Imtiaz Sooliman – 0512 Gift of the Givers
AI: Summary ©
The speakers discuss the importance of seeking guidance and serving as a meaningful person to use in one's life. They touch on the history and characteristics of the disaster response agency in South Africa, the importance of finding the right balance between the good and evil, and the need for everyone to act with love and service. They also emphasize the importance of serving people and finding the right balance between the good and evil, finding the right balance between the good and evil, finding the right balance between the good and evil, finding the right balance between the good and evil, finding the right balance between the good and evil, finding the right balance between the good and evil, finding the right balance between the good and evil, finding the right balance between the good and evil, finding the right balance between the good and evil, finding the right balance between the good and evil, finding the right balance between the good and evil, finding the right balance between the good and evil, finding the right balance between the good and evil,
AI: Summary ©
Best and most blessed. Greetings of divine, peace and light.
Assalamu, Alaikum, dear and beloved brothers and sisters in
faith and in humanity. Welcome to soul of Islam radio. My name is
Ihsan, and I am a faith based life coach with the goal of supporting
seekers upon the path and finding a healthy balance between the
spiritual and practical dimensions of life in the modern world. I
recently had the opportunity to meet and talk with Dr Imtiaz
Suleiman, who heads the gift of the givers Foundation, one of the
largest, if not the largest and most effective humanitarian relief
organizations in South Africa. Dr Suleiman is an inspiring example
of what is possible when a human being consciously chooses sacred
service and divine purpose, and when one sincerely seeks to live a
life of selflessness by striving to help other human beings. This
conversation with Dr Suleiman was a powerful reminder for me
personally, as to why we are here on this plane and upon this
planet, and how essential it is to seek to live a life of service to
our Creator by seeking to serve his creation, and that ultimately,
this is what will matter most, to what degree we were able to reduce
the suffering of others. In our discussion, we spoke about love
and service as the key to strengthening faith, the
importance of good counsel, listening to and acting upon our
highest calling, the spiritual origins of his work and mission,
how to truly develop spiritually through meaningful and valuable
work and service. The role of Muslims as deputies and servants
of God in the world, and much more, brothers and sisters, I hope
you enjoy benefit and are inspired by this illuminating conversation.
Salaam Alaikum warahmatulla, Dr miyaz, a pleasure to be here with
you. And welcome to soul of Islam Radio. Thank you very much for
inviting me. It's my deep pleasure. Dr ntiaz, and as I
mentioned earlier, right, one of the things that we hope to do to
try to encourage Muslims in our community to take an active role
in the world that we live in, and that this is actually key to
spiritual growth and spiritual development. So most of our
listeners may not be familiar with you or what you do. Dr nyaz, maybe
a brief bio about yourself and what you do. What do you do?
Exactly? I'm from South Africa. I've grown up here,
second, fourth generation, and I'm a medical doctor, but I don't
practice medicine anymore. I gave up medicine on the 30th of June,
1994 that's because my life took a different direction in August 1992
well in August 91 a better spiritual teacher, a Sufi master
in Istanbul, in a place called Sufi. Sheik was from a tariqa
called
Sheik before him was bozafar ozarkindi, and his common book
that was well known was yush from the Tarika. You know, when we have
beats, you know, think of zebra and other similar books have been
written. I met him in 91 and we can go into the details later. And
in 92 it was the sixth of August, 1992 Thursday night, 10pm after
Zika, salumi, the sheik just picked up his head. His name was
Mohammed. Safi. Effendi picked up his head, made eye contact with
me, and said, My son, in FLUENT Turkish. I don't understand a word
of Turkish, but I understood every single word that he said that
night. He said, My son, I'm not asking you, I'm instructing you to
form an organization. The name in Arabic will be aquafi. We
translated that in South Africa. It's not exactly correct, but it
came up as gift of the givers. So the name that stood is gift of the
gibberish, because we live in an English speaking country. It will
serve all people of all races, all religions, all colors, all
classes, all cultures, of any geographical location and of any
political affiliation, but you will serve them unconditionally.
You will expect nothing in return, not even a thank you. In fact, in
what you're going to be doing for the rest of your life, expect to
get a kick up your back. If you don't get a kick up your back,
regard it as a bonus. Serve people, but love, kindness,
compassion and mercy, and remember the dignity of men is foremost.
Feed and hungry clothe the naked, provide water to the thirsty, and
in everything you do, be the best at what you do, not because of
ego, but because you're dealing with human life, human emotion,
human suffering and human dignity. Head of an orphan, wipe the tear
of a grieving child, say it was a good council to a widow. These
things are free. They don't cost anything you emphasized again,
this is an instruction for you for the rest of your life. I was 30
years old, and then he said, My son, the most important thing to
understand is
through you and not by you. And I'm still comprehending this
thing. At some point, I asked him. I said, Okay, I want to ask you
one question. How come when you speak in Turkish, I understand.
