Читать книгу Marcus Simaika - Samir Simaika - Страница 15

2	A Love of Learning

Marcus’s father was a devout man who almost never missed a church service either by day or by night. He often took Marcus with him. Like their ancestors, the early Christians of Egypt, every leading Coptic family consecrated one or two of its sons to the service of the Church, and Marcus had been chosen by his father for holy orders.

Marcus started his education at the Coptic Patriarchal School, in the immediate neighborhood of his home. This school, founded by Patriarch Cyril IV (r. 1854–61), was entirely maintained by the Coptic patriarchate and was open to children of all nationalities and denominations free of charge. It also contained a boarder section for poor Coptic boys from the provinces, who were accepted there without fees. Most of the students, however, came from well-to-do Coptic and Muslim families. Copts were not allowed to attend state schools, and it was only when Ali Pasha Mubarak, on the orders of Khedive Isma‘il (r. 1863–79), decreed in 1867 that Copts could attend state schools and also study abroad at state expense that this law was abolished. It was under this new ruling that Abd al-Messih and Rizqallah, the two elder brothers of Marcus, were sent to the School of Law on their graduation from the Patriarchal School, soon to be followed by Marcus’s younger brother Abdallah.

At school, Marcus studied the Bible and learned Coptic, Greek, and Arabic. His father forbade him to learn any European languages, lest they distract Marcus from ecclesiastic studies and interfere with his plan of consecrating Marcus to the service of the Church. At that time, young men possessing knowledge of one or more European languages were in great demand and commanded high pay in most of the state departments, especially in the railways administration. Marcus was keen on learning and begged and begged to be allowed to study a European language—English or French—but to no avail. One day, Marcus overheard the boys of his age, who attended the English language class, translating into Arabic the legend of the battle between the king of Persia and Queen Semiramis. This lesson was taught from a general history textbook entitled Peter Parley’s Universal History, on the Basis of Geography.⁷ He heard how the soldiers of the great king came to battle mounted on elephants, and how the troops of Queen Semiramis went out to meet them riding on camels camouflaged with elephant skins, and how the real elephants trampled the camels to death. The story fascinated him, and he resolved to find a way to convince his father to allow him to learn English.

I went home that night refusing to take any food and declaring that I would continue to keep a strict fast until I was allowed to attend the English class. After many entreaties and the shedding of many tears, my parents at last allowed me to learn English and I went to work with such good-will that before long I was at the top of the class.⁸

Marcus always acknowledged that his success was thanks to the help of his eldest brother, Abd al-Messih, who not only assisted him in his studies, but also introduced him to Mr. Sheldon Amos (1835–86), the judicial adviser to the British Agent, Sir Evelyn Baring (later Lord Cromer). Amos had been a professor at London University and had come to Egypt for health reasons. He was eventually to become the first Briton to be appointed to the Egyptian High Court of Appeal. Abd al-Messih arranged for Marcus to give Amos lessons in Arabic, in exchange for English lessons. Marcus became a frequent visitor at the Amos home, where he made the acquaintance of Mrs. Amos and their two children, their son Maurice, later Sir Maurice Sheldon Amos (1872–1940), and their daughter Bonté, later Mrs. Percy Elgood (1874–1960). Bonté was the first female doctor appointed by the Egyptian government, after her graduation from medical school at London University in 1900. It was at their table that Marcus learned for the first time how to use a knife and fork. He spent a great deal of his time with the Amos family, and often stayed at their villa at Ramla in Alexandria improving his English.

In his memoirs, Marcus vividly recollects most of his teachers. The Arabic language teacher was Sheikh Muhammad al-Kinawi, a strong and healthy man of about seventy-five years of age. He had lost an eye, making him look sinister when angry, but he was also very witty and enlivened his lessons by many an anecdote. He kept a heavy leather strap steeped in oil rolled up in a thin case, which he used on boys who merited punishment. He would make the culprits reach up to the top of the blackboard with the tips of their fingers and beat them with the strap on their backsides. The boys avenged themselves on his little donkey, which was tied to the railings of the garden of the patriarchal residence during his teaching sessions, by cutting off pieces of its tail. It was a day of great rejoicing for the boys on the rare occasion when the donkey was not at its accustomed place, on account of some indisposition of its master. Kinawi, like most teachers of Arabic at that time, was Azhar-educated. He taught the children that God created the first man from mud, then sent him to sleep, and from his rib created woman. When some mud was left over, he created the palm tree, which he called the “aunt” of man, because when a man throws a stone at the palm tree, the kind aunt answers back by throwing dates. Marcus recounts how Sheikh al-Kinawi did all he could to gain proselytes to the Muslim faith:

