Promi­nent leader in the Mus­lim Com­mu­ni­ty, Ha­ji Ya­coob Ali, was laid to rest to­day.

Ha­ji Ali, the longest serv­ing pres­i­dent gen­er­al of the An­ju­man Sun­nat­ul Ja­maat As­so­ci­a­tion (AS­JA) was buried in Cunu­pia, just af­ter mid­day.

Con­do­lences con­tin­ue to pour in as the coun­try mourns his pass­ing and cel­e­brate his lega­cy.

Op­po­si­tion Leader, Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar SC MP, de­scribed Ha­ji Ya­coob Ali as a man of im­pec­ca­ble char­ac­ter and a true pa­tri­ot. In a re­lease, the Op­po­si­tion Leader said he ded­i­cat­ed many years of his life to­wards build­ing the AS­JA and en­sur­ing its ca­pac­i­ty to ful­fil its role in the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty.

She not­ed that he al­so had a mis­sion fo­cus on tremen­dous out­reach to lift many mem­bers of the so­ci­ety out of pover­ty and so­cial dis­tress.

Mrs Per­sad-Bisses­sar said Ha­ji Ya­coob Ali will no doubt be re­mem­bered for his many good deeds, kind­ness, and gen­eros­i­ty.

Min­is­ter of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Kaz­im Ho­sein al­so sent his con­do­lences to the Mus­lim leader’s fam­i­ly.

In a state­ment on his of­fi­cial so­cial me­dia page, Min­is­ter Ho­sein not­ed that Ha­ji Ya­coob Ali would be re­mem­bered for his great wis­dom and guid­ance in all mat­ters of Is­lam, and some­one who was al­ways will­ing to help oth­ers.

“Ha­ji Ya­coob Ali was al­ways will­ing to help those in need and did so whole­heart­ed­ly and gen­er­ous­ly. He lived his life in wor­ship to Almighty Al­lah (swt) and was a role mod­el to many Mus­lim Broth­ers and Sis­ters across Trinidad and To­ba­go,” he wrote.

Mean­while, Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment of Barataria / San Juan, Sad­dam Ho­sein MP, re­called the role Ha­ji Ya­coob Ali played in the coun­try’s ed­u­ca­tion sec­tor, stat­ing, “I am a proud alum­nus of the AS­JA Boys’ Col­lege, Char­lieville.”

“Per­haps one of the most fun­da­men­tal as­pects of Ha­ji Ali’s life was the mot­to which he es­poused: ‘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,” the Barataria/San Juan MP said in his re­lease ho­n­our­ing the late AS­JA Pres­i­dent.