Imtiaz Sooliman – Why I’ll Never be President . Episode 01
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AI: Transcript ©
Assalamu alaikum. I'm Asim Barnes, and this is the Muslims connected
podcast, A podcast for those looking to enrich and empower
themselves. Today we are joined by none other than the Oh, it's such
a big title I need to add for this man, for this uncle, Mr. MTS,
Suleiman sugar, for joining us today. It's a pleasure. Thank you
very much to you and to all your viewers, you can also for your
time, I feel like you're a very busy man. When? When do you find
rest?
Well, my wife laughs. I tell him, stress is stressful for me. But I
mean, I do get late at night. I sleep three to four hours a night.
So I work most of the time, you know for that three to fours is a
very good sleep, because your soul is very satisfied, you're
contented. And you know you when, when you're done, you know that
three to four hours, it's going to be very valuable. And of course,
there are days that, when I'm on a mission, it'll be three to four
days that I won't sleep at all. Wow, yeah. And especially when
you're in a mission, and it's time zones differences, you have to be
working what your team's on the ground, but you got offices in
different parts of the world that's waiting for messages from
you, or they want you to respond to them. So it's very hard to
sleep in those kind of situations. But, I mean, it's years now, it's
something my body is trained for. And also, I think, from small from
my hometown produce room, we say it's a sodium disease. You know,
where we sleeping is not part of our blood, moving and working all
the time. My aunt is as old as they are. They come from ponders,
from to Durban. They come 11 o'clock at night in the old days.
They're ready to go out and late at night at that age when it was
much more safer and secure. And I mean, they're 7075, years old, and
still going strong and going strong. It was that kind, and the
children and the grandchild are exactly the same. They don't know
what sleep is all about. They want to go out all the time on the
move, but So you spoke about I'll say hello as a child as you are
now a leader, a community leader, a world leader as well. Where did
you first? I'll say, Find leaders that empowered you and gave you
the confidence to become a leader. It's not something that I studied
or learned, you know, I took, to be honest, my background, it's
very spiritual, okay? But before that phase, when you learn from
people, it's not about leadership, it's about ammunition, right? It's
not about wanting to be a leader. There was never a case of wanting
to be a leader without wanting to do good, which is very different.
And then the first person I of course, was my parents, my my
father and my history of a family business. We come from potterston.
It's a small town. Your grand, great grandfather is a trader.
He's my grandfather. Joins him. My father joins him. I joined them.
You know, it's that kind of stuff, and then the next generation joins
whilst we're there. But it's how they did their business, which set
an example. So let me give you a clear message.
We got all black customers. They buy an account, they buy food,
clothing. Mostly they would come and they'll say, we can't pay the
account, but our children are hungry. So my grandfather would
say, give them the food. They're not going to be able to pay us.
But they've been our customers for so many years, and before that,
their family was our customers. It's fine, we're not going to get
paid same people. Somebody else would come and say, We haven't
paid the account, but we got a buddy, somebody. We got a funeral,
and my grandfather and my father would say, it's a case of dignity.
We're never going to get the money back. But they've been our
customers for a long time, and they would give them the money to
help for the funeral, and when you looked at that, you'd see the
humanity come out from your family. Hearing all the Islamic
teaching and living Islamic teaching is two different things.
My mother and my father got separated. She was from Durban
originally. She went back there. She started an employment Bureau,
and she said, the best thing you can do to give people dignity is
to find them jobs. So she ran an employment Bureau, and she started
finding people jobs. And they would come and they would cry and
they would say, we've been battling for so long. Thank you
very much. I'm now independent. And she said it's so important to
help people find their dignity and find themselves because they're
breadwinners. Some men get jobs for men and for ladies both. And
then she would tell me, every month, we must go give a food
parcel, even if it's only one. She wasn't of much means, when she
went back to Devon, I left portrait joiner many years later,
and she said, even if it's one food parcel, but we must do it
every month, and you need to find the people out, because the real
ones that need it won't come out to ask. So you started over one
foot parcel, then two foot parcels, and then five foot
parcels. So it was all about you can't help everybody, but whatever
you do, you do consistently, and make sure you seek the people out.
That. And we found, you know what? That's Islamic. That is Islamic
teaching. The Prophet said that whatever you do, even it's a small
amount, but be consistent with what you do. So those were the
family messages. And of course, beyond that, the caring, the
caring, everybody in the family takes care of everybody. But if
you go beyond the family, and I'm explaining because these are
life's issues that we need to know now that the community, there was
community parenting, yes, so if I did something naughty, you know,
and the day, but like, 10 hours down the road to come to my
father, your son did this set and the other and my father said, why
don't you give one tight slap? Right? It wasn't about corporate
punishment due to about disciplining you, and my father
would say, and every member of every house would say, your child
is my child.
And that way, that slap was worth it was you kept on the straight
path. You never got lost. Today's kids are lost. Today you tell the
parent your child is doing this. They tell you, shut up. Mind your
business. Well, then you do with you. The ego and arrogance has
taken over, but the destruction of the kid and then to 15 years
later, they swabbing and they crying and want to go to this
Mawlana and that Imam and to pray by this place. It's law of life.
You didn't take care of it when you're supposed to take care of
it, when you suppose, when you were getting help and guidance,
you got too arrogant. It's something you need to know, and
the new generation that watches this program need to know to
discipline your kids from an early age. No, you go no arrogance.
