'She herself was the ultimate rule': arabic biographies of missionary teachers and their pupils

Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations

Volumn 13, Issue 4, 2002, Pages 427-448

  Booth, Marilyn ^a  

^a NONE

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 84899580745     PISSN: 09596410     EISSN: 14699311     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/0959641022000016401     Document Type: Article

References (60)

1. 1919. 'Al-mar'a al-sharqiyya: maa yajibu 'alayha 'amaluhu al-yawm'. Farar al-sharq, 5 February 15: 187–8.
2. Tibawi, A. L., 1969. A Modern History of Syria Including Lebanon and Palestine, 140–1. London/New York: Macmillan/St Martin's Press. It is important to note, as A. L. Tibawi does, that educational institutions existed in Syria, as they did in Egypt, before missionaries began schools.
3. Heyworth-Dunne, J., 1938. An Introduction to the History of Education in Modern Egypt, London: Luzac & Co. On Egypt, see
4. McCoan, J. C., 1885?. Egypt as it is, 225–32. London/Paris/New York: Cassell Fetter & Galpin. On Coptic and other denominational schools, as well as mission schools, in Egypt see also
5. Zeidan, Joseph T., 1995. Arab Women Novelists: the formiative years and beyond, 21Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Nasif attended a French missionary school before entering the first government secondary school for girls, al-Saniyya. See
6. Woodsmall, Frances. 1936. Moslem Women Eurer a New World, 212nNew York: Round Table Press. Frances Woodsmall, citing 'information from the Principal', says that the American Mission School for Girls in Beirut, which I discuss further below, had its first Muslim graduate in 1909 and then no further Muslim students until after World War I
7. Zeidan. Arab Women Novelists 31–2. This contradicts Jessup (Rev. Henry Harris Jessup, The Women of the Arabs: with a chapter for children, New York, Dodd & Mead, 1873, cited by Fleischmann). Woodsmall notes that Muslim girls were educated in the Asyut American Mission School, though more Coptic girls attended. On the earliest missionary schools for girls see.Certain foreign schools, such as Miss Whateley's school in Cairo, seemed to make it their mission to educate Muslims and to focus on poorer strata of the population.
8. Zeidan. Arab Women Novelists 22
9. Jessup. Women 18 Similarly, Jessup blames the perceived lack of willingness on the part of Greek Orthodox and Maronite families to allow their daughters to be educated on 'Mohammedan domination … which degrade[d] and depressed] all the sects and nationalities' (45)-a convenient way to shift blame for the lack of receptivity to missionary overtures
10. Baron, Beth. 1994. The Women's Awakening in Egypt: culture, society, and the press, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. On readership and authorship in the early Arabic women's press, see; Booth, May Her Likes Be Multiplied.
11. Baz, JurjT NTqula. 1926. 'Al-yuMl al-fa'i lil-anisa Mary 'Ajami aibat 'Majallat al- Arus' bi-Dimashq'. Fatat al-sharq, 20 (9) June 15: 403–7.
12. Tibawi, A. L., 1966. American Interests in Syria, 1800-1901: a study of educational, literary and religious work, 64–5. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Presumably these 'booklets' were the missionary tracts printed in Malta by the Church Missionary Society. See
13. Booth, Marilyn. 2001. 'Woman in Islam: men and the "women's press" in turn-of-the-century Egypt'. International Journal of Middle East Studies, 33 (2): 171–201. For one example of such rhetoric, see