10. I mean, as it was, speaking Turkish, I don't understand. He
said, My son, when the hearts connect and the souls connect, the
words become understandable. I asked him, What exactly am I
supposed to do? I'm a doctor in private practice. I'm a general
practitioner. I have three practices in a place called Peter
marisberg in South Africa. He looked at me and told me, one
night, you will know for 30 years, I do know exactly what to do, what
not to do, what to touch, what not to touch, how to go about doing
it, how not to go about doing it. In fact, that same night, sixth,
August, 1992 as I walked out of the Sufi tariqa in karagomuro
Istanbul, which is not far from the Fatih Mosque, the well known
fighting mosque in Fatih it came to me respond to the civil war in
Bosnia the same month, but even years late the same month, I took
in 32 containers of heat into a war zone. In November, we took in
eight containers of winter items to chill factor in Eastern Europe
can reach minus 21 degrees or more. The following year, we
designed the world's first containerized mobile a product of
South Africa technology, a world first 28 state of the art
containers of hospital, theater, ICU, X rays, sterilization,
orthopedics, with the layout your labor ward, casualty and whole
range of things, including a bus to transport patients and
ambulance and a generator to run the hospital, plus 10 containers
of backup supplies which Make the hospital fully functional for a
whole year, including diesel for a whole year. And we put it in
mustache, in an underground warehouse a place called valmas in
musta, which has served 1000s of people. A product of South African
technology engineered a world was taken from Africa into Europe. CNN
film Hospital in first February 1994 and said the South African
containerized mobile hospital is equal to any of the best hospitals
in Europe. So to answer your question, what do I do from those
three incidents? August, 92 November, 92 and 1993 it came to
me. He said, You will know that gift for the givers, in essence,
was going to be a disaster response agency, local and
international war, floods, hurricanes, famine, whatever we
are, the largest disaster response agency of African origin on the
African continent. It didn't stop. As we set up offices in South
Africa, we realized that in between disasters, we can't do
nothing. So we've got 21 different categories of projects we're
involved in, hospitals, education, food, water, winter items, sports,
development, counseling services, wheelchair distribution. We got
involved in hostage negotiations. Also. We do Kobani once a year. We
do several types of projects. We've drilled in the last two and
a half years, 500 boreholes in South Africa alone. We provide
feed for animals where farmers animals are dying and they don't
have food. We support animals, but feed with millions of rents. We'll
be working rents, millions of rents of food to try to save
farmers. We're involved in job creation. So in essence, we are a
disaster response agency, but helper reconstruction or
development? What education? What teaching? What food parcels, what
feeding schemes. We had a major role in covid 19. We were the
biggest organization intervening in South Africa, supporting 210
hospitals in the country with PPEs, scrubs, so CPAP machines,
high flow nasal oxygen machines, video learning those scopes,
medical support, food for the patients, and just a range of
stuff. We just do a * of a lot of stuff. Amazing. So I happen to
be in Istanbul just now, which is kind of the origins and birth of
your of your life mission, your life work. So I'm curious. Dr
ntiaz, I mean, you were a medical doctor. You have a pretty stable
career life. I'm assuming you know, it's a, it's a, it's a great
profession for a comfortable life. But you walked away from that for
seemingly a life of perhaps struggle and hardship. Is that
correct? Well, I won't say struggle and hardship. Yes, it's
not equal, equivalent to the physical earning that you get as a
doctor, I was very busy doctor. It's not comparable. But life is
not only about having what depends what life needs to you know, and
to me, life is contentment, gratification, feeling full. The
soul feeling full, filled. And you know also, it's based on what I
saw. You have people who are chefs and you have people who are chefs
in inverted commerce. There was something very striking about this
man that I've never seen in my own life before. The first time that
me and my wife got there in Istanbul, we saw this man. And
what was amazing, because remember, this was post Gulf War.
16 January.
1991 was the Gulf War. And that time, segment Huntington spoke
about the clash of civilization. And you know, the perception was
east on one side, west on one side, Jews, Christians and Hindus
on one side, Muslims on the other side. And for us, it was even
particularly worse, because we come from an apartheid country
before 1994 and when my wife and I walking, we get stunned. We think
we in the wrong place. We see Jews, Christians, Hindus, Muslims,
Americans, Russians, people from Europe, Australia, Canada, Brazil,
Argentina, South America, parts of Africa, southeastern Asia, all in
the Muslim only place. And even those who don't believe. And I'm
trying to.
