C OVER STORY
Abdul Sattar Edhi
An Angel of Mercy
V
ery few persons in the world rose to such a high
level of prominence that even the opponents find
it very difficult to oppose their mission and have
no option but to praise their contributions. Abdul Sattar
Edhi was one of those personalities. He died after suffering from kidney failure and diabetes related problems.
A selfless person who lived his entire life for others, who
despite the owner of world’s largest ambulance service
(1500 ambulances) as well as nursing homes, orphanages, clinics and women’s shelters, along with rehabilitation centers and soup kitchens across the country,
lived in a small two-bedroom apartment and lived a very
simple life.The height of simplicity and selflessness is
that he asked his family to bury him in his own clothes.
We have often heard the phrase in the news during last
few days, “He built an empire out of nothing”. It is not
an exaggeration. He literally built this vast network out
of nothing. He masterminded Pakistan’s largest welfare
organization almost single-handedly, entirely with public donations. When he was eleven, his mother became
paralyzed from a stroke and she died when Edhi was 19.
His personal experiences and care for his mother during
her illness, caused him to develop a system of services
for old, mentally ill and challenged people. He never
finished school but later said that the world of suffering became his tutor. After migration to Karachi in 1947,
he made a living at first by working as a commission
agent selling cloth at the Karachi wholesale market. A
few years later, he started a free Bantva dispensary with
the support of some community members. That was the
start of his charity work. Later, he planned for developing
a systemized welfare service and drew a persistent and
wide response for donations, expanding the trust at a remarkable pace. He first set up a maternity home and the
emergency ambulance service in Karachi. Meanwhile,
he met Bilquis Bano( Later she became Bilquis Edhi) ,
who was working as nurse at his dispensary. They married in 1965. The couple has four children, two daughters and two sons. Bilquis Edhi ran the free maternity
home and organized adoption of abandoned children.
Edhi remained involved in the Edhi Foundation, from
raising funds to helping with ritual bathing of the bodies
of the deceased poor. He also personally drove one of
the network’s ambulances across Karachi to help anyone in need. Later Edhi’s foundation started providing
technical and religious education to the disadvantaged
street children. The foundation also provides consultations on family planning and maternity services, as well
as free legal aid, financial and medical support to prisoners and the handicapped. Since its inception, the Edhi
Foundation has rescued over 20,000 abandoned infants, rehabilitated over 50,000 orphans and has trained
over 40,000 nurses. It also runs more than 330 welfare
centres in rural and urban Pakistan which operate as
food kitchens, rehabilitation homes, shelters for abandoned women and children and clinics for the mentally
handicapped. His work earned him numerous awards at
home and abroad, including the Gandhi Peace Award,
the 2007 UNESCO Madanjeet Singh Prize, the 2011
London Peace Award, the 2008 Seoul Peace Award
and the Hamdan Award for Volunteers in Humanitarian
Medical Service. Edhi Saheb’s insistence on helping
people regardless of their background (especially religion), and his criticism of orthodox clerics drew the ire
of some extremist Islamist groups over the years. Some
criticized him for helping non-Muslims, while other clerics accused him of promoting adultery by encouraging
people to leave unwanted children born out of wedlock
in his organization’s care, in cradles placed outside the
foundation’s orphanages. His critics have remained a
small minority in Pakistan, however, and his foundation
i