MISS MAISIE PUBLICATIONS

First published 2010Text © Ellen Mary Wilton 2010

This book is copyright. Apart from any use permitted under theCopyright Act 1968 and subsequent amendments, no part may be

reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted by any means orprocess whatsoever without the prior written permission of the publishers.

Author photographs byGraham R. Johnson Photography

Cover design, text design and typesetting byDavid Andor / Wave Source Design

www.wavesource.com.au

National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry

Author: Wilton, Mary Ellen, 1947-Title: Daughters of Allah / Mary Ellen Wilton.

ISBN: 9780646528335 (pbk.) Subjects: Wilton, Mary Ellen, 1947-Boarding schools--Egypt--Biography.Australian students--Egypt--Biography.

Dewey Number: 371.020962

All people stand equal, like the teeth of a comb.

— THE PROPHET MUHAMMAD

Prologue

This story happened a long time ago, just before Kennedy wasshot and when it was still possible to board an airplanewithout security checks and when the world and I wereignorant of the desert culture and the people who live by thereligion of Islam.

I lost my ignorance before the world did. In that little spaceof time after the discovery of oil began to dissolve the oldfeudal ways of the desert and before the rise of IslamicFundamentalism, circumstances brought me into the world ofharem-raised girls who were being educated in an Egyptianboarding school. The experience I am about to relate is uniqueto that time — it could not have happened either before orafter that short time in history.

It is hard now to remember everything I felt and saw as myfifteen-year-old self. My memory and perception of the realityof that time has altered as I have matured. I still recall whathappened, still remember the feelings, yet it is like viewing landthrough water. I have tried to convey what I felt as I made thetransition from the safe world of a Canberra day convent to aMuslim boarding school in Alexandria, Egypt.

The narrative is interspersed with my experiences,

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knowledge and reflections as an adult. I could not have hadthese insights as a fifteen year old, but I believe they enhancethe story and add an historical dimension that it wouldotherwise lack. However, the events I recount must beconsidered from the point of view that was prevalent in thesixties and how uninformed we were then of the Islamicculture.

Was I privileged for the experience? The reader may answerthat question as he or she reads. I certainly did not think I wasas I stood under the fierce blue Alexandrian sky on that firstday in September and looked up at the high, mud-colouredwalls of the school building with its great steel-studded doorand tall square tower.

A giant of a man stood on the steps in front of the door. Hewas a study in black and white — white robe, turban and teethcontrasting with shiny midnight skin. The three scars cuthorizontally into each of his cheeks marked him as a man froma tribe in the Sudan.

It was a long, long way from the nuns and my safe schoolin Australia as I ventured forth like a sacrificial lamb into theworld behind those walls.

One

Men in dresses were everywhere. My father and I stepped intoa tiled entrance hall the size of a small house. The giantNubian in his white robe saluted respectfully. An Egyptianwearing a grey robe with a grandfather shirt neckline sat in acubicle, a board laden with keys hanging behind him. Anotherman wearing a red fez and a wide crimson sash around thewaist of his long kaftan, bowed and asked how he might help.

“I thought this was supposed to be an English school,” Imuttered to my father, scowling in spite of the many white-toothed smiles around me.

The British had built the school so that their daughterscould have a traditional English education, but since KingFarouk had been deposed and the British were forced to departEgypt after a seventy-two year occupation, the school had beennationalised under President Nasser.

I followed my father into the office of the headmistress,Mrs Khalafallah. She was English, but she had married anEgyptian. Accordingly, the new nationalistic governmentapproved of her. She ran the place and she was the reason myfather chose this school for me in Alexandria rather than a schoolin Cairo where he was based with the Australian Embassy.

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As I sat drinking tea out of an English rose tea cup andlistened to the iron-haired lady talk to my father in herperfectly modulated English accent, I could have been lulledinto thinking that school in Egypt might not be so differentfrom school in Australia. But the presence of the white-robedservant deferentially pouring tea, his face like polished ebony,and the other robed fellows outside, was fair warning that thisschool would indeed be different to the convent school I wasused to.

“Mary is a serious student,” my father told MrsKhalafallah. My first name is Ellen after my mother’s sisterwho died on the day I was born. My mother, to appease hergrief, named me for my Aunt Ellen instead of the Mary shehad intended but then proceeded to call me Mary. My fatherhad got into the habit as well. He was still explaining things tothe headmistress. “When I was posted by the AustralianGovernment to Cairo, we thought of leaving her in Australiato continue her studies with the nuns, but my wife felt thedistance was too great. And aside from that, Ancient History,particularly that of Egypt, is her favourite subject.” He smiledat me. “She would like to be an archaeologist.”