Get out. How is this possible that we fought in so many countries, in
your own country, we got we got bombed in Africa, in Afghanistan,
by two total powers. You know, we fight fighting in Palestine, but
it is right, Jews and Muslims. We had the problems of the Babri
mosque in India. And I'm looking at all this, and I said, How can
this be possible? And the sheik looks at my face, and I don't know
who he was, but the moment in the room, I saw somebody sitting. I
said, mahajasv. I just managed to share. And I was right, yeah. He
looked at me, and his first words to me is, what do you see? I said,
I'm confused. What are everybody doing? Please. He said, My son. I
said, I see all different kinds of he said, My son, you see, right?
And then he went to explain the Islamic concept, mankind is one
single nation. The God of all mankind is one we're just calling
by different names, the bad behavior of individuals or groups
or sectors of society does not you know, it is not indicative of an
entire nation, an entire religion, an entire community, an entire
country. We need to look at people individually in different ways,
and even in doing that, we can't be judgmental. We don't regard a
human being in a box. We regard a human being as a human being, and
we deal with a human being as a human being. You went on to say
that the emphasis is on finding the good in human being. You save
the souls people may have bad habits, it doesn't make them bad
people. And in spiritual order, we clean the evil ways and we replace
it with good ways. The more you find a person that seems to have
bad things in look for the good in the person. Emphasize the good,
and you keep emphasizing the good. Positivity leads to positivity.
The person in his soul will realize that it's time to do more
good and move away from people. And we've seen that in life
happening many times, and that was his teaching. And when I saw such
profound teaching that there was more value in peace, oh. And he
said the essence of religion is love and service. He said, The
days of sitting in a corner and holding a tasbih and reading are
gone. He said, to get close to Allah, the closest way to the
fastest way to grow spiritually and in faith. You know, any man
and I sang, is to serve people, the more yourself, the higher
crime, the greater you grow. And then he went on to emphasize, like
what he said in the teaching, serve all of mankind
unconditionally. He said, Hyrum NAS matter which is not so good,
sorry, but it says hyrunas, teaching on the Prophet, best
among people are those who benefit mankind. And he said it three
times. He said, listen carefully. My emphasis is on the word
mankind, not Muslim, not Arabs, not Indians, not black or white,
all of mankind unconditionally. And then he went on to say,
remember the Prophet sallam. The highest title that he was given is
rahmatullamin was sent as a mercy, not to the Muslim, to send us a
mercy to all of mankind and all of creation. If you say you follow
Islam, you say you love the Prophet, then you need to emulate
him, and you need to serve unconditionally. And growth,
spiritual growth, comes through unconditional service. So going
back to your question, I started living that if you give me
$100,000
an hour to go back into medical practice, I'll be very depressed
the joy of serving people. What the nature you feel in your good
in your soul, the goodness you feel in your soul. You can't put a
price to that and to all your viewers, you won't understand that
unless you practice it yourselves. You can't listen to something. Why
explain to a blind person the beauty of colors? They never gonna
understand it. I got stick to somebody who doesn't understand
taste and talk to them about taste of beautiful taste. Of beautiful
things, they're not going to understand that. So in the same
way, you can't understand the beauty of spirituality and service
unless you do it yourselves. So let's go digress a little bit in
my teams, we did we respond to disasters with such a rescue
teams, medical teams and equipment. My teams are totally
mixed. They're not Muslim, and these mixed teams have come with
me to Syria, to other parts of the Pakistan, to other parts of the
Muslim world, into Turkey, they've been crisis. And the first thing
they tell me is that and these things are not poor people. They
are doctors for expensive houses, expensive cars, high net worth,
high income, loving, absolute luxury. But when they come, they
live on the ground. The switch is smelling all over. There's no
proper sanitation and no proper water, depending which area we're
going to. They're shooting in the streets. Those same people put up
their hands over and over again to come back. And I asked them, what
is it that brings you back? They say, number one, we find God when
we do those kind of adventures. And even journalists troubled me.
And the generals say the same thing. And the second thing they
say is, our souls feel enriched. The third thing they say is we're
not giving. We didn't come here to give. We came here to receive. We
never go back empty handed. And then they say it's all in the eyes
of the recipients. When you see the look in the eyes of the people
that you're helping, you know the prayer is going to God Himself
directly, and the blessing is coming to you directly. So that's
the reason I do what I do. You know so much of modern culture,
especially in the West nowadays, is focused on the self and that to
focus on your personal happiness. I mean, this is the cultural
contagion now that has infected pretty much everybody. But what
you're describing Dr MTS is an entirely different pair.
