Mohammed Ali Hafiz: Retiring after great career
DURING the early seventies of the last century, four very enterprising Saudi gentlemen decided to publish an English-language daily newspaper in the Kingdom — a newspaper that could cater to the needs of millions of foreigners who were coming to take part in the unprecedented economic boom of those years.
It was an ambitious project from every aspect as there had been no foreign language daily in the country and therefore no Saudi or foreign newspaperman or woman to depend on to handle the huge task. There were very good Arabic dailies and good Arabic pressmen, of course.
But the two brothers who were seasoned Arabic daily journalists — Hisham and Mohammed Ali Hafiz — were determined to go ahead supported actively by two important friends, Sheikh Kamal Adham, adviser to the Royal Court and Prince Turki Al-Faisal, who had graduated from the US then and was later to become the Kingdom’s ambassador to the United Kingdom and then to the United States.
The men were determined to go ahead with the plan and, by chance, I happened to be in the Kingdom at that time, strangely enough, looking for a job as a journalist. I wanted to work in an English-language newspaper based on my education in the US and training and service in the British colony of Aden, in the southern corner of Arabia along the Red Sea.
We had no trained journalists for an English-language daily so we had to hire a few initially from Pakistan and then from India. Later, many more arrived from Britain and the US.
The four partners had to put up their own money to buy machinery and rent a small and modest place as an editorial office. The rest of the story has already been written here and elsewhere. Indeed I have written a whole book in Arabic about the two Hafiz brothers including my experience with them.
One can read my article about the project published in this newspaper a few months ago — about my changing jobs in favor of the company and about the country’s first daily newspaper in Malayalam, the language of Kerala in India and of over two million residents in the Kingdom.
Hisham and Mohammed were professionals as their father and uncle had been pioneer journalists having launched and owned Al-Madinah daily from Madinah, then from Jeddah and other cities.
Until Hisham’s death a few years ago both spent most of their working lives in journalism including the successful daily Arab News and several other publications of which the most famous is the daily Asharq Al-Awsat, the first international daily in Arabic. There are, in addition to these, other publications — magazines, weekly and monthly in glorious colors like Sayidaty for women and Al-Rajol for men. The whole enterprise was a massive success story in Arabic journalism during the past century and until this day.
Hisham is now no more and Mohammed is retiring peacefully as he told me recently. Together we worked for nearly two decades. Of the two publisher brothers, Hisham was the creative half while Mohammed was the journalist who would work from morning till midnight and be on duty throughout the whole year. He wrote editorials and reviewed what others were writing because ultimately he and his brother were responsible for whatever appeared in every publication.
Throughout the period under review I was working in Arab News and writing a daily column in Asharq Al-Awsat circulated throughout the world as the company scored unbelievable success being alone in the field enjoying technical and editorial superiority. And because of their financial ability they were always able to hire the best and pay them well.
At first the editorial office was on the ground floor of Bin Ladin building, the terraced pink building on Madinah Road, then moved to the company’s old offices in Sharafiya, where the old airport was located. When money flowed in, the company decided to build its own structure and buy a neighboring printing press facing the stadium just off Madinah Road.
At that juncture Prince Ahmed bin Salman became the chairman of the conglomerate and set about revolutionizing the whole setup while Hisham and Mohammed remained publishers. So he supervised the building of the head office in Riyadh where it is still located and continuously refurbished and redecorated it. He actually rebuilt the company in Riyadh, Dammam and Jeddah as well as its offices in Europe and the US. But sadly he died of a heart failure before completing his magnificent plans for modernization.
Almost all the dozen titles of the company were roaring successes as the Asharq Al-Awsat soon became the truly international daily newspaper of the Arabs if not the first and foremost at least the second daily following the first native newspaper of the reader as the publishers wanted it to be. Arab News is doing marvelously well in both circulation and advertising revenue. Sayidaty is by far the leading weekly for women and families while the others ranging from sports daily to economic times are far ahead of others.
The company has expanded and diversified both in the Kingdom and in the Gulf where it owns properties and has plans for further expansion.
Mohammed is still a keen reader of all the company's publications which he receives every morning in his new office along the King Road in Jeddah and is pleased with what he reads as he told me during a recent meeting there as he seldom leaves home and office these days.
His children, all grown up, as well as Hisham's have eschewed journalism and have chosen business instead. Some of them are sharing his offices with him. He still walks daily but has built a small mosque facing his palace in Jeddah where he performs the five daily prayers and continues his peaceful retirement and intensive reading of his former publications.
• Farouk Luqman is an eminent journalist based in Jeddah.
