A Saudi Tale

A SAUDI TALE: Reading and Encounters – In Search for Consciousness, by Iyad Ameen Madani. Selangor, Malaysia: The Other Press Sdn Bhd, 2023, x+336pp. ISBN: 978-9670957562.

Reviewed by: Usman Bugaje, Kaduna, Nigeria        

This is a fascinating book with an unassuming title but a powerful message. Its measured tone and subtle style do not diminish the potency of the ideas, views and theses that alerts the reader and awaken consciousness. It is a book about a captivating life journey which started in the narrow alleys of Madinah in the 1950s, in the neighbourhood of the tomb of the Prophet Muḥammad (blessings and peace be upon him), through the political turmoil of Nasser’s Egypt, especially the defeat of the 1967 war, and ending up in search of college education in Texas US, in time to watch the assassination of President J.F. Kennedy. While in America of the early 1970s, the author was fortunate to live the big debates about free speech, liberalism, Nazism, Fascism and the New World Order (NWO). He was also fortunate to listen to major figures such as Malcom X, James Baldwin, Martin Luther King, and run around a number of Campuses of American Universities, obviously mesmerized by the flux of these ideas. Perhaps it is his early engagement with these ideas that has given this book its analytical depth and philosophical flair. Yet the author maintains that this is not a biography. He may well be right, since the book does not touch on his ministerial career or his sojourn as the OIC secretary General.