The Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment of Barataria / San Juan Sad­dam Ho­sein ex­tends con­do­lences on the pass­ing of Ha­ji Ya­coob Ali. The fol­low­ing is a press re­lease from the MP.

In­na lil­lahi wa in­na ilay­hi ra­ji’un- “Ver­i­ly we be­long to Al­lah and ver­i­ly to Him do were­turn.”

Ha­ji Ya­coob Ali has cre­at­ed his­to­ry as the longest serv­ing Pres­i­dent Gen­er­al of the An­ju­man Sun­nat-ul-Ja­maat As­so­ci­a­tion (AS­JA) of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

AS­JA re­mains one of largest and in­flu­en­tial Is­lam­ic or­gan­i­sa­tion in Trinidad and To­ba­go. AS­JA, un­der the lead­er­ship of Pres­i­dent Gen­er­al Ali has man­aged many masjids and schools from ear­ly child­hood care, pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary lev­el.

He has fur­ther ad­vanced the in­sti­tu­tion­al de­vel­op­ment of the As­so­ci­a­tion through ad­vo­ca­cy and a strong pres­ence in the Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ty, sig­nif­i­cant­ly shap­ing our greater na­tion­al land­scape.

He has played an in­te­gral role in the ed­u­ca­tion­al sec­tor of our coun­try of which I am a proud alum­ni of the AS­JA Boys’ Col­lege, Char­lieville.

Per­haps one of the most fun­da­men­tal as­pects of Ha­ji Ali’s life was the mot­to which he es­poused, that “Suc­cess in life is not what we have but how much we are pre­pared to give”. It is a life mot­to which is cer­tain­ly ap­pro­pri­ate now more than ever, as our na­tion and world con­tin­ue to grap­ple with the eco­nom­ic and so­cial hard­ships brought about by the Covid-19 pan­dem­ic.

Ha­ji Ali, as he is fond­ly called “PG” by many, leaves a lega­cy as an ed­u­ca­tor, re­li­gious leader and busi­ness­man. He was al­ways a ded­i­cat­ed work­er and in his last days PG died with his prover­bial boots on.

May his life serve as a mod­el which we can all em­u­late.