“Yes, Australia is far away,” was Mrs Khalafallah’s onlycomment. She did not even pretend to entertain myarchaeology dreams. They were lost now, in this place, even ifI was in the heart of ancient Alexandria.

“We have no other Australian girls, but I’m sure she’ll fit innicely here.” Mrs Khalafallah showed me her teeth. Behind herglasses the blue eyes were not friendly. She was scary anddistant. My first impression of her never changed.

“The girls in the boarding school are from all over the Arabworld, but predominantly from Saudi Arabia. They are allMuslim. I, too, am Muslim now, as are most of the day pupils,who are mainly Egyptian girls from well-to-do families inAlexandria.”

7

Going to boarding school for the first time was bad enough,I thought, without having to share it with a bunch of Muslims.I knew nothing about Muslims.

“How old are you, Mary?” Mrs Khalafallah asked. Nowshe was calling me Mary.

“Fifteen,” I replied demurely, as fresh from the convent ashot bread from an oven.

“Because of your advanced English, you will be in a class ofgirls who are a little older. That means you will be placed in thesenior section of the boarding school. The girls there aresixteen and seventeen.”

I nodded, but she had already turned back to my father.She leant across her desk and whispered confidentially,

“Since The Revolution, the school has had problems. Ourfuture is in jeopardy. Foreign language schools like this arebarely tolerated in the new educational system. As long as weteach and work equally in Arabic and English, we survive.”

“Arabic?” I asked in horror. I sure would learn a lot inArabic, I thought sarcastically. I couldn’t speak a word and Ihad no intention of even trying to come to grips with all thosesquiggles that started from the back of the book and thewrong side of the page. But Mrs K had her own laments.

“Alex has changed since the old days. So manyinternationals have left. French, Greek, Italian, English —once so cosmopolitan. Alas!”

“How shall I learn in Arabic?” I was a serious student so Iwas not afraid to speak up. “I’ll never be able to catch up whenI go home.”

“We will organise for her to have private study when theother girls have their Arabic lessons,” Mrs Khalafallah assuredmy father, dismissing my fears. “School resumes tomorrowafter the two month summer break. For the uniform we haveour own dressmakers working at the school. Mary can bemeasured and she may choose which colour she likes. We give

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the girls a choice of pink, green or yellow for our summeruniform.”

The nuns would never have approved of such an untidycolour arrangement, I thought. I longed for my old school. Yetas it would turn out, not once would I write to my schoolfriends back in Australia.

A knock on the door interrupted the conversation and awoman with a face that had seen far too much sun entered theroom.

“This is our Miss Eskande,” the headmistress announced.“She’s the house mistress. She looks after the boarders and sheis also the sports mistress.”

Miss Eskande’s pale hair was wispy, her nose pointed andher front teeth were prominent and slightly crossed. She had anugly way of holding her face forward on her neck. She shookhands mannishly. I wasn’t a bit surprised the British had lefther behind. The contrast between her and Mrs Khalafallahwas marked although they both looked like English women— just different types. The headmistress wore a neat blousebuttoned to the neck, cuffed sleeves, tucked into a soft greyskirt. The house mistress, on the other hand, wore a crumpledskirt and a shirt with no shape or colour whatsoever.

“Mr Taylor is from Australia and wishes his daughter tocontinue her education with us while he is posted to Cairo,”explained Mrs Khalafallah.

“She’ll fit in, she’ll fit in,” Miss Eskande declared sopositively that for a moment, even though I did not like eitherof these two English women, I believed I would fit in. Therecould not possibly be a community of Arabs waiting for meoutside.

While my father and the headmistress finalised thearrangements, by which I mean my father handed over a largecheque, Miss Eskande took me aside.

“We British have to stick together.” She thrust her nose at

9

me. “These girls don’t have our same sense of fair play andhonesty. Mrs Khalafallah and I do our best, but it’s hard. Iexpect you to set a high standard and report any misbehaviourto me.”

Now I was even more worried about what they might doto me. I nodded, my eyes riveted on her left ear which stuckout through her thin hair.

“Send for Nurse,” Mrs K clapped her hands.“Come on, Mary.”Outside my father motioned to our driver, who was

gabbling away in Arabic with the giant, to bring my singlesuitcase. A rat of apprehension gnawed away at my stomach.I trailed him through the school entrance. All these Arabicfellows looked like cut-throats to me. I wasn’t fooled by allthose big smiling teeth.

“Don’t leave me with all these Arabs,” I whispereddesperately to my father.

