Episode 03: Dawud Abu Junaid Gos

Meet Dawud Abu Junaid Gos, the Muqaddam (meaning ‘the one brought forward) of the Sufi Centre in Broken Hill.

He is today’s guest on A Home in the Outback – an independent podcast about people living, working and creating in the far west of New South Wales.

You can listen to the interview on YouTube, Spotify, Apple podcasts or Google podcasts.

Dawud was born in Hobart in Tasmania and says he grew up playing sport and attended Taroona High School in the 80s.

After he left high school he worked briefly in childcare, moved to Sydney, worked in hospitality and studied English literature and classics at university.  He says he was always searching for the meaning of the human being.

After he got married, he moved back to Hobart and through a friend met the spiritual director of the Sufi Centre based in Hobart.

Dawud said Sheik Murshid F.A. Ali ElSenossi’s teaching ‘touched his heart and bypassed his head’ and at the age of 28 he decided to become a Muslim.

In the 2000s, the Sheik decided to relocate the Sufi Centre to Broken Hill and invited his students to come with him.

In 2010 Dawud and his family moved here and with other brothers and sisters helped build the Sufi Centre which includes a book shop, prayer room, library, office and more recently a bakery.

Dawud is a baker and the right-hand man of the Sheik in Broken Hill.

I interviewed Dawud at the end of 2023.

You can listen to the interview on YouTube, Spotify, apple podcasts or google podcasts. The interview will also be rebroadcasted on 2DRYFM on Saturday 2 March at 11am ACST. A Home in the Outback is produced by Katherine Waite an interviewer and writer based in Broken Hill, NSW.

Thanks to Foundation Broken Hill for its support in this project.

Music by Aimee Volkofsky – Heart is a desert from Dust Lust.