He frequently vaunted to us the advantage of Mohamedanism and its superiority over all other religions. I have still a vivid recollection of his praise of Islam. I may mention as an example the following quotations he made: On the day of the last judgment non-Moslems will say, “We wish we were dust adhering to the soles of the shoes of the Moslems,” because, he continued, “on that day all must cross the bridge thinner than the edge of a sword from this world to the next. Moslems are helped by the prophet, while non-Moslems fall under that bridge into hell below.”⁹

Another remarkable character was the English teacher, Mikhail Effendi Abd al-Sayed, who was the editor and proprietor of the newspaper al-Watan, and whose son was to become the well-known physician, Dr. Ibrahim Pasha Abd al-Sayed. He also kept a strap in a thin case in his pocket and would let the brightest students use the strap on their lazier classmates. Marcus, who was usually top of the class, recollects using it very frequently on his classmates’ palms. Mikhail Abd al-Sayed was one of the very few Copts to have studied at both American missionary and Coptic schools, as well as at al-Azhar.

Sacred music was taught by Arif Quzman, leader of the choir of the Coptic cathedral. Though totally blind, he was a great Coptic scholar and could speak that ancient language fluently. He was responsible together with Qummos (Hegumenos) Takla, then dean of the cathedral, and Patriarch Cyril IV for the change in the pronunciation of the Coptic sounds, but more on that in a later chapter.

Bible lessons were taught from copies of the New Testament in Coptic and Arabic, published in England in 1840 by the celebrated firm of Watts. These books were beautifully printed in big type and bound in calfskin. They were given to the patriarchate in exchange for some ancient Coptic manuscripts that Dr. Henry Tattam (1788–1868), an eminent Coptic scholar and author of the first Coptic–Latin dictionary, was allowed to remove from the monasteries of Wadi al-Natrun.

Barsoum al-Raheb taught the Coptic language. He published the first Coptic grammar in Arabic, including a vocabulary of Coptic and Arabic words. The teacher of Greek was a Mr. Yacoub Qustandi of Jerusalem, who also taught singing—Greek hymns in particular—and whose nephew painted the iconostasis of the Coptic cathedral. Another capable person was the teacher of calligraphy, an eighty-year-old Turk. He had a fine face with a beautiful white beard and was an artist in Arabic calligraphy, which lends itself so admirably to decorative purposes and is used profusely in public monuments, mosques, and the like.

Of the headmasters of the school, the most famous was Hegumenos Philotheos Ibrahim al-Tantawi, who was also dean of the cathedral. He was a very learned man, a good orator, an author of many theological works, and a remarkable composer and musician, gifted with a beautiful voice. He and the members of the choir of the cathedral were once invited by Khedive Isma‘il to Abdin Palace. There they sang to His Highness a poem in his praise, and it was on this occasion that the khedive donated to the Coptic schools 1,500 acres of cultivable land in Sharqiya Province. Another prominent headmaster was Tadrus Bey Ibrahim, who later on became one of the ablest judges of both the Native and the Mixed Courts. Farag Bey Daoud was another very capable headmaster who enjoyed the fullest confidence of Patriarch Cyril IV.