They're doing your favor. You're not doing them a favor. And you
found that everybody grew up in the right way. The moment the
system changed,
it got lost along the way. So community involvement was very
important. What's missing again, is the love you see in that small
town in the old days, if somebody got married, you were not
offended, you were not invited. You can't invite everybody. But
the whole town would come to set up the tables. And those days, the
one on this ceramic place, you know, used to roll the paper out,
throw the carpets, and you fly it across the thing. And everybody
sets it up quickly, in and out, clean up, fast, set up the old
type wooden vessels, and people will come and help this funeral.
The whole town comes to help. You know, okay, now your husband
passed away. You mustn't cook. You mustn't do this. We'll take care
of you for the whole next week, two weeks, three weeks, and people
send food from every house. Now that's not about leadership, but
it's about community care. It's about courtesy, it's about
humanity. It's about values. And it worked very well. I'm very
happy that I grew up in Pajaro, you know. And then, of course, my
father was involved in the western Transvaal tennis union. And we
have people come and play tennis. They would come play soccer. They
would come and play cricket. They would come from Rustenburg, from
Lenz, from clarksdorp, from blow mouth and, you know. And those are
the main areas they should come but there was no like restaurant
situations in those days. So everybody takes somebody to their
home. So you don't go out to eat. You come to the home, and you find
that you build a relationship with those people. You don't even know
they are, but they've come from some other town, and every time,
not the same people, it's different players. But they come
to your house, and when you go to their town, it's the same thing.
So that sense of community across the time, you know, it was
transval, it was a Northwest and Gauteng and lumlompo and Pomona.
It was just Transvaal, and people would come from the different
areas. So you learned all these values in the town. And the final
one that made me do medicine was the family doctor, you know, Dr
Isma *. He passed away now maybe two or three years ago, and
he would come house call, always smiling.
He was excellent as a professional, as a doctor, but he
had a special some empathy about him and the care about him, that
he would take good care of you, and he wouldn't complain, whether
it's night, weekend, after hours, and you would always see it when
he would see you. He was my parents doctor. He delivered me,
and he was my doctor, right? And I won't forget one day he was also
half years so that was another thing, you know, inspired as a
doctor become private business. I don't know what too much about
that one, but the doctor part, I'm interested in following, following
this doctor. And every day, Ramadan, again, in a small town,
in old days, you had a shortage of office in a small office, you
know, in a small town, and he would get up for Ramadan and need
to pray for throwing.
And one year he said, Look, he needs to take a break. He's really
tired. So yes, they said, Okay, we'll try to find somebody from
some other time. But now the production line had increased,
right? Yeah, so you said, Nobody came, so the people are sitting in
the mosque. They said, Okay, we'll read, you know, from Alam tara,
kind of a short one. Every day
he got up, went to the front Mr. Avid and
he just got up, and he did it for the whole town, just stepping up,
just stepping up. You know, he had a sense of responsibility. He was
a spiritual healer and a physical healer. He.
And he read by example and always smiling. Eventually went to Devon.
You studied further after many years, became a specialist in
pediatrics, and then became a professor,
you know. And he was excellent, that same
care that he had, the same humility, even being a professor,
earning much more. Never changed the man, no, and whenever you see
him, he greet you like he greeted you when you went for this room.
So those were people you looked up to. It molded you. It wasn't about
leadership. I keep him. It's not about leadership. It's about
molding your personality and learning from other people. And
the background was absolutely phenomenal for me.
And so then you studied medicine. You came well before that I went,
then I went to them. Okay? Because, remember, there was only
one medical school lady we could go to, right for the blacks,
medical school, UK, znal, natal medical school. You know, that's
all mother Nelson Mandela at that time. And so I went to Dublin. Was
my mother was there. I did standard seventh grade, nine two
days time in orient Islamic school, but they didn't have s7 so
I couldn't do science. So we all, all the kids, used to move either
to sassy college or to Gen Ed aside, we moved. Now my own team
moved to SAS college. But when I came to Dublin, the first time
in the streets where I was living, there were gangsters. They were
all gangsters in Carlow Street, beater Street, Ward Avenue, and I
would see these guys just fighting with each other, poke each other
in the neck. And I'm thinking, Where the * did I come to You
know, it's all mad people living in this place, and they just get
off on the road, scarve the cars and start fighting with each
other, and they start talking about Bush knife and panga and
slow drivers about and I'm thinking, what the *.
Huge shift. And the first day I go to school, the PE teacher says, I
don't know what they say. PE teacher, physical training,
physical education. I don't know what's the use these days, but the
PTCS, we run around the racecourse, because I used to live
in Carlos Street, the racecos across my house and the school was
across the racecourse too. So he said, we're going to run around
the racecourse. I said, You mean the horses are going to run in the
racecourse? He said, No, we're going to run in the racecourse.
I'm thinking, what's wrong with this guy? Are we going to run
around the racecourse? And then I think it was 3.2 kilometers, wow.