Time, which is to focus less on the self, but to focus on on
others, on humanity, on giving, in fact, and that this actually is
what leads to happiness, to fulfillment, to purpose, is that
would which could you comment on that a little bit? Yes, it
depends. You know what you mean by fulfillment of fulfillment of the
self. What are you looking for? Then the avenue your ideas are
right that you want to fulfill yourself. Is it about ego, or is
it about personal gratification? Ego? You know, I'm the king. I'm
the richest. I've got the most money, I got the most expensive
house, and I'm the guy that stands up. Is it that or I have money? I
want to buy a house with a car. My heart feels happy. I can spend on
my children. I need to have medical aid. Is it that kind?
There's a distinction, but we may be looking around and there's
nothing wrong. There's nothing wrong in earning wealth. Allah
tells you to go and make wealth. It's not a problem, as long as you
do it the right way, the honest way. Understand that there's a
share of poor people in your wealth. You need to understand
that clearly. But people may think, if you don't understand
spirituality, that your happiness comes with having money. And
that's not always necessarily the case. I've had, I think Steve Jobs
spoke about all the money that was he made. Just before he died, I
realized he went the wrong way. That wasn't a source of happiness.
If you look in South Africa, the amount of corporate CEOs that have
called me and said, We don't like what we do. We got so much of
money, but we don't have satisfaction, because money
doesn't give us fulfillment. Can we join you? We prepared to give
up everything today and work for you for no money, because we don't
need any money. And you have people like this hype, university
professors, scientists, people from government. And I'm talking
about non Muslims. I'm talking about people who don't understand
the concept. Muslims should understand the concept. Many of
them don't understand it either. But you know, non Muslims coming
forward in really high positions all the time. I'm the CEO of this
company. I was in charge for it for 15 years, and I was in this
company, in that company. How do I join you? There's no joy in what I
do. I've got everything, but I got nothing. So it's the way you need
to understand I come back to what I said earlier. The only way you
can understand this is to do it yourself. What could the average
person who might be listening to this in the United States or
Canada or Australia or anywhere else in the world. What would you
suggest to some of them who are looking for a life of meaning and
a life of purpose, who see that in front of them the quest for ever
increasing, you know, consolidation of material and
materialism is not going to do it. What would you suggest for some of
them as a first step, it's so easy. The teachings in Islam,
professors have said, people said that Professor put so much
emphasis on the neighbor, they thought they left to give the
neighborhood inheritance. It's very simple. You don't have to be
a gift of the givers. You don't have to belong belong to some
large organization that can come later. It starts off. Firstly, in
your own family, during covid, how many families were affected? It
started, I don't know what happened in your guys' country,
but in us, we had locked down. You know, the whole country was shut
down. People lost their jobs, yeah, I mean, America also had
locked down, but different things in different parts of the country,
a salaried guy was totally shut down, companies collapsed. People
lost their jobs. Besides medical intervention as gift of the
givers, we intervened with food and areas where there was drought,
but water and so many people from so many families were broken. They
just had nothing. From being middle class and fairly well off
yesterday today, they had nothing. It just dropped. Overnight, 1000s
of people lost their jobs. Companies just closed, 4050, old
companies just closed. And people asked, What do we do without us
saying anything? I mean, there's people with good intention. South
African people went to families covid. Everybody was scared, but
when they heard somebody from the family who was in hospital, they
knew that was traumatic enough for that family person. They would
cook food and take it to that person, for that person and their
family. And of course, they would take the precautions, but they
were not afraid to take the chance that that person is broken because
it's a lonely covid is the most lonely disease. You can't go to
hospital. You can't go to Rice view, you can't go to the wards. A
person is dying, and the person dies most so many dad without
seeing the rest of the family, and your child will die when most
kids, adults die, not children, your family or your parents will
die without the children seeing them, and the children are left
alone. Children are left alone. And in this case, one classic
example a direct need is people are too broken. They can't do
anything. Let's cook for them. Take food to them. Other people
said, Okay, they've lost jobs. That's in a very quiet, dignified
manner. Find out in the family who needs money, who needs stricter
fees for studying to continue studying, what is a full parcel,
or who needs continuous support? What can we have do to help our
knees, our grandson, something like that? And people got involved
quietly. The best way is quietly. What else is more flashy, you
know, it's more open, because we have to show the donors what we
do. You know, we need to show them where the money is. So now,
because it's very, more visible, and the Quran talks about
neutrality, that's open and secret. The secret is what you do
as an individual. The open is what you do as a group, as a community,
as an organization. Because tomorrow, last week, what did you
do with my money? I can't, I can't say anything. So we are very, very
big in media, with the biggest agency in terms of coverage in
South Africa, there's not a day that doesn't go through that we
are not covered. Some in the media we use terms of
media coverage, and the media travels with us all over the world
when we intervene in disasters. So that's a separate issue, but the
private issue is start of what.