He bent and kissed me. “I can’t take you any further. Mumwill phone in a couple of days to see how you are going.”

And with that he was gone. I was on my own.Although not quite on my own, a squat, middle-aged

woman, quite light-skinned, had materialised at my side. Shewas dressed in a white skirt and jacket with a nurse’s cap onthe back of her head. This was obviously ‘Nurse’. Shebeckoned and I followed.

Not even a prisoner entering jail could feel more trapped,no Robinson Crusoe more alone, than I did at that moment.An Arab wearing a pair of pyjamas and a skull cap followed onbehind me carrying my suitcase on his shoulder.

We moved beyond the entrance hall into an arch-linedcolonnade that formed one side of a central grassed courtyard.The hexagonal columns were covered in tiny tiles the colour oflapis lazuli. In the middle, a fountain splashed irritatingly andthe red, white and black striped flag of the United Arab

* These intricately carved wooden window screens are known asmashrabiya. They are only found on upper floor windows and allow thewomen of the harem to observe the life of the street without being seen.They also shade the room from the hot sun while allowing the coolingbreezes to pass through. The word mashrabiya means ‘place of drinking’ asthe water pots where always placed near the screens to keep cool.

Republic hung on a flag pole. The courtyard was completelyenclosed by grey buildings that rose to three stories on eachside. What was hidden behind the rows of windows with theircarved wood screens?* The sun was blinding — it glittered onthe surface of the fountain pool and the lapis blue mosaics.

Nurse led me up two flights of green speckled concretesteps. Through the open doors I could see rooms, each withtwo beds. Halfway along the corridor Nurse stopped. Thepyjama man swung the suitcase off his shoulder, deposited itin the nearest room and scuttled away. Nurse said a few wordsin Arabic and French and indicated with smiles and nods thatI should go into the room. Then, abruptly, she left.

I was totally alone in an unknown place where I did nothave a single friend. Forcing myself to enter the strange room,I ventured over to the window and peered through the fretworkof the wood screen. I could see the school playing fields, whichconsisted of two ovals, one after the other, making the groundslook very large, particularly in such a crowded city. There werealso four clay tennis courts surrounded by tropical gardens andI could see gardeners in baggy Turkish trousers workingamongst the lush flowers. The wooden screen jutted out box-like from the window so I craned my neck to look sidewaysand noticed the flash of blue from a swimming pool. In the fardistance a dust haze hung heavy over the city. The faint soundof the muezzin calling the faithful to prayer came from amosque. At least it was faint, I thought. In Cairo that call wascranked out at full volume through crackly microphones,creating a cacophony of sound that drove me crazy.

In what I gathered was to be my room, there were three

10 DAUGHTER S OF A L LAH

11

beds all topped, crown-like, with a metal ring holding foldedwhite nets. Bugs. That’d be right. The furniture was square,wooden and plain, in contrast to the grandiose architecture ofthe building I had seen so far, and painted grass green.

I sat on one of the wooden chairs in the room with a greatpain in my chest, my face taut with stress. I was afraid, afraidof the unknown, alien people with whom I would have to sharethis room. Fear gripped my throat. There would be no goingback to the safety of home at the end of the day.

I had been taken from Australia, my family and mysheltered world of nuns, rosary beads and childhood friends tolive in this all-Arab, all-Muslim boarding school in Egypt.Would I ever return to the life I had known? A headline cameto me: ‘Diplomat’s Daughter Enters Muslim School Never tobe Seen Again’.

But the real nightmare was yet to begin. I sat and waited.

Ellen Mary Wilton, and MaisiePhotography by Graham R. Johnson Photography

About the Author

Daughters of Allah is the long-awaited first book of authorand public speaker, Ellen Mary Wilton. Based on her ownexperiences as a young Australian school girl who suddenlyfinds herself attending a Muslim girls' boarding school inAlexandria, Egypt, Ellen’s audiences have for years requestedthis book to be written, having been moved by her unique andthought-provoking story.

Ellen has a Bachelor of Education in Adult Education. Shebecame interested in public speaking when she joinedToastmasters twenty years ago, and she now runs her ownpublic speaking courses for adults and young adults. Ellen isalso an experienced tour guide and historian who owns andoperates Sydney Guided Walks(www.sydneyguidedwalks.com.au), conducting guided walksaround many of Sydney’s historic areas. A keen bowler, Ellen'snext book will be set in the fascinating world of lawn bowls.

Ellen lives in Sydney with her husband and their various pets.Her two children have grown and now have families of theirown.

Ellen believes that she is still influenced by her experiences withthe Islamic culture as a young girl.