And I did it. And then the first time, when I finished off in the
top few, I couldn't believe I did it. And I suddenly developed a
love for running around the racecourse, because I just loved
it. I was never involved in sports. Yes, I went to my father
Western Transvaal health, with all the admin stuff, played some
tennis in pot. Never played any other sports? And, yeah, I come to
Durban. In this case, it's street sports like the old days. You play
soccer on the road, you hit the ball on the road, you play cricket
on the road, you do everything on the road because you got nowhere
to go. Yeah. So I started playing, and I remember when I started
playing soccer, they were laughing at me. They said, like, I'm the
reserve ball boy, not even the proper ball a reserve ball boy,
and then eventually grew up and became like a substitute, and the
following year became the captain of the side, wow. And I got
determined. And then when you see all these kids playing, and you
see some of them playing Bay pit, you know, and you get this
determination to play, I then I got involved in tennis, table
tennis, volleyball, soccer, cricket, snooker, swimming,
athletics, cross country, squash, you know, the whole Olympic hold
and in Ramadan, morning, soccer, afternoon, squash, evening,
Ferrari kind of stuff. But again, it was about the company that you
had. It was these kids. They were not rich kids. They were just very
ordinary kids, you know, who just loved life. And you joined them,
you got something very different, and your life was molded. And I
just met some of them again. Now to me, my greatest joy is to meet
those people from my kalashni days, you know. And of course, I
meet my family from Pajaro. Last year, we had a family during
reunion in podistro. 140 of us met, but all the old people are
gone. You know, all our family is all passed on. We finished gone
that a town is not does not have the mood and the light when the
old people are gone. You know, you just feel so sad when you go there
you go to the graveyard. It's good all the family and all people that
you knew.
So yes, I met, I met people from my school recently. I met them
from Carl street, you know, and lived in town, but they also
molded me because we had camaraderie on the field. We stood
together, and we used to go by bus. So when the bus to medical
school went bus to the soccer ground, doing everything we did by
bus, and we used to walk from Carl street right past great street
mosque towards the place called Albert.
Albert Park. You know, where we should play soccer at night, on a
Friday night, and when we started medical school. And then
eventually, my father got me a car. My car was 1700 then 15 Rand
for the radio. You can't buy time for this price today. You.
Yeah, I didn't
know, yeah. And then we should go over the cars, and we all just
then, we all just share, and then after that, we should go to the
restaurant and eat together. You know, those are the kind of things
that I miss in today's world. You know, it's just so about yourself.
It's about materialism. It's about, you know, technology and
phones and TV. It's not about outgoing stuff. So I feel like
community nowadays very competitive. Yes, people want to
be better than each other materially. Yes, yeah. And a lot
of people put themselves to death, and I laugh as a lot of people who
got all this money doesn't belong to them. It's not an account. But
you don't worry about those things in those days, you know, you have
competitive you're going to do well in sports, our team is going
to win, and we're going to win the trophy. And you had the bigger
teams in current Street. We had many teams, not one, and the
bigger guys will look after the smaller guys, and the smaller guys
look after even smaller guys, kind of stuff. It was always about
helping each other. It's never about money, never about
selfishness, always about helping each other. Now those are all the
qualities you learnt in life. When you think about it now, you imbibe
all those things without actually learning it. And say, okay,
taxpayer, I gotta be the person in a certain way. I gotta follow this
rule. I gotta do A, B, C and D. No, you learn in the ground. And
gift of the givers is like that. You can't learn anything in
office. You learn everything in the field. You want to specialize
in disasters. You come in the field where I was not going to
teach you
anything. So what made the change in from I'll say medicine to
humanitarian gift of the givers is not my organization. I didn't get
up one morning and say to myself, ah, I think today I'll form an
organization. I already had three practices. I'd moved from Dublin
to marysburg in 86 in 84 my mother passed on.
And, you know, we didn't have much money.
We then 85 internship came. I was only 999. Within a month, they end
up at 45,000 into the or more for the same thing. Ah, we got left
out right. And so I got married 80 in in 84 or in 84 six months
later, my mother passed on, and I wanted to do once I was
internship, I wanted to specialize in medicine, internal medicine.
But, you know, we didn't have much opportunities those days, so there
was no post, and I was forced to change. And then my father in law
said, why don't you come to marysburg, find some place here,
and we start some practice. And I went to marysburg, and I found a
place, and I started practice. And then you battled a lot, and then
drove out, went to outlying areas, still battling. And eventually I
got a practice in the second place, and the practice in the
third place in marysburg, I went in three practices, and suddenly,
when they really peaked, then the south Rikka Ranga guy tells me
about a Sufi Sheik in Turkey, and you need to go there. So he tells
me that in 86 when I moved to marysburg, he moved to marysburg
in 86
the same week that I got there, the same week he got there. And my
neighbor was a butcher. You know, this Afrikaner guy came to buy
meat from him. And he tells him, Do you know any doctor? So the
neighbor said, my neighbors are doctor. So I met him, and we
spoke. It's a long story, but he told me, you need to go to Turkey.
So I joked. I said, Mala, it's 1986 I haven't been to Cape Town
yet. When am I going to ever get to Turkey?
So he says something very profound. You said, what God wants
happens? I was the kind of guy telling me that. He said, There's
a time and a place in 91 August, my wife and I landed up in Turkey.
It's a long story, but we landed up in Turkey, and when we walked
inside there, the life perceptions again, the more we walked inside
there, the learning started. Not anybody saying anything. This is
post Gulf War, and remember the one got polarized, east on one
side, west on one side, Christians, Hindus and Muslims on
one side, and only Christians, Hindus and Jews on one side,
Muslims on other side. And Samuel Huntington spoke of the clash of
civilizations in those days. And I walk inside you with my wife, and
we totally stunned Americans, Russians, people from Europe,
Sweden, Norway, Germany, Australia, New Zealand, Canada,
Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, Southeast Asia, Africa, all in the
most of all the place, Jews, Christians, Hindus, you know,
mixed people of other religions and people say we don't even
believe In anybody all day, but no friction, no fighting, calm,
everybody respecting each other. And we come from apartheid South
Africa, and I'm
looking at all this, I say, How can this be possible? How is this
ever possible? Nobody is saying anything to anybody in the
supposed
comfortable the Sufi chef saw the shock on my face, and I told my
wife, I think we're in the wrong place. How can this be possible?
