Fatima  AUeh  Hanum  has  interested  herself
in  more  serious  subjects  than  is  the  case  of
most  Mohammedan  women.  The  literary
movement    among    women    began    with    the


Types  of  Moslem   Wom


KN__J5()KiiAHA,  Sahara.  Tims.  Tashkend


EDUCATED  WOMEN  OF  TURKEY  81

attempt  to  write  poetry  and  novels — some
in  French  and  some  in  Tm^kish.  Fatima  Alieh
Hanmn,  however,  has  made  quite  a  serious
study  of  Philosophy  and  of  the  History  of
Literature  among  Mohammedan  women,  and
although  she  has  written  some  novels,  they  have
been  novels  teaching  practical  social  and  moral
truths.  She  lectured  recently  in  Stamboul
on  the  subject,  "  Knowledge  and  its  different
Degrees."  Her  research  in  Philosophy  has  been
in  the  Hne  of  Scholastic  Philosophy,  rather
than  in  that  of  modern  thought.  She  has  also
studied  theology,  and  has  made  special  in-
vestigations regarding  Mohammedan  religious
teachings,  especially  in  the  Hne  of  women's
rights,  to  show  what  rights  the  Mohanunedan
rehgion  legally  allows  women.  Ahmed  Midhat
Effendi,  one  of  the  leading  Turkish  novehsts
and  popular  writers,  now  nearly  eighty  years
old,  lately  wrote  an  article  published  in  one
of  the  daily  papers,  in  which  he  criticised  the
manners  of  women  in  public,  finding  them  too
free,  and  Fatima  Aheh  Hanum  wrote  a  fine
article  in  reply  which  was  greatly  admired,
in  which  she  said  that  women  had  not  taken


82         DAYLIGHT  IN  THE  HAREM

advantage  of  as  much  freedom  as  their  rehgion
allowed  them.
Nighiar  Hanum  is  a  poet.  She  has  pubHshed
several  volumes  of  lyric  poetry  which  are
considered  good.
There  are  many  of  the  younger  women  also
who  are  now  beginning  to  write.
