousa. That she worked with her father in the publication of this newspaper earned her an introduction into the royal court. A noted writer and social commentator in her own right, she became famous for her Tuesday evening literary salons which were attended by many intellectual luminaries of her day such as Abbas Mahmoud El-Aqqad. By the early 1930s, Mai Ziyadeh had eight highly acclaimed publications to her name, which is why the press frequently solicited her contributions. In fact, Al-Ahram even attempted to lure her on to its staff, an attempt that failed, for apparently the "gifted young woman," as the newspaper describes her, preferred to remain free as a bird, alighting on its pages whenever she chose.

If Al-Ahram succeeded in luring her to its pages from time to time, nothing could deter it from covering her AUC lectures. These, after all, were open to the public and, moreover, attracted large audiences. According to an Al- Ahram correspondent who had been present at one of the lectures Mai Ziyadeh spoke on a diversity of issues of widespread concern. Among here pet subjects, in addition to the status of women, were East-West relations and the preservation of historic monuments and Islamic antiquities in particular. Not only were audiences drawn by the prospect of her idiosyncratic, and often contentious, views, but also by the responses these would elicit from her audiences.

Al-Ahram readers, thus, had grown accustomed to opening their newspapers to find on a fairly regular basis a headline announcing a lecture she had delivered in AUC's Ewart Memorial Hall the previous day. What they had not anticipated, perhaps, was the exchange she would trigger from the lecture in March 1934 on "Civilisation's debt to women."

Throughout history, Ziyadeh claimed, women suffered a disadvantage, because of the "notorious negotiations" that took place at the beginning of creation between Satan in the guise of a serpent and Eve over an apple. "To this apple we trace all the evils in the world and because of it man was expelled from paradise," she said, adding, "Were it not for this forbidden fruit, human beings would not have been condemned to pain and suffering. But also, were it not for this forbidden fruit mankind would not have forged his way up the ladder of civilisation, which entails a constant struggle against barbarism. The conclusion, therefore, is obvious: civilisation originated with Eve's apple."

Ziyadeh rejected the notion of multiple civilisations with different origins. She conceived of civilisation as a single entity that originated at a specific point in history and then evolved and spread around the world "age after age, with different peoples adopting those aspects of it that best conformed to their needs and environment." She continues, "The procession of civilisation has been all-encompassing. All peoples have contributed, whether positively or negatively, century after century, in accordance with their intelligence, drive and talents."

On the basis of this concept, which Ziyadeh takes as axiomatic, she goes on to enumerate women's contributions to civilisation and, simultaneously, to refute claims that men consider axiomatic. For example, she says, "Men, may God forgive them for their many sins, hold that civilisation is that edifice constructed of governing systems, laws, agriculture, industry, tools and machinery, sciences, art and literature. Where is the hand of woman in all this? they ask. It is men who invent and produce and continue to invent and produce. And it is women who use and consume what they invent and produce. Why should the user and consumer get any credit?"

Her answer: "The user/consumer, gentlemen, is vital for it is he who keeps the producer in business, inspires creativity and fuels trade, industry and growth. If this were the only credit due to women, civilisation would already be greatly indebted."

She also says, "Men hold -- correctly -- that civilisation in its higher sense is founded on valour, morals and religion. But, they ask, what is woman's contribution to this world of valour, morals and religion?"

In answer to this question Ziyadeh maintains that an example from each of the divinely revealed religions should be sufficient to ensure eternal honour for womankind. Were it not for the "Pharaoh's daughter," she said, the infant Moses would not have been rescued from the Nile, and had he not thrived under her care he would not have grown up to become the prophet who saw the face of God and brought down to his people the Ten Commandments. Jesus, at the moment of his most extreme suffering and humiliation, had been abandoned by all but three of his friends and disciples. One of these was John the Baptist. The other two were women: his mother Mary and his disciple Mary Magdalene. Finally, it was a woman -- the wife of the Prophet Mohamed -- who was one of the first persons to believe in the message of the Prophet, who, in response, paid lasting tribute to women.

