Preface and Introduction

Preface

In the name of God, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful.

Thanks to the Lord, the Generous, cannot be paid in full, however far my power of speech may stretch. To hope to repay His kindness to His servants and His countless blessings would be "a small mouth speaking big words". Praise of the Prophet cannot even match my own imperfect devotion; to claim to repay his tenderness and his care for us would be "so small a life, and a tongue a yard long".

After this praise of God and of the Prophet, let it be known that, although it is not the custom in this country for women to read and write, still in the great cities most of the women in some respectable families do read the translation of the Holy Quran and small Urdu books on religious questions and moral advice. I thank God that I too belong to just such a family of Delhi.

Following the custom of the family, my daughters too learned from the older women of the house the "Quran and its meaning", the "Qiyamat-nama" (Book of the Day of Judgement), the "Rah-e-Najat" (Way of Salvation) and other small Urdu books of that kind. Reading and writing were talked about in the house day and night, and I saw that, copying us men, the girls had a particular liking for learning. At the same time I could see that purely religious thoughts did not suit children, and that the subjects always set before them made their hearts dull, their spirits heavy and their minds slow. Then I began to look for a book full of morals and good counsel that would reform women's ideas and refine their habits in the matters they meet in their lives, matters in which women, through their superstitions, ignorance and wrong-headedness, are always caught up in trouble and grief; and it should be written in some pleasant form, so that their hearts would not grow weary and their spirits would not flag. But I searched the whole library and found no trace of such a book; no, not one. Then I planned this story. Three years ago, while I was at Jhansi, I wrote down the story of Akbari. It became the girls' daily lesson, and every day they pressed me to finish the book, until after a year and a half the story of Asghari was written too. Little by little the book became talked about in the neighbourhood, and a few women came to hear it. Every woman who heard it was charmed; in the end the book was sent for in their houses and they meant to make copies. Meanwhile my eldest daughter was married, and I gave her this book in her dowry as a precious jewel. In her husband's family too the book became very well known. When I had seen that the book was most useful to women, and that they read it and listened to it with real pleasure, I presented it to the Government through the honourable Director of Public Instruction of the North-Western Provinces. The Government's appreciation raised my standing and the value of this book more than I can say. I received my wish in full and was rewarded for my labour.

Besides the time spent in writing this book, I kept it before me for a long while so that the language should be idiomatic and the ideas pure, and so that nothing in it should be forced or artificial. Since it is a book of an entirely new kind, it would not be surprising if some faults remain in it even so. I hope the readers will excuse them, for this is the first work of its kind.

The servant of God,
Nazir Ahmad,
may God grant him provision for the morrow. [TN: The last line is Arabic, "waffaqahu Allahu li-t-tazawwudi li-ghadin".]

Introduction

In the name of God, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful.

No one is more foolish than the man who never thinks about the state of the world. There are thousands of things in the world to think about, but the best and most necessary is the life of man. We ought to think about what happens to a person from the day he is born until he dies, and how his condition keeps changing. The best time in a person's life is childhood. At that age a person has no cares of any kind; the parents bring him up with great tenderness and love and give him every comfort they can. Parents are glad when their children eat well and dress well; indeed, for their children's comfort they willingly bear hardship and sorrow themselves. Men, who are fathers, earn: some by labour and hard work, some by a trade, some by commerce, some by service; in short, in whatever way they can, they earn money for their children's comfort. Women, who are mothers, if the father's earnings are not enough for the household, sometimes work to earn money themselves. One mother does sewing for others, one weaves gold lace, one embroiders caps; some unfortunate mother even brings up her children by spinning at the wheel, grinding at the mill, or working as a maidservant.

The love parents have for their children is not pretence or show in the least; it is true love, from the heart. God, who is all-wise, has given parents this tender attachment to their children so that the children may be brought up. At the beginning of life children are quite helpless: they cannot speak, understand, walk or move about. If parents did not bring up their children lovingly, the children would starve to death. Where would they get bread? Where would they bring clothes from? And how would they grow up?

And why speak only of people? Among animals too the attachment to their young is very strong. See how a hen brings up her chicks! All day long she sits with them hidden under her wings, and if she finds even a single grain she does not eat it herself but calls her chicks and sets it before them with her beak; and if a kite or a cat tries to kill her chicks, she is ready to fight and die without a thought for her own life. In short, God has given parents this particular love only so that tiny little children may lack nothing they need: food when they are hungry, water when they are thirsty, warm clothes against the cold, and everything for their comfort at the proper time.

