Page 462 - Neglected Arabia Vol 2

Medievalism in Arabia

Dr. C. S. G. Mylrea
nr T IS a strange thing that cruelty of man to man and ui man t<» auimaK
I is the last instinct to yield to the gentler laws of sympathy and kind-
I ness. The only solvent that can remove this crude brutislmess is
A Christ’s Law of Love. We have to remember that this leaven of
I]is teaching has only permeated in part our so-called Christian civiliza­
tion and that one has to go back a scant one hundred years, or for the
matter of that to read Dickens, to realize that the conception of Modern
Humanity is quite a recent one. So it is in no superior or boastful mood
lliat 1 set down some instances of what I have called medievalism in this
country. If you have the patience to read this article through to the end
you will probably agree that the Arab has not even begun to comprehend
what cruelty means. Let it be said that life itself, nature, is hard and
cruel in this country and that this has reacted on the soul of the people,
lint is this the whole explanation? I think not. I believe the main reason
js the faulty thought of God. When the Arab learns that God is love,
that love is the fulfillment of the law then lie will sec that much of his
ytcial system will have to be altered.
Slavery will certainly have to go. It took the forces of Christianity,
aroused by a Livingstone, a Mackay, and a Wilberforcc, to put an end
the nefarious traffic in the bodies of men. But in Arabia proper, the i
Arab is master in his own hopse, and slaves arc a part of the domestic
i order of things while the natural increase of the slave population main­
tains the supply. It is easy enough to say that most slaves are well treated.
This has always been the argument for the defense. The fact remains
that for the ill treated slave, there is no redress. lie is his master’s
property. Slavery carries deep within it, the seeds of infinite cruelty. It
cannot stand the test of Christ’s New Commandment.
In the matter of the punishment of crime, cruelty marks nearly every
phase of it. The Mosaic law of retribution, which Christ repealed and
revised at every turn, must of necessity he cruel. An eve for an eye and
a tooth for a tooth. This is the law of the land. The classic punishment
(nr burglary or theft is to have the right hand chopped ofT (chopped off
i> literal). The bleeding is checked by the application of boiling pitch
or red hot irons. In places where European influence counts for much,
tliih practise is dying out but it is still common where the Arab is a law
unto himself. One of the first men I operated on. in Bahrain, more
than twenty years ago, was a thief who had been punished as laid down
by Aral) law.
Many years ago, when the great Mubarak was on the throne, certain
men were suspected of treasonable activities. The leader was punished
l»y having his eyes put out by the application ol red hot nails. Latei
»*n. Dr. Harrison removed what was left of one of the eyes and stil
birr, I i>crformed a similar operation on the remaining eye.
Woe to tlie culprit who is sentenced to he flowed I remember once
*»-iuR a man who had been terribly beaten across the head and face bung
ndilcn through the bazaar on a donkey with his face towards the beas s
h-l. The man was quite unconscious. From the bazaar he was taken
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