Your own family, your neighbor, the guy who works between your
company, down the road, the next street, the next village, the next
province, and the rest of the country. And it doesn't have to be
big things. It can be very, very simple. Quite often we can run our
own counseling service, and in the counseling service, people will
come. People are scared to talk, they don't like to expose the
inner province. And sometimes they would come, like after 15 years,
and realize all they needed was the right words. You don't give
you don't make decisions for people you make you talk to the
problem. They make decisions. We empower them. And they come back
and they say, it only took 10 minutes, 15 years I was suffering,
and it only took 10 minutes, and I know what to do. So it's in a
similar way. If the mind is completely destroyed, the physical
body can't function. So it may be the prophet spoke about the word
of good counsel. So good counsel, food, teaching somebody, maths,
science, whatever subjects you do, it's just service in any way
possible. And that's why the prophet spoke about some of those
things, remove the stone from the road. Sounds very menial, but it's
the basis of bigger actions, nothing. An alignment, could have
fallen down and got more injured, and all persons could have
fractured the hip. Anything is possible. So he emphasizes that
life is not complicated. It's about service. And he even said,
Do something small, but be consistent. So you want to start
something start off something small. Be realistic. When we're
going to earthquake, we don't say we got to do the whole city. We
make it very clear we only gotta do one street. If we finish the
one street, we'll take the second street. But the reality is, we
can't be every street. We're not God. We're only agents of God. And
we go there and we do what is realistic and practical. So if you
want to do something be realistic and practical, don't say, I'm
gonna give on $1,000 every week. And after the fourth week, you
start hating what you're doing, you start judging what you're
doing and becomes negative. Your action becomes negative, and you
start hating the person that you agree it can't be like that. It
must be killed from the heart. What's affordable, what's
manageable, what's realistic, but be consistent with the aim of
making that person
independent. So essentially, a life of service begins with a
small step, right? Just some you're what you're suggesting is
for anybody, anybody has access, to be able to connect with other
human beings, to be a value, to be of service, to establish
relationships with others, beginning with our own neighbors,
beginning with our own family, beginning with those in need
around us. And I, I agree wholeheartedly, because I think a
lot of people don't understand, sometimes even within their own
families, how much others are in need of just maybe a kind word, a
smile, a check in, you know, just some basic level of love that can
be communicated to them through actions, through words, that could
change their lives, that could make a difference in a lot of
people's lives. It's a brilliant suggestion. Dr, MTS, and the other
important thing is, if somebody intervenes in a family that's got
a dispute, the greatest service, again, the process of spoke about,
it's about having ties of interest, that brothers not
talking to each other, yeah, sisters are not talking to each
other. The greatest service you can do, because it hits your soul
when you have that. Yes, you have the friction, but inside you
suffer. And if people can heal that, it's cost nothing. It's
free. It's a huge benefit for you and the people that you helping.
The converse way is also to avoid those actions which cause
negativity. Don't steal somebody's inheritance, don't do your family
down. Don't under measure. And when you can waste stuff, don't
underway and exploit people, don't set expired goods. And then say,
you know, I went for about four times a year. I pray five times a
day. I treat the 100 and Ramadan. I go for the etiquette the last 10
days, but your every other action in civil service is contrary to
the teachings of the Prophet. It doesn't make any sense. There has
to be a that's why spirituality is all about that your internal
growth or your physical growth is consistent with the teaching.
There's no dichotomy. You can't be praying and stealing at the same
time. It's illogical. So there has to be a transformation in your
character and your soul, otherwise wasting your time to be burnt.
Indeed, prashallah, there's the understanding that we have as
Muslims that Allah has created us to be deputies, to be servants, to
be Vice Chancellor and khulafa, to be Khalifa of Allah Almighty. And
with that comes, if one really thinks about it, this
understanding that that's a tremendous responsibility. What
does that actually mean to be a Khalif of Allah? And one of the
ways that I might try to address that is maybe with the word
stewards or stewardship, that we are actually responsible to
whatever degree we can carry for life on this planet, and perhaps
even beyond, what would you say in terms of a life of service,
dedication, a life of giving, in terms of fulfilling that mandate
that we have been established by Allah as his representative on
Earth? To me, it's quite simple. Again, what I just spoke about
earlier, that you love by example, that when people see you, they see
Islam. You see, quite a lot of our people do the wrong things, and
it's very, very embarrassing when you see, in the media, on TV, I
don't, on social media, a man with a hat a big beard representing
Islam. And this happened two days ago that he stole money from his
boss to go on religious missions. He stole money and put it in his
personal account. And when.