14. Jessup, Henry Harris. 1910. Fifty-three Years in Syria, vol. 1, New York, Chicago, Toronto, London and Edinburgh: Fleming H. Reveil Company. In his memoirs, longtime missionary Henry Harris Jessup complains repeatedly that Maronites would convert to upset their priests and then, having come to an understanding with them, would 'revert'. This seems an example of how missionary endeavors could be appropriated, used and subverted by local populations
15. Tibawi. American Interests 65
16. Muharram, Ahmad Effendi, and Yakan, Wali al-DTn Bek. 1915. 'ShaMiat al-nisa': al-Amira Aliksandrah di Afirinuh Fizinuska'. Fatal al-sharq, 10 (1) October: 2
17. Booth. May Her Likes Be Multiplied 139–40.
18. al-Ma'luf, 'Isa Iskandar. 1920. 'Shairat al-nisa': al-Tabiba Salma Qusalili al-Dimashqiyya'. Fatal al-sharq, 14 (7) April 15: 242
19. Baz, Jurji Niqula. 1908. 'Shairat al-nisa': anna KasbanT Kurani'. Fatal al-sharq, 2 (10) JuIy 15: 362–6. 362363
20. On the difficulty of this, and the salience of family ties, see Baron, The Women's Awakening in Egypt
21. Al-Ma'luf. “ 'al-Tababa Salma Qusatili al-Dimashqiyya' ”. 243
22. Tibawi. American Interests, 134 Letter dated July 5, 1854 from the Prudential Committee, American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions Archives, quoted in
23. See Ellen Fleischmann's essay (above 411), where she goes into more detail on the early schools. I have relied, too, on information in Tibawi, American Interests; Jessup, Fifty-three Years
24. al-Ma'luf, 'Isa Iskandar. 1919. 'Rail 'Ata zawjat al-mu'allim Butrus al-Bustani'. Fatat al-sharq, 14 (1) October 15: 1–2. This is said to be taken from al-Ma'lufs book Nawabigh al-nisa', which I have been unable to locate. Al-Ma'luf was editor and publisher of the magazine Al-athar and an enthusiastic supporter of Syrian women's education
25. 1924. 'Shahirat al-nisa': Warda al-Yaziji'. Fatal al-sharq, 18 (5) February: 3 An earlier biography in the same journal also emphasizes her education
26. 1907. 'Shahirat al-nisa': Warda al-Yaziji'. Fatal al-sharq, 2 (1) October 15: 1–7.
27. Jessup. Women 156–7.
28. Hooker, Edward W., 1845. Memoir of Mrs Sarah L. Huntington Smith, Late of the American Mission in Syria, New York: American Tract Society. That these are edited memoirs, published by a missionary press, adds to their problematic quality as a source. Was Smith as rigidly pious and obsessed with her own spiritual state as Hooker's excerpts and commentary suggest?
29. Jessup. Women 51
30. Smith. Memoir Edited by: Hooker. 371
31. Tibawi. American Interests 125
32. Jessup. Women 54–6.
33. Jessup. Women 64–7.
34. Hooker. Memoir 233
35. Al-Ma'luf. “ 'Rail 'Ata' ”. 2
36. Jessup. Women 134–6.
37. Sarruf, Yaqut. 1888. 'Maryam Nimr Makariyus: Firaq al-ritaq'. Al-muqtataf, 12 (7) April: 435–9. On the circulation of this biography
38. Booth. May Her Likes Be Multiplied xiii
39. Jessup. Women 222 He mentions Miss Everett, Miss Jackson and Miss Loring as the teachers. It was the latter from whom Yaqut found out about Everett's death
40. Sarruf. “ 'Maryam Nimr Makariyus' ”. 435 The parenthesized reference to the mother is Sarruf's; she wants no ambiguity about the subject of this discrimination
41. Letter from Maryam Makariyus, reprinted in Zaynab Fawwaz, Al-durr al-manthur fi labaqa tabaqat al-khudur (Cairo/Bulaq, Al-Malba'a al-Kubra al-Amiriyya, AH 1312 [1894], 500. Fawwaz reprints Sarruf s biography of Makariyus with light editing
42. Booth. May Her Likes Be Multiplied xvi
43. Sarruf, Yaqut. 1889. 'Bab tadbir al-manzil: al-Sayyida Nara Ilyas'. Al-muqtataf, 13 (8) May: 549 See also her biography of another friend, Nara Ilyas (1862-89)
44. Sarruf, Yaqut. 1902. 'Aliza Ifrit'. Al-muqta(af, 27 (4) April: 319 According to arruf, she was born in 'Willoughby, Ohio'; according to Jessup, her parents were living in Painesville when she consulted them on whether to take the job in Beirut
45. Jessup. Fifty-three Years, I339
46. Jessup. Fifty-three Years, I335–6.
47. Sarruf. “ 'Aliza Ifrit' ”. 319