What's all these people doing here? And they were living fine
together. Well, they were there for the session. They were not
living there. So they came together, talking peacefully.
So the teacher asked me to translator, what do you see?
So I said, I'm confused. What are all these people.
And from different nationalities, sorry, in different countries,
doing in a Muslim holy place, we fought wars with them all over the
world.
And he said, My son, you see, right? Sorry,
mankind is one single nation. The God of mankind is one. We just
call him by different things. And he said the end the bad behavior
of an individual or a small group of people is not significant, not
in symbolic of an entire nation. Said people, the real religious
law is to promote love, kindness, compassion and mercy. And he said,
See all these people, yes, they all believe in that. They all come
from different traditions, but we all believe in one God.
That's what unites us, and that's the essence of religion. And
mankind is one single nation. And we don't look for faults in
people.
We when we see somebody doing something evil, it's very
different from a fault. Evil is just downright evil. What you're
saying is adultery, that's outright evil that you can't
solve. They said the son of arrogance and ego that you can't
solve, but the son of the flesh, adultery, drinking, gambling,
pork, eating. You said all those things you can fix. They said
those don't judge people. Your job is not to judge anybody. Your job
is to judge yourself. So when people have bad habits, it doesn't
make them bad people. There's no saint on Earth, right? But
outright evil, that's a different category all together that you
can't fix, right? So you said that, and I looked at what he's
saying, and I'm thinking to myself, yes, I've seen people,
they have some bad habits, but so do i right? And then why am I
judging people according to when I should look? I got the faults
myself, and immediately the blinker vision went out. I'm not
coming to South Africa to judge any white guy, Christian guy,
Africana guy, you know, because everybody was not responsible for
pathway, because we had Afrikaner neighbors in podstrom, and they
were absolutely wonderful people, you know, and a lot of them felt
very guilty about what was happening, but they just had to
follow the rules. And I came back with an open mind, and suddenly
everything changed. But what opened my mind more than anything
else is his emphasis about all mankind being one nation. So I
came back my wife and I went for Hajj
outside the tomb of the Prophet. I'm standing there. I said, Look,
I'm a little confused.
I saw this place of Sufism. I don't understand its role in
Islam. I'm a little confused so, but I fell in love with what I
saw, so it's meant for me. I need to go back there.
Came back from March, august 6, August 92 there was a reason for
me to get back to Turkey.
I go there Thursday night, 10pm immediately after the Zika
program, the Chey op picks up his head, makes eye contact with me
and looks heavenward at the same time and influence Turkish. And I
don't speak a word of Turkish, but that night, I understood
everything that he said in Turkish. You said, My son, I'm not
asking you. I told you, it's not my organization. I'm not asking
you. I'm instructing you to form an organization. He gives the name
in Arabic. He says the name will be walkful Waki fin, not exact
translation, you know, please, we don't know in Arabic. So we came
to the closest gift of the givers. You 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 with love, kindness, compassion and mercy,
and remember the dignity of men is foremost. So if someone is down,
don't push them down, hold them, elevate them. Wipe the cheer of a
grieving child, caress the head of an orphan, say words of good
counsel to a widow. These are free. They don't cost anything.
Clothe the naked, feed the hungry, provide water to the thirsty, and
in everything that you do, be the best at what you do, not because
of ego. Ego is destructive, but because you're dealing with human
life, human emotion, human dignity and human suffering.
And he said, My son, he repeated, this is an instruction for you for
the rest of your life. And then he said, Don't forget the most
important aspect that whatever you do is done through you and not by
you. No place where you go 32 years. I'm a living example. There
are things that.
People think that I do is not humanly possible. There's always a
high hand guiding you so you're coming to an aspect of leadership.
It's nothing to do with leadership. Everything is
spiritually guided, spiritually directed, because the answer lies
in the next part. I
asked him, How come when you speak Turkish, I understand and other
people speak Turkish, I don't understand. He said, My son, when
the hearts connect and the souls connect, the words become
understandable. But that's not the answer to the leadership question.
The answer to the religious question, leadership question is
this. I asked him, What exactly am I supposed to do? I'm a doctor. I
got three practices in a place called Peter Merritt in South
Africa. And I mean, the kind of thing you speak about is huge.
What is it? Orphanage, all, age, home, food, parcel, feeding, warm
clothes. What are you talking about? He told me one line
you will know. I will know what what will I know? He said, You
will know. Finish, you will know.
For 32 years, I do know
what to do, what not to do, what to touch, what not to touch. In
fact, the moment I walked out of that place on six August, 92 the
same night it came to me respond to the civil war in Bosnia. I went
in the same month, not three, five months later, the same man. I went
in all alone and took in 32 containers of aid into Bosnia.
