Syb's Saudi the land I loved

I am now writing my seventh book but of all the books I have written the first means the most to me because it was written in Saudi. It is a tale about Saudi and its life style at the time (1974) based on many of the things we experienced as described in Mike’s Saudi.

At the time we felt there was a big divide in the understanding of the expatriate and the Saudi’s we were sent to teach. As we can see today Islam and Arabic culture is often badly portrayed and misunderstood in the West, no doubt helped by the more radical views of disinfected followers of the terrorist fringe. It was my experience that these do not represent the views of most Muslims who now seem to find it difficult to convince others of the true religion as written in the Koran. By selecting abbreviated passages from any religious text it is possible to support any view no matter how far from the true dedication of the text and often read in a context often means the opposite.

In Inshallah I tried to express in an unlikely love story of the normal family life of many Saudis and their acceptance of Islam, not always as strict as the Matawa (religious police) would like. However I tried to make it acceptable to the Western mind set as possible without deviating too far from the facts as actually experienced by myself. To me at that time they were friendly generous people who accepted me into their families during the time I stayed with them I wore purdah when we went out, and divided into separate rooms when none family members were present. Life of course was different to what I was used to but no worse for that.

I loved my time in Saudi, no doubt things have changed now after all it was forty years ago. But if as Christians or Muslims we stuck to the words of our Profits and didn’t infect them with our own agendas the world would have been a much nicer place.

Inshallah available from  amazon.com/dp/B007OIX3XM