What is the concept of Dawa? Dawas is you said you don't wing people,
or you don't you know, your job is not to make somebody Muslim. Your
job is to soften the heart, and if they decide to become some after
that, it's their choice. As long as they don't fight with you,
they're not negative towards you. They're not you know, they don't
speak bad about religion, and they respect you. That's all that's
required. Allah says carry it is his job to make Islam. Your job is
just to carry the message promo code as the right to start
converting people saying you got to complete stuff. No, that's our
job, right? I'm astonished sometimes this approach. You know,
when I was very young, I sort of took a little bit of that approach
to myself. But I'm astonished at this point, this attempt to force
people to convert to Islam through some sort of argument or logic or
rationale or reasoning, or it doesn't really, it doesn't even
work. And that's a beautiful definition of dawah that you gave
the softening of people's hearts. Inshallah guidance is from Allah
at that point. What I'm sure of like even those African people in
the place called sadhana, I told him, why would I want to make you
muslim? We already got 1.6 billion, and we're growing all the
time at birth rate. Why do we need extra people? I said, we don't
need you, to be honest. We got too many already. So everybody wants
to come. It's most welcome. We're really not looking after numbers.
We're not having such a small population. We I said, we are
growing at a phenomenal pace, and we're growing areas with as
poverty. We got more people to look after. We don't want any more
people to look after. And then they look at me like the broken
signs, what are some of the projects
that you guys are currently in that gift of givers is currently
involved in? Well, of course, Turkey. So yeah, you know the
earthquake in Turkey, we've sent in search and rescue teams. We
pull out a lady alive on the rubber 90 or Lady eight days into
the earthquake. We look at supply with reconstruction, medical
support, whatever else they require. In in Syria, we're
running a hospital since 2012
it's one of the largest hospitals in the north of the country. It's
called Al Rahma hospital. We have 320 staff there. Those staff went
out for well, teams from there went out for search and rescue. We
got relationships with the Christians villages inside Syria.
We support them. We've acquired any assistance such an issue of
food, medical care. This hospital is well known. People from all
over the world have visited it. So we've got major programs in Syria,
supporting refugee camps, reconstructing houses. We already
built the first 200 the next one that we're going to be building
for the refugees itself and people affected. After that week, the
floods came and destroyed many more houses. So, you know, the
medical services are diverse. We have dialysis, we have CT scans,
we have, you know, five different buildings and a backup second
hospital on the Turkish border. So Turkey itself, reconstruction and
medical support we will have depends what they need. In
discussion with them in Syria, of course, we established for 11
years. So it's hospital, it's food, it's camps, it's education,
it's adversaries, it's upgrading, it's paining in Yemen, we've got a
massive program. You know, there's 20 million people go to bed hungry
every day. We're supporting them in water. What education? What
fees? How to pay for lecturers give them food they've got nothing
to eat. And even doctors give them food parcels to eat it because
they just income is too low. We're supporting dialysis. We're
supporting in a construction education. We're building houses
for blind people. So there's a lot of projects in Yemen. We're
involved in some of Somalia in a huge way. We have an office, by
the way, in Syria, in Yemen, in Ramallah, in Gaza, in Somalia, in
Zimbabwe, in Malawi and several offices in South Africa. And from
here, we can move to any part of the world, in Abu Dhabi, increase
feeding in some of the other countries, West Africa, where we
don't have offices, but we have relationships. We're not too keen
to keep opening offices all over because we can move at speed from
South Africa to any corner of the earth. I've got keep people
personnel stationed in different parts of the world. So if we have
a disaster, I can fly somebody from Denmark or from Netherlands,
or from the UK or from Australia, and they could come there first,
and the rest of the teams could follow. So in Ramadan, our
projects are basically health related, infrastructure,
equipment, supporting staff, cataract, catch up, surgeries,
water boreholes, a supporting farmers, Malawi with farmers
packs, and then, of course, paying for bursaries for kids to study
and become self sufficient at some point, housing and supporting
camps. So it's all dynasties that we do. And of course, food is a
big need in so many countries. There's so much longer right now
Yemen and Somalia because of the drought and the no economy in
Yemen and the drought in somaga, food is a huge need. We sent in
200 containers of it last year, of food to help. And you can't really
grow anything. There's no diesel, so you can't run balls. It's too
expensive to drill bowls. So we do the best we can, but we've been
consistent. We've been there since 2012 in Yemen, 2012 in Syria, been
Malawi since 2004 in Zimbabwe, from our six or seven years ago.
And Somalia, we did from 2004 so wherever we are, we establish
ourselves strongly. And we may look now at Kenya, Ethiopia, to
open up new offices, but we're not in Ari in all of the theaters that
you've operated in, that you've personally been in, what has I
mean, you've also been in war zones.