No pains were spared to provide the best masters for the Coptic Patriarchal School, and Simaika relates that Farag Bey appealed to him in 1886, long after he had left the school, to help find an English teacher. At about that time the Ministry of Education had engaged in Britain four English language teachers, and Simaika succeeded in persuading one of them, a Mr. Smethard, to agree to give English lessons at the Patriarchal School in his leisure time. However, a few months later, Farag Bey complained to Simaika that Mr. Smethard had been given orders to discontinue this task. Simaika met with Mr. Douglas Dunlop, secretary general of the Ministry of Education, and asked him to allow Mr. Smethard to resume the lessons. Douglas Dunlop was a Scottish teacher and missionary and had been appointed as British ‘consultant’ to the Egyptian Ministry of Education by the British agent, Sir Evelyn Baring. He had been suggested for this position by Baring’s former tennis partner. He promoted teaching in the English language, and attempted to marginalize teaching in Arabic and French. Dunlop, even after thirty years in Egypt, like Baring, did not speak Arabic. He resigned his post during the Egyptian revolution of 1919.

When Marcus met with Dunlop, he pointed out that government policy was the propagation of the English language, which had been somewhat neglected—French being the foreign language more commonly used in Egyptian schools at that time. Simaika argued that in preventing Mr. Smethard from teaching at the Coptic schools, which were at the time the most important private schools in the country, a very good opportunity for spreading English would be lost. Dunlop replied that he was only executing the orders of Ali Pasha Mubarak. Simaika pleaded with him, but when he persisted in his refusal, he threatened to bring the case to the notice of Sir Evelyn Baring. This was sheer bluff. At that time, Marcus was just a junior official in the railways service and certainly did not know the British agent. On talking this matter over with Sir Walter Adrian MacGeogh Bond (1857–1945), a young lawyer who was later to become vice president of the Egyptian High Court of Appeal and a great friend of Marcus’s, Bond promised to speak to the British agent. As a result, Baring expressed the wish to meet Simaika, who immediately wrote to Mr. Harry Boyle, consul and oriental secretary, requesting an interview with the British agent. He received, by return of post, an invitation to present himself at the British Agency the following day. Mr. Boyle, whom he had never met before, asked Simaika to follow him, opened the door, and announced Simaika Effendi, who then found himself in the presence of Baring for the first time. Baring invited Marcus to take a seat in a large armchair near him. Marcus briefly stated his case and Baring said, “I agree with you,” wrote a note, and asked him to take it to Dunlop.¹⁰ As a result, Smethard was ordered to resume his teaching lessons. Simaika later stated in his memoirs that he never found out whether opposition to Smethard’s appointment had come from Dunlop or from the minister himself.

Not being content with mastering the English language, Marcus transferred from the Patriarchal School to the Collège des frères des écoles chrétiennes—or simply the Frères—to learn French, a language he knew nothing about at that time. The school was founded in 1854, the Frères having had a presence in Egypt since 1847. Marcus was soon to be followed there by his younger brother Abdallah.

Marcus’s knowledge of grammatical Arabic, and of English, Coptic, and Greek, had bent his mind to the study of languages, and helped him make rapid progress in French, and this was aided by his gift of a photographic memory. He shone at the Frères and was promoted from one class to a higher one several times in one year. He graduated top of his class in his final year in 1882. Among his fellow students were the future prime minister Isma‘il Pasha Sidqi and his brothers Naguib and Ezzat Sidqi.

I remember that they used to drive to school in a chaise drawn by two plump ponies which were greatly admired by all the boys. Sidky Pasha, my brother Abdalla and many others are members of the “Association des anciens élèves des Frères” under the presidency of Sidky Pasha. They annually meet at a dinner party at Khoronfish with the head-master and the inspector of that institution. I am now the oldest of their boys.¹¹

It was during this period that an incident occurred that left a lasting impression on him. School opened at a very early hour in the morning, between five and six, one hour before sunrise, and he would make it a point to be there when the gates were opened to pupils. One day his mother, to whom he was extremely attached and who was ill, asked him to run an errand for her.

Fearing to arrive late at school I feigned not to hear. On my way to the school as I walked through the same streets which I passed every morning quietly with my books under my arm I was suddenly attacked, without provocation on my part, by a dog which I had passed again and again without any sign of hostility on its part. This dog tore my trousers and bit me in the leg. Thus I was forced to go back home. My dear mother to whom I confessed my fault, begging her pardon, immediately began to take measures to prevent serious consequences from such a cruel bite. She cauterized the wound by putting a tong in the fire till it was red hot then she applied it to the wound. I have never forgotten this incident which had a lasting effect on me, specially as it was an illness which was followed by her regretted death.¹²