Whether one is a Saudi or an expat, be sure and proofread ALL documents received in the Kingdom. And after you have proofread them, give them to someone else to double check as well. I am referring to iqamas, passports, visas, marriage licenses, drivers licenses, id cards, contracts – any important document. The Kingdom is notorious for important documents to contain discrepancies which can later cause unnecessarily problems or delay.
Common issues surround names and dates. In fairness, it is not always easy or straight-forward to transliterate names from Arabic to English and vice-versa. The same also applies to dates with the Kingdom following the Hijjri 
(Islamic) Calendar and rest of the world following the Gregorian calendar.
Areas where I have seen problems occur is an individual will have a passport, drivers license and Saudi id card. His name will either be spelled differently on all these documents or the date of birth will also be different. And an example of where this causes a problem, is I know one individual who traveled out of the Kingdom and wanted to rent a car. He was denied because while his name was spelled the same on his passport and driving license, the date of birth was completely off. As a result, the rental car agency chose not to allow the Saudi to rent a car as they questioned his identity.
Even for myself, I have found that the transliteration of my own name from English to Arabic is misspelled on my Saudi id and I have had to get this corrected.
Now while going into speculation mode, I wonder how much these discrepancies have impacted in regards to issuance of visas? It is not a secret that all names and date/place of birth would be checked in various databases to ensure there are no matches with suspicious names. How many innocent Saudi citizens may have been affected due to discrepancies on their documents they may not be aware of?
Filed under: culture, Saudi Arabia, travel
[...] Advice For You wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerpt Whether one is a Saudi or an expat, be sure and proofread ALL documents received in the Kingdom. And after you have proofread them, give them to someone else to double check as well. I am referring to iqamas, passports, visas, marriage licenses, drivers licenses, id cards, contracts – any important document. The Kingdom is notorious for important documents to contain discrepancies which can later cause unnecessarily problems or delay. Common issues surround names and dates. In fairness, it [...]
That often causes problems.. My Saudi ID, has the wrong birthday on it! My daughters passport has the name misspelled! And the list goes on! I remember trying to get the Saad Hospital card for my daughter and myself… and I filled out the application correctly. When it was time to pick up my card a few minutes later… the names were spelt completely wrong! It was ridiculous.. and I forced them to correct it, and they didn’t seem pleased with my request. Nevertheless it was done!
Now I need to force my husband to fix my daughters name on her passport before its too late
Great topic!
So sorry to hear of your document problems Om Lujain but they do typify what seems to be more the norm here. And you’re right…fight and speak firmly to get those documents corrected for it certainly can cause problems if not.
I just recently had a hair pulling enducing moment when after spending sizable amount on 3 international airline tickets…my two daughters were not allowed to board the plane cause their names on the tickets were not exactly like their names on their passports…talk about wanting to scream. Funny thing is…everything was spelled right for a change…just one of their names was left off the tickets…sheesh.
My own name has been written a hundred different ways…and no matter how often you correct them…they just look at you like your crazy
The funniest ticket experience I had (pre 9/11) was when in Pakistan. I was widely known there as “Miss Carol” and I’m sure you can imagine my shock when I get my tickets right before travel to the States to see the ticket actually read “Miss Carol” rather than my full name. Unbelievably I made it all the way to the States on that ticket but before returning to Pakistan I got the name changed to reflect my full name.
My pet peeve are the old style iqamas (being phased out now, thank god). You know, the green book thingies. The id number was written by hand, and there’s always a chance of reading it wrong. I work with the computer system used in producing health certificates for the food industry, and the amount of faulty records due to misread id numbers keeps me busy correcting them instead of doing something more productive.
Ah well, with my name I just gave up. If it isn’t important I just call myself miss Brown.
but on things like passports I can imagine the disastrous repercussions!
Miss Carol; you have no idea how often I am named ”mr”, when it’s related to a ”male” activity, like sport shooting or me and my father used to go to airshows, on special tickets, inconcieivable that a girl might want to go to those!
I’m so glad you’re back! I’m so glad you’re back! I’m so glad you’re back! I’m so glad you’re back! I’m so glad you’re back!!!!!!!!!!!
lotsa virtual hugs coming at you Mr. Aafke! (GD&R) (that’s grin, duck and run for those not familar with the abbreviation).
It took me 5 trips to the bank to open my first bank account here, because my iqama had my last name spelled wrong, and my employer letter had my Islamic name instead of my legal name. That’s another thing to check – especially for Western Muslim converts — use your official name (the one in your passport) for everything on paper.
Very good advise, Huda! Sorry to hear about your experiences though – I’m sure that was quite frustrating at the time.
this is a pet peeve — my name is NEVER spelt right, and usually there are about 5 variations of it : there’s teh name that is actually on my passport, then there’s the one on my iqama which obviously is spelt all wrong, the hospital where my son was born decided to give my a different surname altogether… and then the hosp my daugther was born in decided to use my husbands first name repeated twice as my surname … and then my kids got their iqamas recently so my son’s iqama has my baby daugthers picture on it and vice versa …. what do you do about stuff like that?! grr..!
Riyadh Mom – that’s terrible to have so many different errors but when it comes to the iqamas and birth certificates, I strongly advise that you get these rectified soonest. These kind of errors can come back to haunt you and in a very unpleasant way.
I wholly agree – however, the saudi in charge of getting this stuff done @ my husbands work place (renewals of iqamas etc) has refused to make a trip back to the ministry (because he just can’t be bothered) & suggested we wait another two years – when the kids iqamas expire, the error will be automatically fixed (or not!) .. !!! till then we are just hoping noone asks to see the childrens iqamas!
just a suggestion but have your husband confirm whether he can go to jawazat on this issue since it is fixing iqamas and not renewing or doing something else. If you have children nearing school age, depending on the school, this could cause a big unwanted glitch.
thanks – suggestion much appreciated
we did request the guy to get the error fixed but he’s refused to go back & you’re right – we’re better off having it fixed to avoid any unnecessary problems. will check once again to see what can be done .
Good luck Riyadh!
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