Shabbir Banoobhai

Banoobhai holds the degrees of Bachelor of Commerce, as well as Honours in Accounting Science, from Unisa.

Shabbir Banoobhai ranks among South Africa’s most acclaimed poets. His work has been described as “subliminally ignited by the ancient great Islamic poets” and “a further asset to, and aspect of, South Africa’s uncommon humanity”. Banoobhai’s family was unable to afford to send him to university, so he enrolled as a trainee teacher at Durban’s Springfield College of Education. Highly active in student politics, Banoobhai suspected that embarking on a career as a state-school teacher would result in the apartheid authorities’ posting him to “some remote part of the country where one would not be heard from again”. So he studied commerce through Unisa (simultaneously passing his examinations at Springfield) and went on to establish a multifaceted life as an accountant, political and spiritual thought leader, and poet.

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