Three months later, I took in eight containers of winter items,
which will factors minus 21 degrees. And the following year,
we designed the world's first containerized mobile hospital, a
world first a product of South African technology and South
African engineering. And all the young people watching this
program, believe in your country. Believe in yourself, believe in
Africa. Don't believe in things in the north. We got the skill. We
got the know how we got everything here we did the world first, built
in South Africa and taken from Africa to Europe. So that when CNN
film did on the first of February 94 they said the South African
containerized mobile hospital is equal to any of the best hospitals
in Europe. But
the message was, August 8 to Bosnia. November 8 to Bosnia. 93
hospital to Bosnia. What's he telling me that you are going to
be a specialist in disasters? You will know what to do. I knew then
that disaster intervention was going to be the primary focus of
gift of the givers, whether it's a war zone, where there's
International where the tsunami, earthquakes, floods, hurricanes,
famine, whether locally or internationally, that's the focus
going to be. And came to me immediately, and then came home,
started my 12 square meter room, my four kids lived there in the
double monks, the fax machine is there. Everything is done there.
We put our own money, and me and the family, and we do everything
from home, you know, no outside money. We start our own money, and
we start the process. And then step by step, it comes. Swami
comes, and then after two years, my wife kicked me out. She said,
How can kids sleep their own fax machinery in middle of the night,
you know? So then I went the place expansion. Then I first have ever
stuff, no stuff before that, my first staff was in 90 511, stuff.
After everything was then me and the family did. No car, nothing,
no van, nothing. And slowly people come, you know, we hungry. Can you
give us something to eat? Then somebody would come. You know, I'm
doing physiotherapy. There's only take eight people for
physiotherapy. I'm the only lady. I got no money. Okay? You need
bursaries. People came home, spoke to my wife. They said, We need
counseling help. She realized we needed to set up a counseling
service. So over a period of time, I said, we don't disasters every
day. Now we got this office, what we're going to do in the meantime.
So stage by stage, it came, okay, do this project, that project,
wheelchair, stationary, you know? And it came. Grew step by step,
feeding center, food parcels, giving water, you're doing this
day. And over a period of time, we designed 21 different categories
of projects, but we mastered one before we took out number two,
yeah. And in each progress, I mean, still there's not much
stuff. It was slow growing. And of course, for the first time in 2004
is the first time we had our first medical team. So from 92 up to
2004 there was no medical intervention. Yes, there was a
hospital, yeah, but we gave to the people to run it themselves. We
gave 10s blankets, full methods, all that kind of stuff, but no
medical teams. For the first time, 2004 in the tsunami, we responded
into Africa.
In Sri Lanka, not a medical team, but we were the first team in the
world in Sri Lanka to respond to the tsunami, and we were the first
in the world to respond to this called hafun in North East
Somalia. And then we took primary healthcare teams. And then August
in the following year, there was famine in Nigeria. We took in
primary healthcare teams. October eight, 2005
there was the earthquake in Pakistan from Rawalpindi to
Muzaffarabad. We're talking primary healthcare teams, trauma
teams, meaning Orthopedic Surgeon General, surgeon ICU, anesthetist,
you know, and post op react specialist, specialist
physiotherapy, who do spiral rehab in 2009 our first visit to Gaza,
we added trauma counselors, but we said we got a problem after that
week in Pakistan, we're not first, because medicine is the second
line. First is such an rescue. So it wasn't about leadership. It was
about practicality. You want to get there first, you need such an
issue. So we built our own search and rescue team, and in 2010 when
the earthquake hit 80 boom. We made the world first. Eight days
into that trick, we pulled a lady out alive from the church, from
the Catholic Church, 64 year old, and as easy, she comes out from
the church alive. After three three hours of my team's pull out,
no oxygen, no food, no water, completely unmeasurable and a
fractured heap, it comes out alive. And her first word she
tells my team is, I love God Almighty. You instill hope in
somebody several 1000 kilometers away from a different faith. But
that first visit in Istanbul of 91 of different faiths with respect
to each other, was what
made this practical and real. And the second words was, I love you.
The essence of religion is love and service, not fighting fiction,
Discord, that is not religion. Religion, Allah teaches mercy and
kindness and compassion all the time. So a world first and in 2012
when he went to Congo, Republic of Congo, where there was explosion
of ammunition dump in the residential area, we had
everything, all the above. Plus we had our own dogs, this thing. Plus
we had medical equipment, search industry equipment, the normal
tents, blankets, would you know, bottled water, sanitary pads,
diapers, but we had specialized search industry equipment. We
probably the only guys in Africa has got it. You put the machine on
the ground in three minutes. It's called The Life locator. It will
tell you in three minutes who's alive 10 meters under the rubber.
You got special video cameras to look into the into the rubble,
because special audio, because you know when in Earth is almost noise
outside. Yeah. But this equipment, we can hear itself inside while,
no it's outside. And right now, we're busy upgrading the
equipment, so we now design in terms of leadership. We now got
our own medical teams. We got a medical two medical heads, because
such a district teams with their heads. We've got counseling teams
with their heads, and each one is fully functional, but each one
knows what everybody does, because we have sessions to keep them to
go to train them all the time. So so so now that you I'll say, going
back, not just the beginning again, when you grow yourself, how
do you empower and have your staff see the vision that you are also
seeing to to help, I'll say, to help other, others, outside of the
community. I lead every mission.
I mean, feel myself. I started off putting the stickers on the wall
of the pictures. I started the fax machine myself. I packed the truck
myself. I carried the maze Miller on my back. Myself. I drove the
van myself. I couldn't drive a truck. I drove the Bucky myself.
