How Working in Saudi Made Me a Caller Part 2 of Why You Should Call People to Islam Mohamed Haroon Sait (Co-Founder of American Islamic Outreach Foundation)
As I mentioned last month, my training as a caller to the way of Islam really evolved while I worked in Saudi Arabia. This month, God willing, I will explain why my time in Saudi Arabia helped me to become a Caller for Islam in the United States. For someone like me, coming from Kerala in India; getting work in Saudi Arabia is a difficult but an achievable task. Once you’ve arrived on a work visa, is not easy to switch jobs. You are tied to an employer who is your Sponsor and he has a “leash” around your neck. Depending on the nature of the Sponsor, the length of the leash can vary; but there is no escape from it. He has the veto on many of your work related decisions. During my tenure in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia from 1990 to 1999, I had three different sponsors. The last one was Saudi Building Systems, owned by Juffali, a prominent family enterprise with more than a dozen different businesses under their name including kingdom-wide Mercedes dealerships. My company was a joint venture of Juffali and Butler Building Systems, a Kansas based steel building manufacturer. I worked in the computer department. My boss, Said-Sadain was a Filipino Muslim. I had two friendly peers both from the Philippines, Roni and Arthuro, who were both Catholic. During our free time, we always talked about Islam and Christianity. This was a much larger company compared to my previous two employer/sponsors. Most of the people in the chain of command were US citizens who imported the 14
work ethics from America. This was a new and awesome experience for me. This American work ethic was visible in the friendly department managers and chiefs who would smile and say ‘Salaam’ to you, shake hands, and discuss things in polite and civil manners. I could raise my concerns with instructions and present my own reasoning and expect genuine attentive ears. This is not the case with many other businesses where the rule is “Listen and Obey!” I savored many other work place norms which we all love and enjoy today in the US. This environment enabled me to discuss and debate faith matters with even the managers. Of course, they had the freedom to shoot me down as well; it was a fair game. There were hundreds of computers and printers installed for engineers, accountants, sales teams, and other support staff. My job involved taking care of new computer installations, troubleshooting existing ones, training and little bit of computer programming. Every day when I got to my office at 8:30 am, after switching on my pc and a little bit of housekeeping, I usually grabbed my cup and took a brisk walk to the kitchen/pantry where we had a variety of coffee and tea. Sometimes I met managers and other staff and we shared few moments of discussing the headline news of the day. It was a three minute walk to the kitchen, half-way there was a glass cabin with a window which was the office of Arnold, a passionate Catholic from Philippines. “Kumustaka?” I always
asked him in Tagalog. He was a friendly guy and I debated the most with him. I often stood outside his glass cabin and he would debate through the window. Occasionally the debate would be about why the Trinity does not make sense and He would counter with his problems with Islam and why Trinity makes perfect sense. Neither I nor he would give up. When it would go nowhere, I would just say “OK, talk to you later” and then got back to work. The purchase manager, Mr. Akhtar Ali from Islamabad, Pakistan was like an elder brother for me. We do a lot of “Gub-Shub” as he calls it, the familiar expression in his Punjabi tongue for Chit-Chat. His office was upstairs on one side of a huge hall filled with engineers and technicians working on AutoCAD and other engineering and designing tasks. As there were various types of equip-
Mr. Akhtar Ali
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