48. Jessup. Fifty-three Years, I339
49. Sarruf. “ 'Aliza Ifrit' ”. 319–20.
50. Her father was presumably John Hogg, associated with Asyut according to Jessup (Fifty-three Years in Syria, I, 383). I am still trying to trace this family. In May Her Likes Be Multiplied I transliterated her name as Hogue, since that seemed closer to the Arabic transcription; it is often difficult to make out the name from the Arabic. But having 'located' John Hogg since publication of the book, I am now speculating that Jessie was his daughter
51. Thorne, Susan. 1999. “ 'Missionary-imperial feminism' ”. In Gendered Missions: women and men in missionary discourse and practice, Edited by: Huber, Mary Taylor, and Lutkehaus, Nancy C., 56Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
52. 1905. 'Wafat sayyida fadila'. Al-sayyidat wa-al-banat, 2 (5) April: 144 This text, which bears no authorial byline, is said to be 'summarized' from the newspaper Nijm al-mashriq, which was a religious and educational weekly magazine produced for Evangelical Sunday Schools in Alexandria by Mitri Salib al-Duwayri, Of the evangelical sect'. It was founded in 1901. Even if the text (which is encased in quotation marks, and thus perhaps was reproduced in its entirety rather than summarized) came originally from a 'house publication', its edited republication and hence greater circulation in a woman's magazine means a potentially broader audience. On the magazine, see
53. Khuri, Yusuf Q., ed. 1985. Mudawwanat al-afa al-'arabiyya, vols 1-2, 488Beirut: Ma'had al-Inma' al-'Arabi. vol. I
54. 'Attira, Qustaki. 1928. Tarikh takwin al-uuf al-miriyya, 284Alexandria: Matba'at al-Taqaddum. gives slightly different details. The newspaper is also mentioned in another women's magazine
55. 1907. Fatal al-sharq, 2: 72
56. Baz, Jurji Niqula. 1908. 'Luisa Procter mu'assisat al-madaris al-inkiliziyya fi al-Shuwayfat bi-Lubnan'. Fatat al-sharq, 3 (1) October: 4
57. al-Dimashqiyya, Julia Tu'ma. 1923. 'Al-'amilat fi al-nahda al-nisa'iyya: al-Duktura Mary Eddy'. Al-mar'a al-jadida, 3 (5) May: 151
58. Thompson, Elizabeth. 2000. Colonial Citizens: republican rights, paternal privilege, and gender in French Syria and Lebanon, 96–7. New York: Columbia University Press. E.g., onz women founding schools in Lebanon and Syria, see
59. al-Dimashqiyya, Julia Tu'ma. 1924. 'Al-'amilat fi al-nahda al-nisa'iyya: al-Anisa Mary Kassab'. Al-mar'a al-jadida, 4 (1/2) January/February: 7 This entire series is of great interest, but space constraints preclude further discussion of it here
60. 1927. 'Al-Sayyida Haylana Sayyaj, madrab al-mathal fi al-isan'. Majallat al-sayyidat wa-al-rijal, 8 (6) April 30: 414–16. 416 One response to missionary schools was to initiate schools sponsored by local churches. The journals run by Syrian women in Egypt featured women who took such initiatives, such as Virginie Basili, who, although wealthy, founded and directed a Syrian Orthodox girls school in Alexandria, and who is praised pointedly as an exemplar, posed against girls 'who now spend their time in trivial pursuits', particularly since she was working on a volunteer basis and did what she did because she 'loved useful work'. (This of course made her work more socially acceptable, too. On attitudes to work in the women's press biographies see Booth, May Her Likes, chap. 4.) The women are posed as models for men as well, for the essay points out that 'this is a great and worthy work that women undertake without any help at all from men' and asks whether men will match it. (The profile of Basili is embedded in an article on another Syrian woman, a philanthropist similarly engaged, who had funded a new building for the school. The article is occasioned by the cornerstone ceremony. Haylana Sayyaj. See