Gift of the Givers is Africa’s biggest relief NGO. Under Dr Imtiaz Sooliman, it has developed a reputation for speedy intervention in local disasters as well as conducting 20 international missions, writes Shafiq Morton
Despite his modest circumstances in the shadow of Durban’s leafy Berea, Imtiaz Sooliman matriculated from Greyville’s Sastri College in 1978 and enrolled at the University of Natal’s medical school (now the Nelson R Mandela School of Medicine) to study medicine.
He qualified in 1984, completed his internship at King Edward VIII Hospital in Durban and went into private practice in Pietermaritzburg.
He also became an active member of the Islamic Medical Association, an organisation formed in the 1980s by local Muslim doctors to provide medical care to the underprivileged.
In 1990 he visited Nacala Hospital in northern Mozambique with the Islamic Medical Association during a severe drought.
“The difficulty that ordinary Mozambicans experienced in their daily lives touched my heart,” he said.
“I went to Mozambique because I wanted to help. I’d never done anything like that before in my life. I saw two frail and malnourished kids in a river bed digging a half-metre-deep hole and using their tiny hands to scrape out muddy drinking water. That freaked me out. I thought how easily we watered our gardens and turned on taps without thought.”
On his return to South Africa Sooliman bought a fax machine and installed it in his home. He picked out names in the phone book, called mosques and faxed whoever would listen to him, a report of what he’d seen and what needed to be done.
Within five days he’d raised R1 million – enough to dig 30 boreholes and provide much-needed relief, including airlifting malaria medication for use by Mozambican authorities.
“That was my first major humanitarian project.
“The next year was the Gulf War in Iraq and we got involved there, then the Bangladesh cyclone of 1991.”
It was in the Turkish city of Istanbul that he would enjoy a fateful meeting with a Sufi teacher, Sheikh Saffer Effendi al-Jerrahi, on the urging of his neighbour in Pietermaritzburg.
A master in the science of Islamic mysticism, and representing an unbroken chain of sheikhs going back to the time of Prophet Muhammad, Sheikh Jerrahi would change Sooliman’s life for ever.
Sooliman remembers every detail:
“It was August 6, 1992; I was 30 years old and it was a Thursday in Istanbul. The sheikh’s manner was so gentle, so soft, so accommodating… his face was engulfed in such light, his deep eyes were filled with such compassion and his presence was so magnetic – you just couldn’t help being drawn to him, falling in love with his personality.”
Sufi masters, regarded as doctors of the human soul, are believed by their followers to possess great insight.
Sooliman said there was no doubt in his mind that sheikh Jerrahi could see his soul.
“After a congregational religious ceremony the sheikh just looked at me as if something was talking through him.
“He looked at me and said: ‘My son, I’m not asking you, I’m instructing you. You will form an organisation. The name will be the Gift of the Givers.
“You will serve all people of all races, of all religions, of all colours, of all classes, of all political affiliation and of any geographical location, and you will serve them unconditionally.”
“Apart from the unconditionality of service, the sheikh told me in no uncertain terms that I should never expect anything in return. He told me that the best I could ever expect was a kick up the backside, and if I didn’t get one, I should consider it as a bonus!
“The sheikh then instructed me to serve people with kindness, compassion, mercy, and remember that the dignity of man was foremost. No matter what condition there was, I always had to protect the dignity of man; and when I acted, I had to act with excellence.
“The sheikh told me that this was an instruction for the rest of my life. The best among people would be those who benefited mankind (a validated axiom of the Prophet Muhammad), and I had to remember that whatever was done would be done through me – and not by me. If I abided by that principle, I would help a lot of people. He warned me not to forget that.”
The other thing that struck the 30-year-old doctor was the make-up of the people gathered around the sheikh – they were from all walks of life, from all nations, and representing all colours.
As a young South African ghettoised by apartheid, Sooliman said this made a marked impression on him. Clearly, all people couldn’t be painted with the same brush.
Gift of the Givers was founded in August 1992, and immediately Sooliman found himself involved in the Bosnian crisis – and remembering the sheikh’s teaching:
“Go out in the street without your coat some cold winter’s day, just to see how it is for those who have no coats at all! As long as your stomach is full, you will know nothing about the condition of the starving… satisfy the hungry, so that Paradise may love you.”
Inducted into the Sufi way, Sooliman was encouraged to be humble at all times. As his sheikh had warned:
“Become aware of the condition of all those paupers and orphans, for your own wife may become a pauper and your very own children orphans. The wheel of fate turns. None of us knows what is to be…”
His is a job driven by fate. You never know what is waiting around the corner. It’s a question of what he calls a “connection”.
“You feel the calling, you feel the need, you see the suffering of man and you want to do something. There’s a lot of prayer involved. You’ve been shown what the right way is; what to do and what not to do. And things are put very clearly in front of you.”
Sooliman believes that it’s the conditions of others less fortunate than him that keeps him going.
“You want to help over and over when you see the pain and suffering of others.
“The most satisfying thing is the smile on a person’s face when they are lifted up.”
To ensure that Gift of the Givers runs effectively as an NGO, Sooliman insists on quality and professionalism at every turn.
The organisation is primarily funded by ordinary South Africans, people who make great sacrifices to give him money, and also corporates whose ethos demands delivery.
There are no short cuts. He runs a core staff of about 50 people in Pietermaritzburg, Durban, Johannesburg and Cape Town, and Mogadishu (Somalia), Blantyre (Malawi), Nouakchott (Mauritania), Darkoush (Syria) and Sana’a (Yemen).
Volunteer doctors, paramedics and search-and-rescue teams are on standby. Sooliman and his team always render humanitarian assistance themselves, and while happy to partner in projects, Gift of the Givers hardly ever works through third parties or agencies at the point of delivery.
He learnt very quickly that to be effective he had to have a clear mind and a cool temperament.
“It is impossible not to feel for people, but you have to be ice-cold in this type of situation… you really cannot afford to sit down and cry.
“You may end up doing nothing.
“I consider myself to be a very gentle person, but I can be icy cold at the same time. I feel for people, but I have never got emotionally attached.”
* This is an extract from Imtiaz Sooliman and the Gift of the Givers, A Mercy to All by Shafiq Morton (Bookstorm; R220).