You've also been in areas where your life has probably been at
risk. Can you share with, just with our audience, you know, maybe
one of these experiences so they can get a grasp of what the
reality of this type of work is like. Well, this is the first
project when, I mean, when Sheik said, just, you know, many
instruction that 96 office, the first project I did as the, I
mean, you do something simple, I went into a war zone, but in the
same month, and took in 32 containers of eight. And actually,
that is the best thing that could have happened, 85% to 90% of what
I know now, you know, in international disasters, wars,
earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, famine, I learned in that project,
and I went in, you know, and of course, I some non Muslim
journalists with me, and some not Muslim friends who came with me.
That's because he opened my mind that you don't have to work on the
shoes only you work with like minded people. Spirituality
teaches you, there's no people in a box. And because of that, people
came with me. We were arrested at gunpoint in Croatia, and they call
me Mujahideen. That had a bigger be at that time. Call me
Mujahideen and and I had a journalist with me and another guy
from Austria, and they they said, You know what? You took us to
jail. They didn't put us inside the jail, and for some reason, we
couldn't speak their language, and they couldn't speak English. And
at some point they looked at us, and it was just go. And then they
started shooting at us, but didn't actually shoot at us. They shot
above us. And then it was just from Allah. And then I was on the
front line, 300 meters from the front lines, from the Serbian
line, and the bombs were falling across and across the bridge, and
a bombed city bridge in Syria, as our teams, medical teams, got
their four Mizar struck about above us. They tried to bomb the
place where we were staying. They tried to bomb in the area around
in fact. And then two groups from the same side, on the north side,
structure fought in the hospital. In our hospital was our teams were
inside. And then in Somalia, you know, Al Shabaab and transition
government forces were fighting. Bombs were falling all over. Bombs
exploded close to our compound, you know. So things like that
happen all the time. When we were in Gaza, and the bombs were
falling in 2009 and in 2014 No. So we've been in Lebanon, and the
bombs were falling there too. So, but the teams, I told you of
diverse regions, and they keep coming back. Those kind of things
don't make them scared. And every time I tell them, let's not, you
know, in fact, when it comes to war, it's, it's, it's incredible
when I tell the people, you're going to a war zone and please
don't come. You're a single mother, you got small children,
you shouldn't be coming, I do everything possible to frighten
it. You're going to get killed. Your eyes going to be damaged,
your head will get blown off, you know, you come back all paralyzed,
and they all Muslim and non. Tell me, don't you think we are adults?
Don't you think we've thought about this carefully? We coming,
and don't you think the God above is going to look after us? They're
not Muslim. The God above us is will look after us because we are
coming here to serve his creation. And to be honest, the volunteer
numbers are far higher to go into a war zone, into a natural
disaster. Wow. What's next in your in your mission, with gift of
givers, what's the next project? Or, or there's never been a plan.
The chefs that you will know, I didn't set in 1992 it's rocketing
2020 we could have covid And I want to prepare for that. And
still, some is going to have a big earthquake attack in 2023
I need to be ready for that. No, we don't do that. We risk. We are
in a state of preparedness, because most disasters are the
same. We upgrade our teams, we increase our volunteers, we
upgrade our equipment. And right now, the need after covid is our
hospitals are suffering with poor infrastructure, poor medical
equipment and the staffing they need support in catch up surgery.
So we say, okay, let's put it pay for more staff to come on the
weekends. Let's put in medical equipment. Let's upgrade the
hospitals. Let's pay for catch up surgery. And that's what we do.
Our hospital is not a water so let's put boreholes. And then, of
course, there's a huge hunger crisis. Kids are dying of hunger
in this country that's got gold, diamonds, platinum, manganese, and
children are dying of hunger, so med fighting, providing hunger and
fortified foods is a huge intervention. Again, in the
country, sheep are still dying. So for this well going, we are, we
are. We are subsidizing pellets. Pellets is nutritious and rich
food for sheep. Each bed, we subsidizing for 560 Rand to help
the farmers save their farms and to save the ship and to save jobs.
So as the need is there, we respond with schools. Need
infrastructure, they need toilets, they need children. They've got
learning disorders. They need special education intervention.
They've got educational psychologists, teachers with
special education needs. We just started a program last year. It's
a long way to go, but there's a lot of things out regard is a long
way to go. And then Glasgow, Sunday beyond it, when we had the
floods last year, we realized that the government did not enough dogs
for such a rescue. They couldn't find the bodies. Then I went to
visit them, the dog kennel and Cape Town, and I looked at the
dogs. I said, but these dogs all pets. They can't do anything. They
said, it's true. They don't have dogs. So we could set up a
product. Hopefully, after Ramadan, we're going to be giving them the
first 20 dogs. We're finding them 60 dogs, dogs killed in
ammunition, in explosives, in search and rescue, in body search,
in in all kinds of crime things and finding stolen plants. Sorry,
so it's, it's in those kind of things we support. Um, then they
said, Okay, don't have special boats, because we have lots of
floods here. We're on the.