Observation shows that this particular love lasts only as long as the young are in need and want. When the hen's chicks grow big she stops hiding them under her wings, and when they can walk about and fill their own stomachs she gives them no help at all; indeed, when they are fully grown she starts to peck at them as if she were not their mother. It is the same with human parents. While the baby is very small, the mother suckles it and carries it about in her arms, gives up her own sleep and pats the baby to sleep. When the child is old enough to eat *khichri* (a simple dish of rice and lentils), the mother weans it completely, and that same milk which she lovingly gave for years she now harshly and pitilessly refuses; she puts bitter things on her breast, and if the child insists she smacks and scolds it. After a few days things come to such a pass that she does not even like to take the child in her lap.

Have you not seen your little brothers and sisters smacked because they would not get down from their mother's lap? The mother is cross: "What a tiresome child! He won't get off my lap for a moment." Do not think from this that the mother no longer loves them; rather, each stage has its own particular kind of love. A child's condition does not stay the same. Today it drinks milk, tomorrow it starts to eat, then it learns to walk. The bigger the child grew, the more the colour of that love changed. What beatings boys and girls get for the sake of reading and writing! Children may not understand it in their foolishness, but whatever pain reaches you from your parents' hands is certainly for your own good.

You will have to live in the world a long time apart from your parents. No one's parents have lived forever. Fortunate are those boys and girls who, while their parents were alive, learned such skills and such good manners that their whole lives passed in happiness and comfort! And most unlucky are those children who did not value their parents' lifetime, wasted the comfort their parents gave them, and frittered away that good time of leisure and freedom from care in laziness and play, and spent their whole lives in sorrow and trouble, suffering themselves and making their parents suffer because of them. Nor does it wait for death: after marriage children are parted from their parents while they are still alive. When the children are grown, the parents become old and come to depend on the children themselves. So once they are grown up, far from getting help from their parents, the children have to serve and help them.

Boys and girls must certainly think how their lives will be spent once they are apart from their parents. In this world the heaviest burden lies on men's heads. In the world food, clothing and all the things of daily use are got with money, and all the bother is about money. It is a great good thing for women that they are mostly spared the labour of earning and making money. Look what hard labour men do! One carries heavy loads on his head, another carries wood; the goldsmith, the blacksmith, the brazier, the bell-metal worker, the gold-wire drawer, the gold-beater, the wire-flattener, the tinsel-maker, the gilder, the jewel-setter, the spangle-maker, the cord-twister, the bidri worker [TN: inlayer of silver on dark metal], the enameller, the tinner, the plain-work jeweller, the polisher, the mirror-maker, the gold embroiderer, the bangle-seller, the farrier, the gem-cutter, the gold-spangle embroiderer, the hairdresser, the refiner of gold dust, the caster, the carpenter, the turner, the coconut-shell worker, the comb-maker, the bamboo-splitter, the paper-maker, the weaver, the darner, the dyer, the cloth-printer, the tailor, the turban-tier, the silk-tassel maker, the huqqa-stem maker, the shoemaker, the seal-engraver, the stone-cutter, the gem-engraver, the mason, the leather-flask maker, the potter, the confectioner, the oil-presser, the betel-seller, the painter, the perfumer, and so on: all the tradesmen there are, every one of their crafts carries the same degree of hardship. [TN: Some of these trade names are rare and the English equivalents are approximate.] And all this hardship men suffer and bear in order to earn money.

But you must not conclude from this that women have no business in the world except eating and sleeping. On the contrary, women do all the work of the household. Men bring their earnings and lay them before the women, and the women, with their good sense, spend them with such order and good management that, besides comfort, no stain falls on the family's honour and good name. So if you look carefully, the cart of the world cannot move unless one wheel is the man and the other wheel is the woman. Men's money-earning does not leave them enough time to spend on the small tasks of the house. O boys, learn what will be of use to you when you are men; and O girls, acquire the skills that will bring you happiness and profit when you are women. It is true that God has made woman somewhat weaker than man, but He has given women hands, feet, ears, eyes, reason, understanding and memory all equal to a man's. By using these very things boys become scholars, *hafiz* (one who knows the Quran by heart), physicians, craftsmen and artisans, expert in every art and practised in every skill; girls waste their time playing with dolls and listening to tales, and remain without skills. And those women who knew the value of time and gave it to useful things have become famous and renowned in the world like men: Nur Jahan Begum, Zeb-un-Nisa Begum, or in our own day Nawab Sikandar Begum [TN: ruler of Bhopal], or the English princess Queen Victoria. These are women who managed not a small house and family but a country and a world.

