They may only unveil before their husbands, fathers and very near male relations. The Koran has a deep distrust of feminine charms. “As soon as a man seeth the eyes of a woman he is running into danger. For the glance of a woman is as an arrow without bow or cord.” And again “How often do the looks cast upon women return to do harm to those who sent them.”
In this leisurely land it is considered bad form to hurry, this being one of the signs by which those possessed of devils can be readily detected. Since the opening of tourist agencies, there has been a great influx of these latter into the country.
With that care for hygiene so noticeable in ancient religions, there are countless observances of cleanliness imposed upon the faithful. Hands must be washed after a meal, and the face as well before prayer. If water is not available then fine sand may take its place. Five prayers must be said daily: in the morning, just before sunrise, at midday, during the afternoon, at sunset, and an hour and a half after the going down of the same. The call to prayer can be heard at these stated times, and it is curiously impressive to wake just as dawn is about to break, and to hear the long drawn-out wail of the muezzin from the minaret in the silence of the night.
Contact with Western civilisation is loosening the hold of their religion upon the people of Tunisia, and the change is probably not for the better. A devout follower of the law of the Prophet is an upright man, but in the slackening of his faith he is apt to acquire only the vices of the European and is in danger of losing his own religion and being left with nothing to take its place.
There are religious schools as well as the Government ones where French is taught, and many boys attend both. In walking through the narrow streets one often hears the drone of small voices, and sees a neat row of little slippers outside a doorway. On going inside, one finds a master intoning the Koran, each phrase of it being repeated interminably by the scholars sitting cross-legged on the matting and rocking themselves backwards and forwards. Each pupil is provided with a board painted white on which the text is written, and when at last all the scholars know it by heart it is washed out, and a fresh one inscribed and taught.