Mohamed El-Fers

Mohamed el-Fers (born 1950 in Haarlem) is a Dutch writer, musician and filmmaker.
Life.
El-Fers was musician in Los Compañeros (Latin American), Nass el-Ghorba (Moroccan), Tiq Maya (Moroccan), Medina (pop) and Atlal (folkrock). With this last group he had in 1982 a number 1 hit in Egypt and Sudan and appeared in "El Alem Ghani" the Egyptian television show by Hamdia Hamdi.
He published in "Hitweek" / "Aloha", "De Groene Amsterdammer", "Nieuwe Revu", "Algemeen Dagblad", the Turkish newspaper "Dünya" and "De Staatskrant".
Together with René Zwaap, he founded MokumTV, one of the best viewed programmes of Salto TV, a local television station in Amsterdam. For MokumTV he made several documentaries, later released on DVD.
El-Fers produced in 1996 for Hippo Records two CDs with Leo Fuld, the 'king of Yiddish music'.
He wrote biographies on e.g. Jacques Brel, Mevlana Rumi, Oum Kalsoum and Bob Marley and published travel guides about Istanbul, Lourdes and Amsterdam. He also wrote an "Encyclopedie van Hollandse Heiligen", an encyclopedia on Dutch Saints.
Together with Veyis Güngör, El-Fers took the initiative that would become the UNESCO Mevlana Year in 2007. See Mevlana800. 
Award.
For his Mevlanabiography he received on May 5, 2003 during the 3rd international Mevlanacongress of the Selçukuniversity of Konya (Turkey) the Merit of Honour by the Turkish Secretary of State for Religion, Prof. Mehmet Aydin.