Raising Muslim boys

STORY and PHOTO: Katrina Condie

MAKING IT WORK: Australian woman Emily Richardson married an Egyptian Muslim man 11 years ago and the couple are now raising their two sons to be “respectful and accepting of other people’s beliefs”, splitting their lives between the bustling metropolis of Cairo and a pristine beach hamlet on the South Coast of NSW.

  

Raising Aussie Muslim boys to ‘be part of the solution’

  

“Our similarities are much greater 

than our differences… 

if more people 

could get into that mental space 

the world would be much better for it.”

Emily Richardson didn’t know how her parents would react when she rang to tell them she was getting married.

It wasn’t the fact that she was on the other side of the world, or that she was marrying an Egyptian man - it was that he was Muslim.

Emily grew up on a farm in New South Wales, Australia, where she, her three brothers and their parents attended the local Presbyterian service every Sunday and said grace before dinner each night.

With a strong Scottish heritage, Emily’s upbringing was far from multicultural, attending an Anglican high school and an all-girls Christian school in Sydney.

In fact, she had no idea about the Middle East and no exposure to Islam. “I had absolutely no understanding of the culture and it wasn’t really on my radar. There was no frame of reference for me.”

The stereotypical perception of the Islamic religion – bearded men and oppressed women - fuelled Emily’s trepidation in telling her parents.

But, as it turned out, the family was supportive of her decision and they were interested in learning more about Muslim beliefs and customs.

"I thought mum and dad might freak out - maybe they did and just didn’t say anything," Emily said.

"I’m sure they had many reservations about the situation, stemming from the fact that they knew little about the culture and hadn't met Ahmed, but I didn't doubt that they’d be supportive of us and welcome him into the family, which they did."

Some of Emily’s friends weren't so supportive, warning her she was making a huge mistake.

"I did have a couple of friends who were very concerned that I was getting into a situation that would backfire badly for me," she said. "One friend was horrified and tried to talk me out of it."

They had met two years earlier when Ahmed spotted Emily through the crowd at a rooftop party in Cairo, where she had just taken up a position teaching English in 1999. "As legend has it, he saw me from across the other side of the roof and decided we had to meet," she laughed. "He was very open and friendly - and very funny. We were great friends and had a very easy relationship from day one."

A few weeks after meeting, Ahmed took Emily to meet his family. They warmly welcomed the Australian woman who was still finding her feet in a foreign land.

“His family were very accepting of me,” she said. “They knew I'd been raised in a Christian environment and as Christians and Muslims believe in the one God, it wasn't a problem.

“I’m sure his family had some concerns about the cultural differences at first, but they realized pretty quickly that Ahmed was serious about me and they got on with getting to know me.

“They are all very open-minded and easygoing. Now I feel just like one of the family.”

It was a similar story when Ahmed came to Australia and met Emily’s parents and brothers.

The couple spoke early on about children and how they would be raised. “It’s very, very important to have all the big discussions prior to marriage,” she said. “What religion the children will be and what the expectations of both partners are.”

Now living with two young sons, Ziad and Nazar, in Australia, with her parents and one brother just around the corner, Emily and Ahmed are lapping up the Aussie laidback lifestyle.

“Ahmed loves it here,” Emily said. “We spend a lot of time at the beach and going for long walks. Ahmed is a great dad and does a lot with the boys.”

But every day she’s in Australia, walking on a deserted pristine beach, surrounded by bushland - a life that many would give their right arm for - Emily is dreaming of being back in Cairo.

Egypt has dug its claws in deep.

The family spends about three or four months a year in Heliopolis, a middle class suburb of Cairo. “When I’m there, I feel like I'm in the centre of the universe, and when I’m away, I can’t wait to go back,” she said.

“I like it here, in Australia, but it just doesn’t touch me like Egypt does - the smells, the activity - all your senses are bombarded. It’s so vibrant, pulsating and exhausting and life is lived in the moment. I love the whole Egyptian culture, the music, language, the food. You walk outside and there are kids playing soccer in the street, men selling bread, men selling fairy floss, women selling vegetables on the corner. Even if you’re completely alone, you feel a part of the community around you.”

She said the boys thrive on being exposed to the culture and the language. “Nazar loves all the stray cats in Egypt and Ziad loves going to the markets,” she said.

“They see extreme poverty and interact with kids who are dirt poor and kids who are very well off.

“They see that money doesn’t make a good person, through their interaction with these children and the dynamics in their little group of friends and acquaintances - life for the majority of people in Egypt is a struggle.”

Emily said many Westerners still have a distorted view of the Middle East, its people and its culture.

She said the people there have an “almost magnetic quality” about them.

“Egyptians possess a certain indefinable quality that is really difficult to describe - even in their darkest moments, of which there have been many in the last ten years.

 “And the Egyptian sense of humour is unbeatable - Egyptians are hilarious.”