No, I know. I delivered the stuff myself. There's no part of the
organization you can roughly. I know exactly how many pallets were
in each truck, how much stuff was in each pallet. I mean, pallets
were fit in what size truck, the all the logistics, everything. I
don't do that anymore now. So my son has taken over, you know, in
2017
well, 2016 he just came to his mother and he said he likes to
join me. So I said he's not feeling well. You better go check
himself out. He doesn't know what I've done to the family. Does he
want to destroy his family? Also like what I've done, I messed all
family up. Does he want to do the same thing?
He said, Yes, he wants to do it. So I hadn't been to Te Tarika for
a long time because my Sheik passed away in 1999
I couldn't adjust my soul to connect with a new teacher 17
years ago,
but I felt my teacher that passed on was more with me when he was
passed on than when he was alive. So I just felt him everywhere. So
I couldn't connect. Finally, in 2016
I get there, the new man. I know him because he was the first
disciple of my teacher. He was always there, wonderful man,
absolutely wonderful man. But I just couldn't make the mind the
mental switch.
Eventually I get a 2016
after 17 years, and I tell him, first thing I said, my son wants
to join me. He said, What took him so long
and I knew he's going to join me. 2017 came so in.
Was an organization itself. He came in with his engineer, IT guy.
They got all these new young kids. They got all the new ideas I don't
understand, after things they even do, yeah. So he came in, took over
the logistics, came into the social media team. He said in how
social media is not going to work, because everybody is expanding
that so many new ideas we need, like a whole team to work. So if
we design a social media team, we brought in a corporate team, we
brought in an account team, we brought a logistics team, we
brought a warehouse managers. We brought Clos, which is community
liaison officers, the guys that go in the field that worked on site
for the people. But at every disaster, I was there, so and then
we have meetings for them. We address them. We brief them. We
bring all the stuff together. Once a year from the one country, they
come here, and sometimes they come to other countries too. We bring
them here, we brief them. But we are because now about WhatsApp
and, you know, communication systems and zooms, you can address
everybody else. So you suddenly, in the middle of the day, we
decide, okay, I think we see we need to talk to somebody now.
We'll set up a session for the old stuff inside and outside. So it's
ongoing training, and they see the values. They listen to all the my
talks, you know, the videos, interviews, they would be on the
field when I'm with them. And the teacher said, again, it's a
spiritual thing that you will never look for the people. They
will always find you.
90% of the people who were employed, they came to us. We
didn't have to look for them. Sonny would say, like, two weeks
ago, you know what, I'm looking for a truck driver job, and two
weeks later, we need a truck driver. It just happens like that
all the time. That's why I say people think I do all this magic
thing. It's not magic. It's totally spiritual. You said you
will never look for money as a policy. We don't have fundraisers.
We don't ask people for money. People ask us, what you guys do?
What do you want money for? But you won't phone people. Make an
advert, pay for an advert,
do this, that and the other, and say, Please, we need money. We'll
say you're interested. This is the project. This is what we're doing.
And sometimes people will fall and say, Please, can you do that
project? I'm going to give you half a million kind of stuff. And
we say, No, we're not doing this project now, because it means
putting a team, because I could tell you how I spend your money,
yeah, and we can't do that. Sorry. You know, I can't do that now, if
we can't fulfill a project from start to end, we will not take
your money.
Our reputation is built on delivery. It's all the it feels
like the life lessons that you've learned in your early days have
now no doubt everything is based on from where I came, and all the
things came, you know, yeah, I was, I used to. I started running
high school Affairs Committee of the of the MSA. And we were
absolutely methodical. We printed our own newsletters. We taught
Arabic. We taught that analysts, something else for the maths, I
was also good, right? And
taught them English. It taught them values, taught them Islamic
teachings. Taught them Quran. You know, whole lot of different
things, how to be disciplined, how to run a camp, how to organize
tournaments, all the Advent skills, learning to run
organization, all that, you know, got involved a sister, the Islamic
Medical Association, got involved in governing bodies. I was the
head of 120 governing bodies in in in KZN, you know, plus the head of
nice old school governing body working with teachers. Then you
learnt about diplomacy, you know, human relations, you know. HR, all
that kind of stuff. Subliminally, all those things come to you, you
know. And then, of course, the media interview started coming.
And then you learn how to engage to the media. I've been doing this
for 32 years for the media, you know,
you've done, I'll say, many, countless jobs, what? What was of
the first interactions that you've had that you affirmed what you're
doing is the right thing
to Bosnia her husband that I didn't need reaffirmation. I made
up my mind the moment of teaching him the instruction, the moment,
the moment I saw that man's face. I finally love what Sami I don't
even know from a different culture, different language,
authentic. I've never heard of in my life. You know, it's not like
Kathryn or Chishti or nakshabani. This is Halbert in jarai. What is
Halbert in jerai? I don't know, never heard of this thing before,
you know, but I fell in love with that because absolute discipline,
absolute respect. The Sheik says something everybody follows. You
don't have to say one thing other times, absolute discipline. I'm
not saying Nadia Tariq has, don't do that, but you know, it was
absolutely something. I just fell in love with what I saw in Turkey,
and I went back the second time and he gave me instruction. It
wasn't now, okay, I think I should do this. So I shouldn't do this.
Maybe I need time to decide about it. Maybe I'll come back and tell
him yes or no. He'll ask me that. He told me straight, there's an
instruction for you for the rest of your life. There's no choice,
yes or no. It was a yes or any no choice. Just follow. You have to
follow through finish. It is not in this because you came back
here. You saw the place you came back, you know, you saw the place.
