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Published Monday, February 21, 2005
MONDAY PROFILE
Businessman Follows His Faith as He Works to Improve the World
By Shelley Preston
The Ledger
LAKELAND
The mid-morning sun warmed Amin Mitha's courtyard as a light February breeze wafted off Lake Gibson.
A housekeeper's broom scraped against patio tiles and dishes clinked from the outdoor kitchen adjacent to the deck. Savory beef pilaf scented the air as his wife, Nurjehan, prepared a salad for dinner that evening. Mitha sat at a table overlooking the pool, his hazel eyes bright below dark eyebrows.
Life is pretty good at the Mitha residence.
There are other blessings, too. His son, Farooq, a 23-year-old law student at the University of Florida, and his daughter, Nadia, 26, who recently finished work on her master's degree in business administration at the University of Tampa, are sources of pride. Nurjehan -- or Nuri, 51, is an astute businesswoman, a fabulous cook and willing world traveling companion.
Mitha takes none of these things for granted -- these trappings of the good-life.
He knows what it is like to live in uncertainty. Or to leave his native country because of political upheaval.
And he knows how people suffer when war or natural disasters push them from their homes and force them to live as refugees. He knows because he has witnessed these things firsthand.
LEAVING HOME
Mitha was one of many Indians born and raised in Tanzania after their forbearers arrived in the country to help develop railroads or stake out business during the colonization of the East African country.
Aminmohamad Akberali Mitha, born on Dec. 10, 1949, in the town of Kigoma, remembers the closeness of the community where everyone seemed to know their neighbors and took care of one another. He spoke English and Swahili in his daily life and Gujarati, an Indian language, at home.
But after formerly English-ruled Zanzibar and Tanganyika became the independent country of Tanzania in 1964, the new socialist government made it difficult for Mitha to start his own business. In 1970, at age 19, he left for England to seek better financial opportunities.
Mitha met Nuri -- then Nurjehan Nurali Premji, who also grew up in Tanzania, in London. The young couple married and, in 1974, moved to Toronto, where Mitha went to school to become a certified general accountant.
Lakeland was not a place Mitha thought about. He did not even know where it was before he arrived here 20 years ago. His brother had convinced him to leave Toronto for real estate ventures in rapidly growing Polk County.
Together, they bought ailing hotels, fixed them up and sold them for a profit. They eventually went their own ways, but Mitha continued to buy and sell small hotels in Central Florida.
Today he owns the Royalty Inn in North Lakeland and is part owner of the Touch of Class Dry Cleaners, also in Lakeland, and a Dunkin' Donuts in Miami.
HELPING HUMANITY
Mitha's life soon embodied a certain American dream that now includes a BMW, tennis courts and watching "Law and Order" on a big-screen TV.
Mitha's Shia Ismaili Muslim faith led him to leave behind his business ventures and devote himself to humanitarian aid work.
"It is what Islam teaches us, to take care of the poor, the needy and vulnerable," Mitha says.
Through volunteer work as a council member at his mosque, His Highness Prince Aga Khan in Orlando, Mitha became interested in the work of Focus Humanitarian Assistance (FOCUS). The international aid organization based in Falls Church, Va., is supported by the Shia Ismaili Muslim community. Their goal is to teach and help people in Central and Southeast Asia in countries such as Tajikistan, Afghanistan, India and Pakistan. They offer opportunities for the needy without regard to their faith, origin or gender.
"All those people live in areas that are vulnerable to manmade and natural disasters," Mitha says. "They have earthquakes, mudslides and tsunamis."
And, because they often live under governments with no emergency response systems, the fallout from those disasters has a much higher death toll than if the same disaster had occurred in an industrialized nation. Those regions are also more susceptible to political conflicts that terrorize the population, split families and leave residents without home or country.