Some foolish women think, "What, are we to read a great deal and become *maulvis* (religious scholars) like men? What good is all that labour?" But if a woman has read more, she has certainly gained more benefit too. We do not deny that women need not study a great deal of learning; but how many women acquire even as much as is needed? At the very least it is essential to be able to read Urdu. Without this, harm certainly follows: either one has to reveal the affairs of one's own house to strangers, or keeping them hidden causes loss. Women's affairs are often matters of modesty and privacy, yet sometimes they need to tell them to their mother or sister, and as it happens the mother or sister is not at hand when needed. In such a case either modesty must be put up on the shelf, or one suffers loss by not speaking.

Writing is somewhat harder than reading, but if a person copies four lines from some book every day, and writes as many again of his own composing, and has them corrected, he will surely learn to write in a few months. Fine handwriting is not the point; writing is a skill that is very useful in time of need. If what you write is wrong, or the letters come out ugly and badly formed, do not lose heart and give up practising. Whatever the work, it is never done well at the start. If you gave a great scholar a cap to cut out and sew, someone who had never had occasion to do such a thing, he would certainly spoil the cap.

Walking and moving about, which is so easy for you now that you run about without a thought, you may not remember how hard it was for you to learn; but your parents and elders remember well that at first you could not sit up without support. When they lifted you from their lap and set you down, someone had to hold you, or they propped you against a pillow. Then, tumbling and falling, you learned to crawl on your knees, then to stand, but holding on to the bed. Then, when your feet grew stronger, little by little you learned to walk, but you were hurt hundreds of times and every day we heard you fall. And now here you are, by God's grace, *mashallah* (as God has willed), running all over the place. In the same way one day you will learn to write as well. And suppose you never learn to write as well as the boys, still you will certainly learn as much as you need, and you will no longer be in the difficulty of drawing lines on the wall, or keeping little heaps of pebbles and stones, to count the washerwoman's clothes and the grinding woman's loads of flour. It is very hard to keep the household accounts, what is received and what is paid, in one's head; and some men have the habit of asking for an account of the money they give for the house. If it is not remembered, the man suspects where the money has gone, and needless quarrels and ill-feeling arise between them. How good it would be if women learned to write even enough for their own understanding!

Besides reading and writing, every girl must certainly learn these two skills: sewing and cooking. No one knows what may happen to him in future. Great nobles and the very rich suddenly become poor and needy. If one has some skill in one's hands, it is useful in time of need. It is well known that the kings of old, for all their wealth and riches, made sure to learn some craft so that it might help them in time of trouble. Remember that no state of the world can be relied on. If you have comfort and ease at present, thank God that in His kindness He has given blessing and ease to our house; but that does not mean that you should not value this comfort, or that you should feel sure about the future that this comfort will always be yours. In days of comfort it is necessary to keep one's habits sound. Even if God has given you servants, you should not spoil your habits; perhaps, God forbid, this means may not last, and then the habit will cause you great hardship. Not to get up and fetch a drink of water for yourself, or to trouble the servants or your little brothers and sisters for small tasks while you sit idle like a lazybones, is unseemly and a sign of spoiled habits. You should do all your own work yourself; indeed, if you are brisk and nimble you can take on a great deal of the housework, and if you take a little trouble you can give your mother much help and support. Think it over carefully, and do not leave any task of yours for your mother to do with her own hands, or for her to go about calling and troubling others to do it.

O my dear girl! When you go to bed at night, spread your bedding with your own hands, and in the morning, when you get up early, fold it yourself and put it away carefully in its proper place. Keep the bundle of your clothes in your own charge. When you want to change your clothes, mend anything torn or unstitched with your own hands. Take care of your dirty clothes; hang them on a separate peg until the washerwoman comes for them. If you change your clothes and do not put the dirty ones away, perhaps the rats will gnaw them, or they will get dirtier lying about and the washerwoman will not be able to clean them properly, or perhaps white ants will get into them from the damp of the floor and the wet of sweat. Then look over your dirty clothes yourself when you give them to the washerwoman, and when she brings them back washed, check them yourself, in case she has brought back a garment short, or torn one somewhere, or left a stain somewhere. When you keep watch over your clothes in this way, your clothes will be washed very clean and none will be lost.