In addition to the foregoing, women sustained a long and unacknowledged burden throughout the history of human evolution. "Going back in time to when the earth was still in its prime and primordial man like other animals walked on all fours, we find, as scientists have discovered, that the debilitation and pain that women sustain upon childbirth was the painful price that nature exacted for the genus of man to make the transition to a two-legged creature with an upright posture, thus freeing his hands." She suggests that a woman had to free her hands in order to gather food for her offspring and that the upright posture needed for this became an evolutionary necessity.

Later in the course of human evolution, it was women who made it possible to make the transition from nomadic to sedentary life. While men were out hunting or waging war, "women would till the earth, sew the seeds, carve the pegs for the tents, set up the home and create domestic utensils from clay." She then asks her audience, "Do you not perceive in all of this the initial attempts to establish the principles of agriculture, crafts, trade, construction, urban planning and other such industries, sciences and arts?"

Drawing her lecture to a poignant close, the "talented young woman" reminds her audience of the ancient Egyptian myth of Osiris and Isis. Egyptians are indebted for their very life to Isis whose copious tears created the Nile.

One imagines that Al-Ahram readers who set aside their newspapers after reading "Civilisation's debt to women" had expected the subject to end there. But then little could they have known that among those present in the audience that day was Taha Hussein who decided to issue a response. This appeared several days later in Al- Risala, under the headline "Miss Mai's Lecture."

The "Dean of Arabic Literature," as Taha Hussein was dubbed, opens his reply by asking whether Ziyadeh, in her lecture, had wanted to persuade her audience of civilisation's debt to womankind or whether she had actually intended to "sew the seeds of doubt" about this debt. In his opinion, the credit went to neither man nor woman. Rather, civilisation created itself and civilisation is what made man and woman what they are today, what endowed them with the pleasures they both enjoy and the pains they both suffer. Moreover, the joys and sufferings are what inspire mankind's literary and artistic marvels and what stir the higher virtues, the spirit of human dignity and the hope for a better future.

Following this brief introduction, Taha Hussein takes Ziyadeh's points in turn, beginning with that notorious apple. Were it not for the apple, he argues, Adam and Eve would not have been expelled from paradise. "Had they not been expelled from paradise they would not have descended to earth. Had they not descended to earth they would not have worked the earth, and had they not worked the earth civilisation would not have arisen. Thus, civilisation is a legacy from Eve, for had she not eaten from the forbidden fruit she would not have brought upon herself and her husband that punishment." So far, Taha Hussein seems to be in accord with Ziyadeh; however he continues: "Yes, we men have been forced into civilisation because of Eve's sin. However, curiously enough, Eve was not the only one to eat the apple. He shared it with her. In fact, most likely, they split the fruit in half. Civilisation, therefore, would appear to be the legacy of Eve and Adam together."

But Taha Hussein takes the logic of Mai Ziyadeh's original sin argument further. He writes: "If our mother Eve had heeded the command of God rather than that of Satan she would have safeguarded us from evil and kept us from sin. She would have obviated all forms of trespass and transgression, wrongdoing and injustice, and treachery and corruption. Eve did us no favour by fostering civilisation. Indeed, when has obedience to Satan ever brought good? Nevertheless, we men love justice, exhort mercy and loathe tyranny. We, therefore, do not want women to shoulder sole blame for this civilisation and to suffer the hardships and evils alone. After all, since we have admitted that Eve did not eat the apple by herself, we, too, are responsible for these hardships and evils. In fact, had she eaten the apple by herself, she would have been expelled from paradise and descended to earth on her own. In such a case, she would not have been able to work and produce, for woman needs man in order to do good as well as evil. Eve had not existed alone in paradise before the sin nor alone on earth after the sin."

