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Jeddah
in Distress
(Click
here to view the Arabic version)
On the beaches of the Red Sea, in the city
of Jeddah in Saudi Arabia, amongst the proliferating modern,
buildings and shopping malls that are testaments to the expanding
economy, and past the ancient portals to stately, splendid
mosques -- just outside which is the highway to Holy Makkah,
The City of Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) -- there is an ugly reality.
Unseen by the transitory businessman or tourist, in the part
of town where the indigent survive, is a dilemma of monumental
proportions: the water and sewage systems have either never
been built or are falling apart. Many people toss their human
waste and garbage into cesspools which, when finally emptied,
are dumped into the sea. Dangerous bacteria abound and pure
water is at a premium.
As a prominent resident of Jeddah, Faysal Alaquil determined
not only to illuminate the problems and attract governmental
attention; he resolved to find some answers.
Thus emerged his first book, Jeddah in Distress. Within
this slim but powerful volume, you will read some of Jeddah’s
history – how the city's population exploded from 30,000 to
a million plus residents, becoming the second largest municipality
in Saudi Arabia. You will encounter, stark, even impolitic
questions. You will read of similar dilemmas faced by other
cities including the USA cities of Cleveland and Houston,
who succeeded -- and others who failed – in solving them.
The exposition is fact-filled, reflecting a highly analytical
and implacably thoughtful mindset, but the prose is punctuated
by passages that are rhapsodic, manifesting the aesthetic
sensibility, poetic ear, and spiritual devotion of its author.
Jeddah in Distress is in the galley proof stage of development
and will be available very soon. Click
here to email the Author
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Diplomacy
vs. Politics - "The
Biography of Ebraheem Alsulaiman"
(Click
here to view the Arabic version)
When
formally addressed, he was called His Excellency Sheikh
Ebraheem Alsulaiman, he made history. And, he was Faysal
Alaquil’s father.
As a younger man, he enjoyed learning from his uncle Sheikh
Ebraheem Abdallah Alfadl the true way of conducting commerce
between India and the Arabian Peninsula. By age twenty-five,
he had gravitated to public life and became a player in
the game of geopolitics. A friend and confidante of Kings,
he was a major contributor to the structuring of the Saudi
Arabian Royal Court.
He dined with American presidents and with the highest-level
British officials, mulling over the Palestinian conflict,
as well as with HRH Prince (later King) Faysal, who was
his son's namesake. The senior Alaquil was a man of profound
influence and endless complexity, a formidable adversary
with impeccable judgment. He was, too, a wise and loving
father.
As a man of the world and a figure in history, these achievements
alone would distinguish him. But there is more. Much more.
There were more accomplishments, more honors, all punctuated
by the flaws that exist in all men, no matter their caliber.
By his son Faysal and his four brothers, he was deeply loved.
The author examines his illustrious father with the same
punctilio that characterizes his first book, Jeddah in
Distress, but that is about the only similarity. This
unique biography is one-third history, one-third family
tale, and one-third tribute. There is an ineffable fourth-third,
which is in the subtext, and that is love. Diplomacy and
Politics is a work in progress.
Click
here to email the Author
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Focus
on a Family (Click
here to view the Arabic version)
As
far back in time as they can be traced, to the late 19th century,
the Alaquil/Alfadl family lived on the Arabian Peninsula,
in the village of Unayza. About 1893, while in the second
known generation, the family moved to India looking for commerce.
A socially and politically conscious group, they lent support
to the Al Saud family during the unification of the land,
particularly as the soon to be King Ebin Saud labored under
great difficulty to unite the disparate elements of the vast
expanse of land and create, in 1930, a nation-state called
the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, with himself, King Abdulaziz
Bin Abdulrahman Al Saud, as reigning monarch.
In time, the family extended its reach, moving from the central
region of the new kingdom, and later branched out by intermarriage
to other families, to other Arabian nations, to the United
States, and even to Argentina in South America. This is the
saga of their expansion as a family which was to be enriched
in spirit by both their group cohesion, despite the many places
they came to inhabit, no matter how far the distance between
one another. It is the story of their individual members,
risk takers, adventurers. It is a story of pain and triumph,
of loyalty and integrity.
Faysal Alaquil is writing his third book as a record for the
present and coming generations of the Alaquils and the Alfadls,
including very rare photographs of members of this one family.
The book will be available to the public very soon. Click
here to email the Author
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NAJDIAH
(Click
here to view the Arabic version)
This
book, about a businessman's years conducting international
trade suggests the high anxiety of dubious perils, smudged
bills of lading, and the narrative stress of calculating how
many frozen fish can be placed in a containerized vessel --
stuff that will have you nodding off even before you finish
perusing the acknowledgments. So why did Faysal Alaquil decide
to write Najdiah? Gong! Time's up. The correct answer is his
book is to be about none of those things.
Instead, this book could be looked at as a novel that could
be written for a movie screenplay. This will be treated to
a work that scintillates with such plot elements as Mafia
stuff, corruption, smoking scandal, unscrupulous international
businessmen colluding on the shadiest kinds of deals, and
thick intrigue involving big names and giant companies. The
dang thing, as so far written, reads like Robert Ludlum meets
Ian Fleming. You just don't want to put the manuscript down
and you are fidgety about its completion.
Displaying his estimable ability to write powerfully in a
range of genres, Faysal Alaquil has imparted to the unfinished
opus bearing both documentary as well as novelistic attributes.
Faysal Alaquil is crafting almost an exposé (but actually,
this is not so much an expoosé as it is a roman a clef). He
is cranking up the tension until it builds to the bursting
point, then will let loose the climax, a logical, I-should-have-figured-that-out-ending
that is far more satisfying than a typical novel because it
is perfectly true. The characters’ identities have been masked
by the paper-thin shrouds of new, made up names, possibly
to save Faysal Alaquil’s skin!
NAJDIAH, a work in progress. The first three chapters were
written in Burlingame, California. Notes were taken between
Buenos Aires, Geneva and Riyadh. Click
here to email the Author |
To
obtain a free copy of the Arabic supplication and prayer
booklets,
please send your request to books@alaquil.com
with name and full mailing address.
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