Talk:Mohamed Al-Fayed

There's a lot of material here

On the recent significant edit by 'alfayed.com' - Obviously there's a lot of material here, which is good as I thought the previous version was very negative and devoid of real fact. Although well-intentioned, I think that this edit has trashed a lot of good formatting and other content that probably was more in the style of a Wikipedia article. Undortunately, I'm in no position to have a go at really editing it in the next year or two, but it would be good to see this one got right. The guy is a bit of a british instituion in a number of ways and it would be nice to see something balanced. ~~

I think that the part of Mohamed Al-Fayed self "styling" himself Al-Fayed, instead of modestly calling himself Fayed should be removed. Al (or El) means "the" in arabic, and hence can be misunderstood by europeans as similar to palcing "of" in front of a family name in english, or "de" and "le" in front of a french family name. However in arabic names it has no honorary meaning and is just a relic of the way arabic societey used to be organised in the pas according to tribe and place of origin. In fact in some cases people use their family name with and without "al-" interchangebly. Ususally they will write the al- when they write their name in arabic but remove it when writing their name in latin script.

Biog

I see my mention of Tom Bower's critical biography of Fayed has been deleted. (Presumably by a Fayed supporter.) So I've put it back. Ben Finn 17:48, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

British citizenship

For years he has sought British citizenship unsuccessfully. Both Labour and Conservative Home Secretaries have repeatedly rejected his claims on the grounds that he was not of good character. Consequently, he (unsuccessfully) took the matter to court.

Is this a mystery? What exactly has he done that prevents him from obtaining a passport? I've always wondered. Curtains99 14:40, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

The "not of good character" derives from his proven habit of bribing MPs to ask questions in Parliament on his behalf. That and the fact that his first big break, before he got into oil, was working for a Saudi arms dealer. Alamagoosa 12:34, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Harrods

Although no doubt Harrods dominated the news story at the time, according to the House of Fraser article, al-Fayed bought the Fraser group who themselves owned Harrods. He later sold the group (who have stores all over the country) but retained ownership of Harrods. I'll modify the article but if I've got it wrong, please fix it (and House of Fraser if need be). --kingboyk 18:23, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Fug me?

The Dirty little Fugger? Someone get rid of this crap and lock the article due to vandalism.

I have requested semi-protection Curtains99 10:43, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Employment practices

A paragraph has been added more than once including claims of unfair and illegal employment practices. These claims must be verifiable and accompanied by supporting references. Otherwise they have to be deleted even if the claims are true and part of the editor's personal experience. There was a critical DTI report in 1989/1990 concerning Fayed that could be use to rewrite this paragraph. Curtains99 10:43, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Libel

The following version of this page is libellous and should be removed from the page history following the policy laid out in Wikipedia:Libel

It is Wikipedia policy to delete libellous revisions from the page history.

Curtains99 16:33, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

al vs Al

Why is the title of this page not "Mohamed al-Fayed" when it is stated in the article that he likes to be styled in this way? Which is correct?