In December 2001, during the U.S. military campaign to topple the Taliban, FOCUS sent Mitha to Afghanistan. As part of a team, he was asked to use his business acumen to help FOCUS construct an efficient infrastructure for delivering aid to refugees returning to Afghanistan after the war.
FOCUS was particularly concerned about the plight of the Ismailis, who have an open and more tolerant view of Islamic law and were threatened by the Taliban, who have a more strict ideology. Many Ismailis had fled to Pakistan to escape the brutal Taliban regime, which included public executions and forbade women to become educated or to leave the house without a male relative.
Mitha went to Pakistan for nearly two years in 2002 to prepare displaced Afghans to return home. FOCUS's missions were to provide job skills such as laying bricks or using a computer, important skills for a recovering country.
"He worked in a very challenging environment," said Gulam Juma, executive officer for FOCUS Humanitarian Assistance for the U.S. unit. Mitha was able to put together the logistics of running an office in Pakistan where more than 30,000 Afghans came for assistance. "His work with us was remarkable."
"He lives to help people," says his son, Farooq Mitha. "He wants to be a part of working in the developing world bringing about change."
LAKELAND, FLA., U.S.A.
At a recent dinner party, Mitha showed pictures from a trip to Turkey. Guests gathered around the couch as a laptop computer sitting on a coffee table flashed images of marble mosques, piles of colorful spices at an outdoor market, and Amin and Nuri Mitha mugging for the camera.
Mitha says his friends are often taken aback by the far-flung locales he travels to for FOCUS, such as Kohrog in Tajikistan and northern Pakistan.
"I worry about his safety sometimes," said Gene Engle, a prominent Lakeland Realtor who was at dinner that night. "But you really have to respect what he does. He's a very passionate man."
During the 20 years Mitha's family has lived in Lakeland, it has developed many close friendships and has been embraced by the business community.
But when Mitha and his family first arrived in Lakeland, it felt isolated and disengaged from the community.
"We missed friends, family and schoolmates and people you meet in mosques. We had to start fresh," Mitha said.
The Mithas threw themselves into work and started to meet other families through their children's swimming lessons at the YMCA and at Little League practices.
Prejudice against his family's religious beliefs has never been a problem, Mitha says, but he admits it is hard to be a Muslim sometimes. "Being a Muslim, you confront (uncomfortable situations), but we take it as a challenge as well."
Travel has kept the family in touch with the larger Muslim community and scratched the itch for exposure to other global-minded families. Mitha's children have embraced his globe-trotting ways. Nadia recently trekked through Kenya, and both she and Farooq traveled with their parents to Tanzania to explore their roots.
Nadia and Farooq have inherited the business gene from their father. Farooq started an Internet business called www.prizecube.com, a company similar to gratis.com, and Nadia plans to go to Toronto to begin a business of her own.
Engle, who met Mitha through business dealings, says he admires Mitha for his honesty and integrity -- concepts that do not always go hand-in-hand with business deals. "He is absolutely a man of his word, When he tells you something, he honors it to the nth degree."
Mitha admits he is a perfectionist, which is sometimes construed as being too critical, especially when he is in his role as consultant for his remaining properties.
"He comes in like a tornado at the hotel -- Whoosh!" Nuri, who manages the Royalty Inn in North Lakeland, said with a laugh. "We all breathe again when he leaves and things go back to normal."
"People may think he is tough on the exterior," Farooq said, "But he really has a soft heart." And his soft heart never stops surprising him. "When he went to Pakistan, he had to leave behind family and every-day amenities for a year and a half. I don't know if I could ever do what he does."
Mitha does not see his work as so difficult.
"If you look at our background," he said, "we were almost like refugees ourselves when we were hit by political disaster in East Africa."
But mostly he says, he does it for his faith.
"It is not like what you see in the media here," Mitha said with a smile. "Islam teaches us to be be good citizens by showing good ethics, compassion and honesty."
Shelley Preston can be reached at shelley.preston@theledger.com or 863-802-7517.