To give you an instruction, he told me. But he said, in your
soul, I read a sum. You want to help people. You told me that
before that. And I said, Look, I trust this man implicitly. And
then he told.
When you're going to build hospital, you're going to have a
lot of obstacles, but you will eventually deliver it. And I had
tons of obstacles, and I eventually delivered it
again with so many projects international and national. On the
ground level, you must come across countless problems and obstacles.
How What's you the system that you use to overcome these things? I
love challenge. I get sad if there's no
challenge. And I work on stress, difficult challenges, opposition,
obstacles, drives me as I tell you, I find relaxation very
stressful. You know, I love a life of challenge. You tell me last
question, three days in a hot pool, I want to sit and cry. What
the * am I going to do? Not pull for three days, but tell me
to then run a disaster. I'm ready. Modern is running kind of stuff.
So you learn, but remember all this accumulated learning, what
I'm telling you is what I remember. Yeah, I don't know what
other subliminal things I've learned over the years. You know,
32 years. And of course, before that from childhood is, I can't
tell you what it's then, in DNA, you know, in the in the mind, in
the soul. So you just know that, of course, to answer your
question, not partly holy. It's fate
that whatever the Prophet said that whatever is going to strike
you is never going to miss you, and whatever is going to miss you
is never going to strike you. So what's going to happen is going to
happen either way it's going to make any difference, you know, so
you just got to accept it and deal with it the way it happens. And
then, of course, I got fantastic teams and other things. I give
them all their own independence. They free to do what they want to
do. And yet, to the staff. We don't hold them back. Come up with
your ideas. We allow everybody to grow. My son's got a teaching
program you want to study. You must please go and study. Finish
your matric. Do this course. I got half too many of the staff
studying here. He drives them to study. So
gift of the givers works as a as an organization. What advice would
you give to other people and organizations who want to help the
communities?
Honesty, sincerity, transparency, no ego. You're not better than the
people who need your help, because tomorrow you may need the help,
not for that reason, but as Islamic principle, serve people
with dignity, show them love and kindness, and whatever you do,
don't try to do 100 different things. Do a small thing, but do
it well. Our policy is very clear that when we go to a disaster
zone, we say clearly, we're only taking one street. The rest of the
disaster is not our problem. If you try to do everything, you will
do nothing. Yeah, so do something small. You decide, okay, I'm
organization. I'm going to help one house. Have one house all the
time. Record it, have your pictures today. We have social
media. We didn't even lose this. Put it on social media. Explain
it. Make nice folders. Let people see it. People you trust. Go to
them, you know. And slowly you do two, and then you will do three,
and eventually the people themselves will be talking about
how they received it from you. But you must focus your mind, and
you're going to start us about, no, I'm going to have 1000 people
today. I will have one, but you will have 1000 people today, and
you fall flat within the next five days, because suddenly thing is
not possible. Then just to I'll say to wrap up, there's a lot of
talk online, of would you ever write for President? That's easy
to answer, because the sheik already told me 95 he could see
the future in 95 he told me you will never get involved in
politics. You will never work for government. You will never work
inside government, but you will always work what government. And
you'll notice, for 32 years we've been working what government from
the outside, never from the inside. Yes, they engage us. We
engage them. We talk to them, we give them ideas. You know, we have
discussions all the time. Now, ministers call you, the Presidents
call you. Deputy presidents call you, political parties call you,
corporates call you, big companies call you. But clearly, in 95
that's the first thing, and I understand it very clearly,
because when you work with them, nobody inside government can make
a decision. They got like six people above, they've got to sign,
and nobody can sign. People are too scared to put their head on
the block. You know, they're too scared to make a decision to be
decisive. 19, I'm going to be in government. I'm going to have this
process. When * am I going to deliver anything? No, you can't
get anything done outside. You're very, very influential. You can
get things done much faster. There's no rules, there's no red
tape, there's no bureaucracy, and I specialize in breaking rules. I
get things delivered, bypass government rules, and nobody tells
me anything. I just break their rules and I do what I want to do,
and nobody stops me. In fact, at times they called me. They said,
Can you break our rule for us? Is that kind of story? Because they
said, We can't wait only you can do it. And is that kind of stuff
where I get Yes. The old countries asked me wherever I go. Even they
call me Mr. President. When I walk in the streets, in Parliament,
they call me Mr. President. The political party guys call me that.
You know I go. I said, You know what? Thank you very much.
But no, no, thank you. Not touching politics. Family said, No
way I'm doing this from the age of 28 you know, I'm pretty,
beautifully givers. I've licked my family life up from the age of 28
what chance did my kids get to see me? Yeah, I've been traveling like
crazy inside. I stopped traveling outside the country for the last
five years, since 2019
and I started focusing not on the country. I've only done two
international trips in that time. One is from july 2019 I did one to
Yemen last year, and I did one to Turkey before that, because the
third chair came my my second one passed on. Oh, so according to the
third one, I went for that. And then what are you also your
aspirations for gifts and other givers. Going forward, I want to
see development, you know, in every way. Because from what I've
speaking to you, we've gone into infrastructure, catch up, surgery,
whatever we've done, you know, we do lots of development. I want to
see peace, you know, honestly, growth in the African continent.