Despite the common belief that Muslim men who marry foreign women demand their wives convert to Islam, Emily explained that, “It’s expected that the children will be Muslim but other than that no real conversion of beliefs is expected - although it differs depending on the socioeconomic status of the family, and most families would greatly hope that the woman would adopt their beliefs for her own sake.”

She said at no time was she asked to convert to Islam and she is not required to wear a headscarf while in Egypt - expect when entering a mosque.

“There is a definite stereotype about not only women who convert to Islam, but all Muslim women being dominated and subservient,” she said.

“Of course there are many cases where this is true, but in my experience it is in no way the norm,” Emily explained.

“It usually stems, in my opinion, from a certain interpretation of the Qur’an by a certain type of man that in no way represents the moderate Muslim man - at least none that I know.

“Historically, Muslim woman have had more rights for far longer than women in the West, if the religion is followed correctly.

“The right to vote and the right to own property are two that spring to mind.

“My own mother-in-law, for example, was a lawyer who worked her whole life until she retired a couple of years ago.”

Prior to commencing work in Cairo, Emily had back-packed through Egypt five years earlier while travelling with a friend. She had no idea what the country would be like, but was instantly drawn to the place and its people.

Looking back, she said she feels “almost embarrassed” about the way she used to think. “When I think about when I was growing up and in college, I didn’t know what Islam was and had very little exposure to multiculturalism. I feel like I was quite judgmental about a lot of things without really understanding them.

“I don’t know where the ideas came from, or why I thought that way. I just did.”

Emily believes many people throughout the world still think like that.

“There is a lot of bias against Muslims and Arabs,” she said.

“Some of the things I read and see in the media just leave me shaking my head because they are so inaccurate and so overgeneralized.

“I can’t relate them at all to the people I know.

“It makes me sad more than anything because I know this culture and it is amazing, rich and multi-faceted.”

Now living in a small town, where they are the only Egyptian family and the boys are the only Muslim students at their school, Emily said it is important for her and Ahmed to raise their children without bias and with an understanding and acceptance of other people’s beliefs, religion and customs.

“We try to instil in them that other people have different beliefs and that’s okay because everyone is free to choose and follow what is in their heart,” she said.

“My kids being accepting and open-minded is one of the most important things to me and it’s something we often talk about with the boys.

“There are so many stereotypes out there that are just wrong, so it’s important to me that my boys be part of the solution - and not part of the problem.

“I want them to understand that they’re in a position where they’re representing their Egyptian culture when they’re here in Australia and their Australian culture when they’re in Egypt and that people will judge others based on their behaviour.”

“Our sons know that they are Muslim and they know that their grandparents in Australia are Christian,” Emily said. “They also know that we all believe in the same one God.

“They know that the main difference is that in Islam Jesus is a prophet, while Christians believe that he is the son of God.”

The family still celebrates Christmas and Easter together, though as non-religious celebrations, and if they are in Egypt at the time they are more “low key affairs”. They also observe Ramadan, when Ahmed and Emily fast, and celebrate the two Eids (Islamic festivals).

Emily is this month celebrating becoming an Egyptian citizen. “I have felt Egyptian for so long anyway that it’s nice that it’s now official,” she said.

With a brother-in-law jailed for a year for speaking out against the military, the political system is a subject close to Emily’s heart and she is pleased she will have the right to vote in future presidential elections.

“Egyptians have been oppressed by the ruling regime for over 30 years, with little freedom of speech and terrible human rights abuses,” she said.

“There’s an ongoing struggle to meet the demands of last year’s revolution, but there are so many factors at play, so much corruption and so many people trying to protect themselves that it seems not much has changed yet. But we still have faith…”

She said, contrary to widespread belief and “media hype” many ordinary Muslims and Christians live harmoniously in the suburbs of Egypt. “Most Egyptian Muslims I know have Christian friends, and vice versa,” she said. “I don’t see the divide as being on the street level but something that is exacerbated higher up.”

Emily believes a solution will be found to the problems being faced by Egyptians and she also feels if people in general were more accepting and respectful of others’ beliefs, the world would be a better place.

She said her cross-cultural relationship was a “microcosm of the larger picture.”

“I am very into East-West relations and bridging the gap, so to speak. And with relationships such as ours, you quickly realize that our similarities are much great than our differences,” she said.

“And it’s such a simple realization that more people would have if they were exposed to ‘the other side’.

“The bottom line is that we’re all people, we all care about the same basic things.

“If more people could get into that mental space the world would be much better for it.”

***

Emily’s “addiction” to Egypt inspired her first novel called The Nile is a Road, which has been published in Egypt and will soon be available in Australia.

It’s the story of two foreign girls who travel to Cairo together. They only plan to stay a week and see the pyramids. However, once there they meet and befriend some local men and find that they don’t want to leave.

“The book is about their experiences in Cairo and the effect the people have on them, with a lot of cultural references and anecdotes,” Emily said. “Cairo is filled with so many stories that I knew I would set my first book there. I love Egypt so much that I want to tell everyone about it and I hope that my book does this.”