The jewellery you wear is a costly thing. In the evening before you sleep, and in the morning when you wake, make sure that it is all there. Careless girls often drop their jewellery while playing, and only after several days do they find out that an earring has fallen or a ring has slipped off. When the house has been swept several times, who knows where a tiny thing has gone, or where it lies buried in the dust? Then those careless girls weep with regret for their jewellery and set the whole house searching in bewilderment; and when the parents learn that this girl does not keep her jewellery carefully and keeps losing it, they too begin to hold back from giving her any. You should always think which of the household tasks is yours to do. Of course, if your little brothers and sisters are crying and being stubborn, you can manage them so that they do not trouble your mother. Washing their faces, seeing to their food and water, dressing them: you can do all these things if you wish. But if you quarrel and squabble with your brothers and sisters, you lose your own dignity and give your mother trouble. Is she to see to the housework, or sit judging your lawsuits?

You should not watch the cooking in the house only to wonder, "When will it be ready?" and "When shall I get some?" If the dog and the cat and the other animals kept in the house wait for the food in hope of a full stomach, no matter; but you should pay attention to everything: how the curry is browned, how much salt they add. If you watch every dish carefully, I am sure that in a few days you will learn to cook, and you will have the skill that is the most necessary of all the skills in the world.

Besides everyday dishes you should also learn how to make a few special ones. When guests are invited, all kinds of rich dishes are always needed. Kebabs, *pulao*, sweet rice, *zarda* (saffron sweet rice), *mutanjan* (sweet rice with meat), chutney, preserves, *firni* (ground-rice pudding): all are delicious dishes, and you should remember how to make each. Some dishes are not grand ones, but cooking them deliciously is something to be praised, such as fish and bitter gourd.

Sewing is not very difficult; cutting out, however, takes intelligence, and it is very necessary to learn it with attention. You should especially make sure you understand how to cut out all women's garments. We have often seen foolish women going about carrying their cloth to other women to have it cut out, and having to flatter them a great deal for a small favour. Among men's clothes the *angarkha* (a long, cross-fastened coat) is somewhat difficult. Cut out your brothers' *angarkhas*; after cutting out two or four you will understand it.

Girls may not say so out of shyness, but in their hearts they surely know that their maiden days are few; in the end they will be married. After marriage one has to live an entirely new kind of life, like the life you see your mother, your grandmother, your aunt and all the women of the family living. Maidenhood is a very short time, and most of it passes before one has any sense. The mountain of life lies ahead, full of all kinds of quarrels and every sort of trouble. Now consider: you are not some extraordinary girl, that after marriage some different fortune will fall to your lot. Whatever happens to the wives and daughters of all the world will happen to you too. So you should think how women live, how they are respected after marriage, and how far men value them and how they treat them. Do not look at the state of particular people; in some places there happens to be great harmony and the woman gets the upper hand of the man, and where there is great discord the woman's dignity is lost altogether; that is a different matter. Look at the general custom and common practice of the country; and by the common custom, we see that women are not valued at all. "Deficient in reason" is their title. "Woman's obstinacy" and "woman's wiles" are always on men's tongues. The condemnation of women's cunning is there in the Quran:

"Truly, your cunning is great." [TN: Quran 12:28, Arabic in the original: "inna kaidakunna 'azim".]

Men consider women faithless by nature. (A half-verse:)

"Who ever saw a horse, a woman or a sword that was faithful?" [TN: Persian in the original: "asp o zan o shamshir wafadar ke did".]

One poet even found an insult to women in the reason for their name. (A couplet:)

"If all a woman's deeds were good,
women would be called *ma-zan* (do not strike), not *zan* (strike)." [TN: Persian in the original: "agar nek bude hama fe'l-e zan / zanan ra mazan nam bude na zan". The pun is on *zan*, "woman", which is also the imperative "strike!"; *mazan* means "do not strike".]

