Local response: Gift of the Givers founder Imtiaz Sooliman is proud of his organisation’s Covid emergency relief efforts. (Thapelo Morebudi/Gallo Images/Sunday Times)
Dr Imtiaz Sooliman’s name is synonymous with his humanitarian organisation, Gift of the Givers, which started operating from a spare room in his Pietermaritzburg home in 1992. The 59-year-old tells Lynn James why he decided to quit medicine, his relationship with both his wives and why Abba’s music has a special place in his heart.
You were born in Potchefstroom in the North West and later moved to Durban, where you qualified as a medical doctor in 1984. What motivated you to study medicine?
The youth didn’t have many options during the apartheid years, so you either studied teaching, accountancy, law or medicine. That was, however, not the main reason for my career choice. A local general practitioner, Dr Haffajee, played an important role in this decision. He was an excellent GP and loved by everyone. He was also a spiritual man who inspired me. He also delivered me as a baby.
My parents,who were both very socially responsible, got divorced when I was young. My father and grandfather owned a shop together, and they used to help the locals by giving groceries on credit and those who need assistance with funeral expenses. My mother set up an employment bureau because she believed the best thing you can do is to help people to empower themselves. She also handed out food parcels from time to time, and those were the kind of role models I had in my life.
As a devoted Muslim, your humanitarian aid reaches beyond the boundaries of religion, race, culture and class. What was the motivation behind Gift of the Givers?
My wife and I met a spiritual teacher in Turkey in 1991 after the Gulf War, which caused a lot of polarisation between countries, nations and religions. I immediately connected with this man, someone I’d never met in my life. In 1992 I travelled back to Turkey and met up with the spiritual leader again.
We were in a room together, and he addressed me in Turkish, of which I don’t understand a word. He told me, “My son, I’m not asking you, I’m instructing you to form an organisation called Waqful Waqifin.” Translated it means Gift of the Givers. He said the organisation must serve all people from all races, religions, classes and cultures. He emphasised that I should serve people unconditionally without expecting anything in return.
The weird thing is that I didn’t understand his language, but at that moment, I understood everything he said … and decided that I’m going to form an organisation. It came as a spiritual instruction. At some point, I did ask the spiritual teacher how it was possible that I understood his language when he gave me the instruction, and he replied: “My son, when the heart and soul connect, the words become understandable.”
You received the Order of the Baobab in silver from the government and have also been awarded nine honorary doctorates from different institutions. What are the highlights of your career as a humanitarian?
Locally the response to the Covid-19 pandemic has been an amazing experience because it’s been the longest disaster we’ve ever dealt with. It’s been 14 months nonstop, 24 hours a day and seven days a week, even on public holidays. It brought the entire country behind us.
The second highlight for me was our first project as an organisation in Bosnia when we built the world’s first mobile hospital in containers. When CNN filmed the hospital, they said the South African container hospital is as good as any of the best hospitals in Europe.
The third highlight was when we deployed our first-ever search and rescue team in Haiti after the earthquake in 2010. We managed to rescue Anna Zizi, a 64-year-old woman, who was trapped under the rubble for eight days. In Syria, when everyone was leaving the country and hospitals were being bombed, we established one of the biggest hospitals. The hospital keeps expanding and currently has six buildings on the premises and services 15 000 patients a month.
There was a social media call for Gift of the Givers to be nominated for the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize, which you declined. Why?
I’m not against awards, but I’m against motivating why I should receive an award. We are not going to self-praise ourselves for any award that is not going to happen. The Covid-19 pandemic was such a traumatic experience for the whole country, and going after a Nobel Peace Prize based on Covid-19 is not something I’m after. Many healthcare workers and teachers lost their lives, and I didn’t want something that becomes a competition because it loses the essence of something spiritual.
The public sector, medical associations and even the media suggested that Gift of the Givers should bring a Covid-19 vaccine to South Africa. What was your reaction to this?
The pharmaceutical manufacturers made it clear that they’ll only sell the vaccine to the government. So until the systems are in place and they need our assistance, we will consider it, but we decided right at the start that we’re not getting involved.
You have two wives and six children. Your first wife, Zohra Sooliman and mother to five of your children, is the co-founder of Gift of the Givers. How would you describe her? And how is the relationship between your two wives and the children?
Zohra is very modest, conservative and dedicated to service. We both met the spiritual teacher in Turkey in 1991, and from the start of our marriage, she always told me that we need to answer this calling. She set up a counselling service for women. She went on to study psychology, and she is currently doing her masters. Her studies got interrupted several times because we have five children and eight grandchildren and I’m always travelling, so that was an additional burden. But she is finally in the last stretch of her degree and very committed to finishing it.
The Muslim religion allows for men to have four wives, so I met my second wife, Ayesha, who is a theatre nurse, after a mission to Pakistan in 2008. I married her thereafter, and we have a five-year-old daughter, Rahmah. We named her after a hospital I built and manage in Syria. The little Rahmah manages to boss me around quite a bit, and she is already a dedicated supporter of Gift of the Givers [laughs]. Ayesha is much younger than me, and there was a bit of tension between the two wives in the beginning, but things have been ironed out, and I definitely don’t have plans to have a third wife!
When you do find time to relax, what do you do?
I don’t rest much, and I normally find relaxation in praying. My prayers are normally very long. It soothes the soul, and it keeps me focused on the spiritual task the teacher gave me. When I take time off, I like to watch action movies and listen to music by artists like Abba. We often listened to their music in Bosnia, especially when we entered a danger zone. One of my favourite songs is My Heart Will Go On by Celine Dion. The song once again proves to me that there is an individual story in every disaster and that life is uncertain. I must admit, relaxation is quite stressful to me because I always wonder whether I’m not needed somewhere else. And I also like good food, of which the Indian rice dish, aknee, is my favourite. I have a rule that every meal must be shared with my family.
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