Mufti Menk – My early life in Zimbabwe – Q&A

			I think it was very simple. I was born in the compound of a Masjid, which means that's where my
parents were living when I was born a compound of a Masjid. My father was an Imam. And he's a, he's
a scholar in his own right. He's done a lot of good work in Zimbabwe. And it was a very simple hand
to mouth sort of upbringing, we I don't come from a wealthy background like we Alhamdulillah it's
not like we, you know, we didn't have food. But
		

			we, you know, we were like limited budget of a family, so to speak. And this was in the early
stages, I went to a government school, which was,
		

			obviously Zimbabwe being colonized by the British, the schools were very British. Okay. And that's
the reason why even the English that we speak in Zimbabwe is not too far off from British English.
Sometimes some of the Zimbabweans actually have better English than those here. So Subhanallah, it's
just, it was simple. And I was always brought up in a religious home with the dean with Salah with
ibadah, and never had a girlfriend in my life. I've never, never been to a cinema, never been to a
nightclub, never touched a cigarette, never had,
		

			you know, drugs was something that was not even in the picture. I've had a very, very clean
upbringing and handle and I thank Allah for that my life was mostly with the Quran, mostly with
learning. And I used to do both school secular as well as
		

			doing HIV and then learning the books. And at the same time, I used to go to one of the Arab
embassies when I was very, very young to learn Arabic. So I learned at the age of four or five, and
six Arabic language, and all the embassies stuffs kids used to learn there, and I was put into there
by my dad. After that, I completed half and I was learning. I learned a little bit of the other
languages. You know, I learned how to do karate.
		

			Quite a few other languages. And then I progressed through primary school, I was a top student most
of the time first, second or third in the class. I don't I can't remember seeing fourth position.
And I'm just saying this so that people know and I was always a very ambitious person. As much as I
love the dean, and I knew I was a half of and I knew that I could mimic very easily I could actually
imitate a lot of the Imams of the harem at the time. Abdullah Khalifa, Rahmatullah Alayhi, Mohamad,
a Serbian, that was a generation when I was young. And these people yeah, Subhanallah Yeah, those
were the guys.
		

			Abdullah hujjat is the father of Osama hujjat. He had beautiful recitation at the way back.
		

			And then I remember I was very glued onto my radio at that time, that was the technology. I used to
listen to world news all the time, BBC, I even know some of the names of some of the presenters at
the time. Some of them are still there. And it was amazing. I used to keep up with whatever's
happening across the globe. And even the local news, I used to keep up I used to very few friends
used to, I started playing sport, not because I loved it, but because the school the high school I
went to was actually a private college, private Christian college. And it was probably probably at
the time the best if not one of the best in the country and still is. We had to play rugby,
		

			basketball, hockey does, you know, tennis, cricket, swimming. I did, I did it all. So I've had that.
And then as I grew older, I wanted to become
		

			an ophthalmologist. And I was really looking forward to that. And Allah had it such that I ended up
pursuing Sharia and Madina munawwara. So this was all part of the plan of Allah. And I thank Allah
for this. But the upbringing was pretty simple. We, you know, we used to get a pair of new clothes a
year, I think and hand me downs most of the time from our older brothers and the shoes as well. We
used to buy a pair for every year one, one pair.
		

			It was it was a pretty simple life. And as life progressed, that handler, things became much easier.
handler you know, we're quite a big family of nine. from us. There are some in the data and some in
business and those in business support those in the dour. So many people say, you know, where does
Mufti mink, get his money from and so on. I'm not sponsored by anyone I don't have I'm not
affiliated to anyone. I don't get money from any government. Any organizations I don't get money
from I don't raise money from the public for myself. I don't do any of that. A lot of it is just
within our own family and law system and the structure. So a lot of people are quite excited about
		

			you know, how we How come he's you know, what, Alhamdulillah we have a position with the Dow that we
do is more so we do have a lot of well wishes right now but more so sponsored within us very close
circle of people very close. So there is no foreign government involved no foreign people in
		

			Nothing actually a very few if you've ever seen me Have I ever asked for money for donations for my
organization, yet it's a massive organization. Over the years we've built 52 machines and
mattresses. We've actually we have right now more than 2000 students in total, from those about
1000, full time, and Subhanallah these are all underprivileged people who don't pay a fee. So
everything is taken care of. It's all happening within Zimbabwe, all underprivileged people who are
empowered and that's what we believe