Famous Yemenis


By accident I came across a website called “countrylicious: World country facts” which has a section on Famous People in Yemen. It is telling that the first entry is for Mukesh Ambani, an Indian business magnate who is India’s richest man with personal wealth of $21.5 billion. He does not seem to have anything to do with Yemen, but he is followed by Tawakkol Karman and then Ali Abdullah Salih, who weighs in just above Abu Hureirah, the companion of the Prophet, who was indeed born in Yemen (the entry here is taken verbatim from Wikipedia). But then when you scroll down to Abd al-Majeed al-Zindani, a rather strange thing happens. The picture shown is actually of Anwar al-Awlaqi or else Zindani has had major plastic surgery. Here is where copying from Wikipedia can get you in trouble. The Wikipedia site for al-Zindani also has the picture of al-Awlaqi and no one checked to see the switch. So much for the facts on this site…