These things are all written in books. Look at how women are treated in the household: apart from the drudgery and service of the house, is any worthwhile work in the world entrusted to women? Or do women take part in the counsel and discussion of any important matter? Even in houses where women are greatly respected and made much of, when women are asked anything it is only this: "Well, madam, what vegetable shall we have today?" "Will you send for taffeta shoes for the girl, or ones with a border and a half?" "Will the betel nut be Manik Chand's or the ship kind?" "Do you want the eastern *zarda* (scented tobacco) or Amanat Khan's?" "Will the quilt have a purple border or a grey one?" Apart from this, let any woman tell me if men have ever asked her advice on great matters, or left any great business in her hands.

So, O women! Do you never grow unhappy at living in such a sorry state? Do you never regret that you are not trusted and not respected? Do you not wish to be honoured in men's eyes? You have lost your dignity with your own hands; you are fallen in men's eyes through your own doings. If you had ability, how long would men fail to take notice of it? If you had merit, how far would men fail to have regard for it?

The trouble is that you think it is ability merely to cook bread and lentils and to sew up old torn clothes. And as the ability is, so is the value. In your present state, it would be fair to lay on you not just foolishness, cunning and faithlessness but every charge in the world, and right to find in you every fault in the world. O women! You are men's solace, the treasure of joy of their lives, the garden and spring of their eyes; you increase their happiness and drive away their sorrow. If men got help from you in great matters, and you had the skill to manage great affairs, men would wash your feet and drink the water and keep you as the crown on their heads. Who could be a better sharer of their grief than you, a better adviser than you, a better well-wisher than you?

But how could you acquire skill in great affairs? You are imprisoned within the four walls of the house; you may not meet anyone, you may not talk to anyone. Whether it is good sense or good management, people learn it from people. Men gain sense and skill by reading and writing, and even those who cannot read and write meet thousands of kinds of people and hear ten kinds of talk from ten people. You cannot hope to be freed from this *purdah* (seclusion of women). The custom and practice of our country have made seclusion a binding duty for women, and now it is most necessary to keep to that custom. So what other means is there, besides reading and writing, for your minds to advance? Indeed, women need to read even more than men do. Men go about outside, after all; they can gain experience by meeting and mixing with people. What will you do, sitting at home? Will you take a packet of good sense out of your sewing basket? Or fill your bag with experience from the grain store? Learn to read, so that you can tour the whole world while sitting behind the *purdah*; gain knowledge, so that in your own house you may know the affairs of the whole age.

Women also need very much to gain ability for the sake of bringing up their children well. Girls until their marriage, and boys too mostly until the age of ten, are brought up in the house, and the mothers' good qualities pass into them. So, O women, the future life of your children is in your hands. If you wish, you can fill their hearts from the very start with such aims and such high thoughts that when they grow up they will win name and distinction, spend their whole lives in comfort and remain grateful to you; and if you wish, you can so spoil their nature that the bigger they grow, the more bad ways they learn, and to the end of their days they regret that beginning.

Boys learn to speak, and the capacity to be taught appears in them. If mothers had ability, they could begin teaching their children from that very time. While waiting to send them to the *maktab* (elementary school) or school, boys lose several years. At a very young age the boys themselves do not want to go to school, nor does a mother's love demand that tiny children, who cannot yet control their own needs, should be kept in the confinement of a teacher. But if mothers wished, they could teach them a great deal at that very time. Even after they start sitting in school, boys study half-heartedly for a long while, and their ability advances only after many days. All this time they could get much help from their mothers. First, where else is there a mother's tenderness and care? Second, she is always beside them day and night: as soon as she sees the child a little attentive, she quickly teaches him to know a letter, or makes him learn some counting, or shows him the difference between east and west. Mothers can teach, just in passing talk, what a teacher cannot teach in years of lessons; and what a great charm there is in a mother's teaching, that the child's mind is never frightened off and his eagerness keeps growing.

Leave aside the upbringing of children: the way they are reared and the safety of their very lives are in their mothers' hands. If, God forbid, there is any want of good sense in this, the children's lives are in danger. What wretch would ever doubt a mother's love? But that same love, if it is used foolishly, may do harm instead of good. Be fair now: are there not thousands of ignorant, foolish mothers who take every illness of their children to be the evil eye, or a shadow, or a fit, or possession by a spirit, and instead of medicine use charms and incantations and offerings to ward off evil? And you can judge for yourselves what the effect of such wrong treatment must be.

In short, the good management of the whole household depends on good sense, and good sense depends on knowledge.