C OVER STORY
Edhi’s challenge
A
bdul Sattar Edhi succeeded in raising his multi-dimensional personality to such heights that most of the
commentators, including the present one, are having
difficulty in capturing it in its full glory in a single piece of
writing. The best course available to them is to focus on an
aspect of Edhi’s life and work that touched them most deeply.
While recalling his seven-minute encounter with Edhi, when
he had gone to present him with the Eqbal Ahmed Award,
Naeem Sadiq concentrates on his lack of enthusiasm for celebrating the awards he received and his desire not to be diverted from his duty to all those who needed succour. We learn of
one of Edhi’s strong points.
Zubeida Mustafa, who herself belongs to the Abdul Sattar
Edhi-Adeeb Rizvi brotherhood of servants of the poor, has offered six reasons that won Edhi the people’s love and trust and
all the six reasons stem from Edhi’s total identification with
the poor — living like them and in their midst, working like
them as the first among equals, and choosing to be treated at
an institute that respects the poor’s rights. Here we find the
portrait of Edhi he himself treasured the most.
Many people want him canonised as a saint because they apparently think no simple human being could have done all that
Edhi was able to do. This approach will undermine ordinary
citizens’ confidence in their ability to serve their fellow beings.
There is no question about Edhi’s greatness in winning worldwide respect for his complete commitment to the welfare of
the sick and the needy and his integrity. And this in a country
high on the list of corrupt nations and while working in an
area – charity – in which honesty is at a discount in Pakistan.
Countless are instances of people rushing towards Edhi to
help him serve humanity. A woman arrives unannounced in a
rickshaw, makes a donation of half a million rupees, and disappears without disclosing her name. A man offers Edhi two
large bungalows he has built in Karachi. A foreign government
gives him helicopters and a Pakistan government gives him a
small plane. Thousands of examples are available to confirm
people’s faith not only in Edhi’s honesty but also, and more
importantly, in his capacity to guarantee proper and efficient
use of the funds entrusted to him.
Edhi became a legend in his lifetime; a legend liked all the
more for being transparent. He told the whole story of his life,
his struggles and his heartbreaks, of the good turns the kindhearted people did to him and of the many attempts made by
his detractors to defame him and scare his donors away. The
most heart-warming part of his narrative is Edhi’s dream of
building a network of hospitals across the country.
The legend was also sustained by Edhi’s ability to be the first to
arrive at the sites of disaster not only within his own country
but also beyond its boundaries. A spell in an Israeli prison did
not deter him from extending relief to the Palestinian victims
of an unjust war.
Edhi also won respect for his truthfulness. He admitted his
mistake in taking a second wife and thus hurting Bilquis and
he conceded his mistake in dabbling in politics. But his frequent statements that he was a non-political person were true
only to the extent that he did not belong to any political party.
Otherwise, he did not decline General Zia’s invitation to join
his Majlis-i-Shura and did attend its meetings despite being
convinced that the general was exploiting and abusing Islam
for political / personal ends. Fortunately for him he resigned
from the assembly soon after joining it.
But Edhi did political work all his life, especially by relieving
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