Taha Hussein was more generous yet in his argument: "Adam preceded Eve into existence and although she was created from him, she concealed from him that weakness that would make the apple irresistible and drive her to commit the original sin and, hence, to initiate the building of civilisation." Adam, therefore, was not only jointly responsible for this, having also partaken of the apple, but it would seem that he was slightly more culpable than Eve, not being prone to the same weakness. At the same time, it was Eve who "has alleviated the burdens of this sin, made them more tolerable and helped us sustain the distress and adversity civilisation exacts from us every day. Is this not preferable to having been the first to found civilisation, more admirable than that desire for superiority women are exhibiting these days?"

Taha Hussein turns next to Mai Ziyadeh's assertion that mankind is indebted to women for their upright posture. He confessed that he is not very familiar with the theories of human evolution. Even so, there were certain points in Ziyadeh's argument that confused him. He asks, "Did we walk on all fours after we descended to earth or before we were expelled from paradise? If the former, given that our father Adam and our mother Eve had walked upright on two feet, at what point were our forefathers transformed into four-legged creatures? If the latter, then we must be mistaken about our conception of Adam and Eve, for clearly they must have walked on four legs with their heads turned earthwards rather than to the heavens."

The reason for this confusion, he continues, was that Ziyadeh sought to mix religion with science. But "how difficult it often is to reconcile the two. Religion, it would appear, rejects the notion that we are descendant from monkeys while science, or at least a branch of science, finds it quite acceptable. Yet, Miss Mai wants us to be descendants of both monkeys and Adam and Eve." Taha Hussein remarks that, personally, he would prefer to be the descendant of man that was created to walk upright on two feet.

Taha Hussein continues his mirthful rebuttal of Mai Ziyadeh's AUC lecture on the subject of Isis, whose tears are said to have created the Nile. This contention, like equally appealing fancies, he writes, does not stand up to scrutiny. "Who knows who Isis was and what she was like? Perhaps, too, the Nile did not emanate from the tears of this compassionate goddess as the myth would have it, but from beneath a divine throne as some holy men have stated." Not that Taha Hussein is averse to fanciful ideas, for he adds, "The worst contention of all is that proposed by scientists -- may people be spared their evils. They claim that the Nile originates from those lakes, which however much scientists and poets may exalt them, are merely lowly lakes, the entire body of which does not match a single tear shed by Isis or a single drop of that spring that emanates from beneath the throne."

In the same spirit of play, Taha Hussein concludes his article with an apology to the AUC lecturer. He expressed his hope that he had not angered her and that she would forgive him for any offense he may have caused. But if he had caused offense, he was not solely to blame. "Nevertheless, I am willing to bear the blame, just as Adam helped bear Eve's offense for eating the apple. In all events, she [Mai Ziyadeh] is by her very nature too kind and generous not to accept this apology."

One might have imagined that the response to Mai Ziyadeh's lecture would have ended with Taha Hussein's witty response. Curiously, however, the lecture and the response were like a stone cast into stagnant water. One reason for this was that both the lecturer and the critic were long established prominent intellectual figures and an exchange between the two, however good humoured, would not have gone without comment. A second was that the subject of their exchange was one that exercised the minds and pens of that time. Any debate over the question of the status of women was bound to excite readers, especially when the contending parties in the debate were a man and a woman. Even so, it is doubtful that the "talented young woman" and the "Dean of Arabic Literature" would have expected the ripples they caused to rise to waves.

The first to intervene was the noted Al-Ahram columnist Ahmed Mohamed El-Sawi. El-Sawi, who obtained his degree in journalism from the Sorbonne, was an outspoken champion of women's rights and had to his name numerous publications on this issue such as Madame Curie, Woman's Toy is Man and The Life of the Heart.

