Aqeel al-Mosawi

Aqeel al-Mosawi
Born	(1966-01-27) January 27, 1966 Bahrain
Occupation	Dentist (Endodotist) and Novelist
Language	Arabic
Alma mater	University of Baghdad (BDS) University of Minnesota (MS Endodontics)
Spouse	Maha Al Abbas ​ ​ (m. 1993; div. 2001)​ Amani Al Tawwash ​ (m. 2015)​

Aqeel Mohamed Saleh al-Mosawi (Arabic: عقيل محمد صالح الموسوي; born 27 January 1966) is a Bahraini dentist, novelist and photographer. He is best is known for being a consultant endodontist.

Early life and career

Aqeel al-Mosawi was born in Noaim neighborhood, one of the neighborhoods of Bahrain's capital Manama. His father, Sayyid Mohamed Saleh al-Mosawi was a well known Shia religious figure, as well as being a poet and a writer. Painter Abbas Almosawi is his brother.

After graduating with a dental degree from the University of Baghdad in 1989, he worked for Bahrain's Ministry of Health. In 1997, he received a masters degree from the University of Minnesota in the field of endodontics. Two years later he established his own private practice where he still works (as of November 2020).

al-Mosawi is an avid traveler and keeps a wall size map of the world in his house where he marks places he visited. According to him, he has "seen half of the world". His wife Amani Al Tawwash who is an artist is his travel companion.

Writings

al-Mosawi wrote two novels, Aryamehr Nameh in 2017 and Dara the Zoroastrian in 2021. Before that he had published many articles in local papers about his travels.

Aryamehr Nameh, a historical novel published by Dar Al Farabi (Beirut), was well received by critics and was nominated for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction. The idea of the book came as a result of the author's visits to Iran and his fascination with its culture and literature such as Hafez, Ferdowsi and Shirazi. One goal of the novel was to highligh and rehabilitate the Achaemenid Empire, which German philisopher Hegel viewed as the beginning of human consciousness, and to cast Alexander the Great in a negative light; as an invader rather than great conqueror as often viewed in the West.

Nader Kadhim, a Bahraini author and friend of al-Mosawi praised the style of novel, viewing it as quite a bold move for a debut novel. The novel had mutliple characters such as Mohammad Mosaddegh and Farah Pahlavi giving their often contradicting perspectives on historical events, and it was set in three different eras of Iranian history, ending with the 1979 Iranian Revolution. In a full review published in Asharq Al-Awsat, Kadhim said that Aryamehr Nameh was one of the good novels that were not only written by the hand, heart and mind of the author, but by his legs too, for he had travelled around the geography of Iran during the research phase, and it took him 5 years to complete. He added that the novel is both captivating and rich, and that its topic is unusual for Arabic novels.

Bahraini writer Fadhila al-Mosawi described the novel as an encylopedia of Iranian history, and she especially liked that the history is being told by an Arabic person, while at the same time giving it an Iranian point of view. She added:

The novel is captivating, smooth and attractive. It did not lack the element of suspense which holds the reader's breath up to the last pages as he continues in his eagerness for the pleasure of knowledge, and dives to the depths of an unfrequented world. It is a novel that satisfies the conditions of creativity, which makes it truly enjoyable.

Poet Qassim Haddad jokingly told the author that he had applied his knowledge in dentistry to the history of Iran, following it from before the eruption of baby teeth up to the falling of permenant teeth, to which the author replied that he thinks Iran still has sharp teeth.