I grew up in the capital of Egypt, Cairo. I started memorising the Koran when I was five years old and I joined the primary school when I was six.

In Egypt, you started going to primary school from when you were six and you studied for six years. After that you went on to prep school for three years until you were 15. The secondary school I went to was for four more years, until the age of 19. After I finished school, I started giving lectures and delivering sermons and I also taught in private schools.

I used to start at 7.30 a.m. and finish at 1 p.m. in primary school. In prep school it was 7.30 until 2 p.m. and in secondary school we stayed a little bit longer. In school I learned the secular sciences like geography, history Arabic and mathematics. I also studied the Islamic subjects. We would study the Koran and how to worship Allah.

After school I would go home and eat lunch and then sleep for a little bit. Then when I got up I would study what I had learned in school. We had to memorise the major parts of some books and that took a long time.

I liked school very much. The best thing about school was the teachers. They were able to create such a great atmosphere in the school that you would find no difference between this atmosphere and the family atmosphere at home. So I liked to go to school just to meet the teachers. When we were in primary school one of the teachers used to take the best students to her home and we would just have lunch together. She would talk to us, and we had the feeling that she was like a mother to us.

There were sports and games played in the school but I was destined to have weak sight so I used to wear glasses. Some other students were playing one day and I was just passing and one of the students shot the ball hitting my glasses and breaking them. So after this accident I decided to keep away from sports altogether. By nature I am quiet. That student who shot the ball at my glasses made me more quiet.

In school I was in charge of the assembly in the morning. The students would deliver speeches and say something on wisdom and such things and I was in charge of organising this from the first year, right to the end of school.

I was always very much interested in reading and learning and my father was also very interested in educating me. So I had to spend a long time reading books and memorising the important parts of certain books. Reading consumed the majority of my time. My best subjects were Arabic, history and Islamic studies.

I still like to go and visit the primary school. It is still the same as it was when I was there and I have met some of my primary school teachers since graduating. I still remember them all the time, but some of them have died and the other are very very old. One of the teachers that I still see is very old. She's over 80 now.

I have seven children and some of them went to school here in Ireland but other went in Egypt.

My school days were such a long time ago now but I remember one teacher in primary school who was allergic to the smell of any food. The school was co-educational and one day one of the girls in the class brought in sardines to eat in school and put them at the back to the class. When the teacher came in she smelled the fish and she asked the student to go and get it and bring to to her. She gave us all a very hard day because of that, I can remember.

I was interested in travel and I liked to see things. My friends and I used to go to see lots of places and monuments, including the pyramids. It is probably my love of travel that sent me to visit many other countries and eventually to come and live in Ireland.

In conversation with Olivia Kelly