Marcus Simaika. Samir Simaika
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
| 3 | A Prominent Family |
The annual school examinations at the Coptic Patriarchal School were conducted in the presence of a committee of high officials from the Ministry of Education, and the khedive always sent two or three of his sons to attend the graduation ceremony, as well as ordering the khedivial music band to play on that occasion.
Simaika reported that no fewer than three prime ministers were among the graduates of the Coptic Patriarchal School: Boutros Pasha Ghali and Youssef Pasha Wahba, both Copts, and Yehia Pasha Ibrahim, a Muslim.13 A great number of ministers, heads of administrations, judges, and statesmen also graduated from this school. The School of Law had been established by Isma‘il Pasha in 1868, and the khedive gave orders that the most successful students of the Coptic Patriarchal School should be sent to it after their graduation, with a view to their appointment, later on, to higher administrative and judicial posts.
Simaika’s two elder brothers, Abd al-Messih and Rizqallah,