Cyclones in countries nearby, so we bought special boats for them
they could use in situations. Then they came with a van because of
this bucket. But we can't put a dog inside because they didn't put
the cover for the bucket. They only gave us the bucket. And now,
when there's an emergency, we can't take the dog with us,
because we can't leave the dog and open. I don't know what you call
it. We call it buckets again. It's a, you know, it's a van with a
pack driving the front and open in the back. So we have to put a
canopy. We converted that for them and how God made it. The
department that we converted the van for was the same department
that brought a dog that came to it was that same dog that picked up
the lady alive in the rabbit. You see, it always comes back. Yeah,
that's a bit of spirituality. It always comes back. I want to, I
want to. Thank you very much for this morning and this opportunity
this this time with you. Dr nkeas, what is your and as we try to wrap
up, I want to ask you, what is your what would you say? Is your
message to to people who are listening into the Muslim
community, specifically, what would you say to them from your
heart, that that they may need to hear. When we say, we Muslim, we
say we like to emulate the Holy Prophet saws love in any
situation, before you act, ask, Will he do that? What he fight
with somebody? Will he insult somebody? Will he say harsh, harsh
words to somebody? Will he cause damage in the family and
everything that you want to do and even in war, he said, be kind to
enemies. Don't tire them. It is better to forgive than to fight.
It's better to make peace than to fight. Are we going to be
aggressive, like other guys have been aggressive for us in other
parts of the world, and show anger, we are no different than
them. I mean, do you have messages? Oh, Jews did this in
Israel. All Jews are bad. Someone is a Muslim does something bad,
and they say all Muslims are bad. We don't like that, do we? So why
do we do the same thing in reverse? We need to look at
individual as an individual, and instead of folk fighting of our
negativity, just serve. You want to change the world. Serve
unconditionally. Expect nothing return. Oh, and the most important
message our service is not Muslims. Only a lot of Muslims.
Forget that. Oh, can you take zakat? So I said, why other people
are not the humans? You know, it's only Muslims that we have. We
Islam got you there. The most important thing to understand is,
and you guys in America do a lot of that, even in the UK, not not
have Muslims, but you help everybody. I know it's important
to help everybody, and it must be done not, oh, let me help him. But
you know, can you see how good him is? The intention has to be
correct. You have to do it, not because they think you the Muslims
are good he was doing because that's right, it's what the
Prophet himself would have done. He would have said, Okay, there's
a bad guy. He's got a bad area in the Quran. There is no condition
for service. Help a guy but help a guy if no, it doesn't say that. He
just says that and says, Nas, he doesn't say Muslim, and says, Nas,
mankind. So you want to do something, you want to change the
world. Change your own attitude, your mindset. Serve no hate, no
anger, just serve always. It always comes back. People change.
People. People came. The person came to kill hazard, and when he
saw the peace and the reading, it changed. If it could happen, then
it could happen
here, for sure. It. Thank you very much on the reward and bless and
support and strengthen you and your work and your entire
organization and everybody involved. Dr, MTS, as we conclude,
I would like to just simply invite you to conclude our talk and our
interview and our time today with with adoa that our listeners can
also share in, a shop, I must say, I'm not very good in Guam. Arabic
is not good, you know, so I prefer not being at those. Arabic is a
disaster. I've never learned it properly. English was fine.
English was fine. Okay. So supplication.
Hello, masala seeking a Muhammad. You was happy to buy Salim.
Lahila, hilarza, alimila, kuwata, of him in a beam was
he
became
Afia Allah in a phone karimuni
for and Where
can people find
you
and where can people find you and your organization? What can they
do to perhaps, try to help support Dr njaz? Well, they can see us on
social media, on website, gift of the givers.org. You'll find us
there. You'll see everything that we do. It's on Facebook, it's on
Instagram, it's on website. It's all there, you know. And you
research us, you'll find millions of articles. Without exaggeration,
there's so much of stuff on us. So it's gift of the givers. Gift of
the givers.org. Excellent, and we'll make sure to to include that
in the show notes and in the description below this as well.
Thank you, doctor ntiya Salima, and may Allah Almighty support and
bless and strengthen you again, and I hope to connect again
inshallah to in the future. Thanks.
To invite, let's Salaams to all your viewers. I don't know whether
you're going to see this, but you received Ramadan Ramadan Mubarak,
if not, post Ramadan marath, happy eat and whatever it is. No, let's
say, let's have a great Islamic year inshallah. I mean, I mean,
Thank you, Doctor, thank you.
I pray that you enjoyed and benefited from this discussion and
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