Talk:Mohamed Al-Fayed

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[edit] Name

The main article says 'Mohamed' - the picture caption says 'Mohammad'. Apart from the al-controversy, can this be made consistent? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.145.7.176 (talk) 10:26, 3 October 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Four Wives?

I heard that he had four (Muslim) wives. I remember watching a documentary about Harrods on the Discovery Channel where there was a scene where cameras were following Mohammed Fayed with four women in hijabs/jilbabs following him and a black foreign-born woman told him if he married her, she could help him get a passport and he laughed saying that he already have enough wives. Can someone confirm this? I know polygamy is illegal in the UK unless that person have multiples spouses outside the country and before claiming British citizenship. Media Research 20:57, 3 September 2007 (UTC)


[edit] 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.

The point being he isn't an Arab, he's an Egyptian —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.177.116.201 (talk) 00:54, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

What? Egypt is an Arab country. Almost all of its people are Arabs. Manormadman (talk) 12:21, 18 February 2008 (UTC)Manormadman

'alfayed.com'! Perhaps Michael Cole is lurking. Philip Cross (talk) 17:24, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

If you want more evidence of his unsavoury character, and not so savoury business dealings I suggest you read Tom Bowers' unauthorized biography titled "Fayed". I got about half way through and had to stop reading it because it wound me up too much. Al Fayed is a cockroach plain and simple. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.177.116.201 (talk) 00:40, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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 Fayed is a public figure. Under American libel law, it is basically impossible for a public figure to prove libel. And thank god for that. I say we ignore curtains99's assertion. The brits can keep their idiotic (and press-censoring) libel law.jackbrown (talk) 10:49, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] 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?

Referring to the definite Arabic article 'Al' as the equivalent of the German "Von" or French "De" makes it sound extremely pretentious, as if it implies hereditary lordship status in the family. Which of course it doesn't in Arabic. Probably a good third of Egyptian last names have the "Al/El" in front of them...that sentence should be removed despite the footnote. Although the fact that he added the Al later in life implies that there was some pretentious motive...I don't know jackbrown (talk) 13:22, 14 January 2008 (UTC)


One can add the hyphen in the article's title (absent in the text) to this query. Philip Cross (talk) 17:26, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] get outta here!

how could this be a wax statue? Etaicq 01:07, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Fulham FC

The following word-salad clearly has grammatical and other issues and needs to be rewritten:

Since the disappointing signing of Steve Marlet for £12 million, Fayed grew wary of how wasteful spending money on average players.

I would suggest "After the ..., Fayed became wary of spending money signing unproven players.", but I don't really know enough about the subject. EmmetCaulfield 07:50, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Insanity

Shouldnt something be mentioned about his soundness of mind. Surely he must have some mental problems. Who else accuses HM The Queen of murdering their son and has done for over 10 years! --Camaeron 15:44, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Bickering

The inquiry, involving one of the most bitter feuds in British business history, issued a 1990 report stating that the Fayed brothers had lied about their background and wealth. The bickering with Rowland continued when he accused them of stealing millions in jewels from his Harrods safe deposit box. Rowland died and without accepting responsibility Fayed settled the dispute with a payment to his widow. (Fayed had been arrested during the dispute and sued the Metropolitan Police for false arrest in 2002. He lost the case.)

It seems there is a significant amount of information missing from that paragraph. From Tiny Rowland, he died in 1998, so substantially after 1990 in the rather compressed impression of the timeline I get from the above (though also substantially before 2002). Bickering rarely causes death or arrests, and there is no explanation for why Fayed might be expected to accept responsibility (I assume for Rowland's death). So presumably the inference is that some sort of fisticuffs occurred, but this should be stated clearly with reference to actual facts. --db 86.7.20.47 (talk) 19:11, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

How incredible that this demented delinquent has been living in England for thirty years and still can't speak anything more than pidgin English. Apart from the obvious matter of Tourette's syndrome It is my opinion that this man is suffering from tertiary syphilis. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.43.192.68 (talk) 13:40, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Date of Birth

This article has his date of birth both as 1929 and 1933. What is it? Technohead1980 (talk) 07:10, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Unsourced allegation of "embezzeling"

I'm not familiar with the history of this article but I was surprised to see this allegation has been unchallenged for two weeks (since revision 208649875 by Bizboy14 on 1st May 2008). Is it supported by one of the general references? - Pointillist (talk) 07:56, 14 May 2008 (UTC)