Creating Opportunities | Making the Impossible, Possible!
INDONESIA: The burly Iraqi Faris el Husseini in traditional Arab gown stands out amongst mostly Indonesian crowd at Jakarta International Airport and after introductions, upon knowing I am an East African Khoja, Husseini instantly starts conversing in very acceptable Kiswahili, startling me. Husseini, you see, spent 3 years in Arusha, Tanzania so is quite good […]
Al Zahra Elementary School Nahoor, Ghazni – An Update: After over 2 years of frustrating delays and very slow progress to build a small school for the children of this extremely remote and lawless area in Ghazni, Afghanistan, the school is now finally complete alhamd’Allah. Security issues, severe weather, accessibility and procurement logistics for this […]
Emirates flight 725 from Dubai to Dar es Salaam begins with hassles; the aircraft is parked quite a distance away from the main terminal and we have to ride a bus to reach it. Funny no, you never have to do this when traveling to say, Europe or the Americas or somewhere exotic; just one […]
Mosque in Zamboanga City, Philippines – An Update: There has been good progress in the repair and reconstruction of this CAI sponsored mosque (first one in the country), alhamd’Allah. This is an important fully funded (first phase) project for these new Muslims as they will now have a platform to consolidate and more forward in […]
I ask her name, her age, whether she goes to school…she replies coyly at first, then gains confidence and talks. She thinks she is ten, maybe eleven; she used to go to school but has now stopped. Why, I ask? I can’t see, she says, and the teacher gets frustrated at me, so I stopped […]
I ask the driver to take me to Naroda Patiya, Naroda Gaun and Gulbaag Colony. The former two are minority Muslim pockets and scars from those couple of days of mayhem are still evident, even after eight years. Drab, dusty and filthy at places, the State has neglected to develop these narrow wandering streets into […]
Firoz Gulzar Mohammed Pathan (FGMP): The train from Surat to Ahmedabad next morning is another comfortable ride, on time departure and arrival. Chotubhai Dosani, my host, picks me up and we lunch in style at his home and I have the afternoon free to relax and catch up with piling emails that were almost inaccessible […]
Nagaram Housing Project – An Update: Alhamd’Allah, we have sponsors for 11 out of 16 impoverished and destitute families that urgently need housing assistance in Nagaram, AP. Please help the remaining 5 families get a roof over their head coming into the monsoon season in the near future which will make their current hovels a […]
Gujarat on February 27, 2002: a train carrying a group of radical Hindu devotees is set on fire at Godhra, Gujarat resulting in the deaths of 59 people, supposedly by a Muslim mob. Subsequent findings question this version, as it is proved fire could not have possibly set from outside the train, rather, scientific and […]
Two days before Bha stopped talking and went into a coma, he called me to his room and sat me down by his bedside. Bha, Mohammedreza Sultanali Yusufali, my eldest brother, was a father figure in my family. My father, you see, passed away in 1960, and since then Bha had led at the top, […]