In his column, "Short but Significant," of 21 March, El- Sawi compares Ziyadeh's lecture to Tawfiq El-Hakim's recently published play, Scheherazade. Both, in his opinion, constituted "powerful proof and a glorious defence of the contribution of womankind to life." He went on to express his surprise that Taha Hussein had called into question the credit that was due to women for the rise of civilisation. He writes, "It is impossible to countenance this from an intelligent and virtuous man who should know better than anyone else all that men owe to women." Here El-Sawi was referring to Taha Hussein's wife, Suzanne, to whom, as El-Sawi reminded him, he -- being blind -- had always dedicated his books as follows: "To she who became the light after darkness and the companion after solitude."

But El-Sawi also reminded Taha Hussein that he was not alone in attributing his inspiration to a woman. Anatole France had dedicated his works to Madame de Kiyafe, writing, "To she who were it not for her I would not have written." Then there was Charles Garvis who dedicated one of his novels "to the woman with the dark eyes who I met once on a train and never forgot." As though he felt that Taha Hussein needed further convincing on mankind's debt to women, El-Sawi cites Shehrirar, the protagonist of Tawfiq El-Hakim's latest play, who says, "He who possesses a woman possesses the world inside his room." And in his own words, the author of the popular Al-Ahram column concludes: "A woman enters our lives through openings large and small, like the rays of light to a prisoner. She is the symbol of hope, of freedom, of love. Indeed, she is the love that gives us inspiration. Had the world been created without woman, civilisation could not have existed, nor would there have been intellectuals prepared to ignore her."

Not long after this article, El-Sawi addressed the subject of female education. The occasion was the opinion survey undertaken by the French-language magazine l'Egyptienne on "the development of Egyptian women and their impact on the family and society." One of the participants in this survey was the "venerable Professor Ahmed Hussein," described by the author of "Short but Significant" as "a man of few words and great drive who weighs every word he utters or writes." The professor, who had also served as the tutor of Prince Farouq, believed that women had more important and more difficult responsibilities to bear in life than men. For this reason, it was essential that women had the opportunity to pursue a higher education which would better equip them for their roles as wives and mothers. He also felt that women should be fully independent and that their individuality should be reinforced through their education. "This is the surest guarantee of the equality between the sexes." This sense of equality was vital in order to obviate the "painful sense of inferiority" to men "which can sometimes result in the tyranny of man over woman and frequently result in the debilitation of women."

El-Sawi fully supported this opinion. He, too, believed that women should have the opportunity to pursue a higher education so as to better perform their duties as wives and mothers. In order to reassure males, he clarifies that the purpose of educating women "to the best of their ability" was "not so that they would compete with men in the workplace but so that they could complement the labour of men with sympathy, love and cooperation." He adds, "Men have come to believe that women hold in their hands the solution to mankind's greatest problem, that of war and peace. If this is the case, then a higher education and a sense of dignity of independence would render women more effective guardians of peace in the home or, in other words, guardians of the mental and psychological well-being of men."

Mahmoud Rizq Salim, an Al-Ahram reader from Alexandria, did not agree. In a letter to the editor he wrote that education was important for honing the mind and refining the soul. However, he questioned the value of higher education for women. For a woman to obtain a university degree, he observed, she would first have to spend four years in elementary school, five in secondary school, five more in university and perhaps two more in extra training. "These 16 years added to her age at the time she began her education, which would be seven years old, would put her at about the age of 23 when she completed her education. When would this doctor or lawyer get married? When would she be able to assume the tasks of wife and mother? Is not 23 rather late for this?" Moreover, he asks, "Does a wife need to know geometry and trigonometry in order to care for the home and calculate the domestic budget? Is the study of law and comparative constitutions essential for arbitrating between her children? Is it higher education that accustoms her to love and be dedicated to her husband and children? I for one do not believe that women need to go through all that effort in order to become good wives and mothers."

Clearly the young Alexandrian was not as sympathetic as El-Sawi to the battle women had fought over recent years merely to get accepted into the various faculties of the national university. Apparently, too, El-Sawi refused to be drawn further, preferring instead to draw the debate on this issue to a close.