But in this country, obviously our health systems come into place
where the catch up. Surgery is done. We have enough trained
manpower. We need to fight unemployment. We need to fight
crime. We need to make the place for tourists. Tourists bring lots
of money for the country. You know, we go to Cape Town, it's
full of tourists. You know, they're still coming. If there's
not a failed state. I want people to go back to faith and
spirituality, because the only form of positivity and hope is
faith and spirituality. There's no other way, because that's what
keeps people going, you know. And every talk I've done, when I speak
about that, you would think people were secular. They'll be offended
and be surprised. All the secular people who've moved away from
religion want to know more about faith and spirituality, and how
can we get back there? That lady who lived survived the earthquake.
What kept her alive for eight days, fate, but spirituality. From
komani in Queenstown, our truck is coming at sunset in winter, an old
lady comes out with a house on crutches. She looks at the truck,
she looks heavenwards. You didn't let me down.
We're lasting for food. Nobody asked to give her food. She just
asked upwards, and they had a truck arrived.
So faith and spirituality is key for us as individuals in the
country, whether it's government, corporate, trade unions,
professionals, parents, kids, whatever religion, sports, we need
to build faith and spirituality and honesty and integrity when
it's spirituality, morality, values and ethics. If the country
develops that, we won't have to worry about stealing money.
Nobody's going to steal money. People's going to be policing
yourself. Yeah, once you start policing yourself, you'll make
sure that every sin is spent the right way. You as an insurance
agent, you won't lie and sell the wrong package to the people. As a
doctor, you won't give the wrong medication and charge your medical
aids four times what you actually did, you know, and the lawyer
won't drop the people off and wants to ignore accident fund
money and trust money and his house brothers and sisters, that's
a big problem. They they do each other down in in estates, you
know, she talk about this religion, and you go to umbra, and
you go for Hajj, and you pray five times a day. Those are the easy
things when it comes to the real policy of sharing the money or
being honest or being truthful, or giving the people a share sorry
that you can't do so go back to values, not about the prayer you
need to bring back community. You bring back principles of ethics
and corporate say governments are corrupt. I'd ask them, who
corrupted government? It's you guys, you know, so don't have it
pot, you know, calling the cattle black, yeah, change your system.
And people have embraced that idea. The important thing I want
to say is there's no need to fear. This is a great country. We're not
going backwards. We're only going forwards. But we all need to do
this together. Stop saying it's a job of government. Government, 7.4
million people to Texas can't look after 65 million people. It's
impossible. No matter what the government is, it's impossible. We
need to do this together. My final message is, take the branding off.
Take out the labels. Take out the uniform. Let's always go stand in
Greenpoint Stadium in Cape Town. All wear white or black, whatever
color you want. No branding, no logos. You won't know who is who.
You won't know which, whether it's the government, political party,
corporate, trade union, Imam, Priest, nothing. We all got the
same protocol. The only thing that you will know is that all us
inside here are South African
and if there's a problem here, who's going to solve it? Me alone?
Are we all going to work together? You're going to work together. And
when you're going to work together, you're going to solve
the problem much faster than trying to work it alone and
working against each other. So when you work together, what do we
need? Food security, school, hospital, healthcare, development,
fighting crime, faith, spirituality,
human rights, justice, all that kind of stuff, and we are the only
ones who can do it for.
Ourselves. Those guys bedmore in the country, those are who are
marked pieces for foreign governments. There are political
parties and there are media entities and journalists who are
bought pieces for foreign governments. You don't belong
here. Yeah, this country is our country. Be a patriot. Worry more
about your country than worrying about soldiers to go and fight in
Israel. You know, go. Please leave. All of you go. You know,
you got negative things to say about our country. Please leave.
Nobody's forcing you to stay here. Leave, go. We don't need you here.
You know, we need people who love this country, who's nurtured us,
who's taken care of us. Make your input. Stop complaining. Let's fix
the country ourselves. It's our country. Let's leave it as a great
country for our children, our grandchildren and our great
convention, be committed to your country. This is where your life
came, where you develop from. And this is a message all young
professionals, let's sit together and fix our country ourselves. We
got this fields put a time and stop complaining. Your sugar. It
was an amazing like I also think that's a message that must go out
on its own, that we need South Africans to look after South
Africa, not just the government. No, it should get up for your
time. Remember the people who don't have the jobs? Now, they've
been disadvantaged. 394, they were stopped from learning, from
studying. They were not given skills, they were not empowered.
Now you're complaining about them, but those are the same people you
deprived in the first place. What are you talking about? No, they're
all stupid. They can't do anything. You put them in that
position,
it also offer them skills and positions where they can better
themselves. Offer them the dignity, yes, to be people again.
So I'll say people at work and function within the community as
well. Because many times I feel like when people don't have
purpose, they they feel lost, and they end up not helping community,
and they go away with Yeah. And there are so many people asking,
look, we don't want henna. Please give us a job. Yes, please give us
we want to do it for ourselves. There are so many kids crying out
for them. I told corporates, you know what?
Take apprenticeship. Give kids an apprenticeship. Give them a
stipend. You will empower them. You will give them dignity. You'll
give them self esteem, even if 2000 men, let's take our family.
Take care of a family of seven. There'll be no more hunger in that
house. You know. You'll take the pressure of the social grants. It
will help us develop whoever can create jobs, empower people.
Please do it. As a country, we need to do that collectively.
Shukran, for your wise words of leadership and of guidance and of
spirituality, but also shukran for the work that you do within the
community and for the world. We genuinely appreciate it. And thank
you for your time. I feel like you were very busy man, so we
appreciate that as well. That Do you have any final words for No, I
think I should have Shuka for joining
us today. This is the Muslims Connect. Muslims connected
podcast, and today we were joined by Dr India Sulu.