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Abdul Sattar Edhi

Abdul Sattar Edhi

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24th August 2007, 15:58

Joseph K.

County Captain

Debut: Sep 2006

Runs: 2,419

Wickets: 35

Abdul Sattar Edhi

Received my copy of National Geographic magazine today. The cover article is on Pakistan, titled 'Islam's Fault Line, Pakistan.' I haven't read the whole article yet but did read the section on Edhi in it. Very touching account of a great man and the hardships he is facing. We should all support Edhi. Whenever you think of charity, think of Pakistan, think of Edhi! The complete articles deserves to be read. Luckily it is availbale online, all 10 pages of it, here:

http://www7.nationalgeographic.com/...n/pakistan.html

This is what it has to say about Abdul Sattar Edhi:

Quote:

"YES, THERE ARE EXTREMISTS here," says Pakistani novelist Mohsin Hamid. "But they are a small minority in a nation of 165 million people. Most of us want nothing to do with violence." This is true. But like moderates everywhere, those in Pakistan have a hard time being heard over the racket rising up from their streets and television sets, a raucous soundtrack of religious sermonizing, Indo-Pakistani saber rattling, and a general gnashing of teeth that passes for public discourse. Ordinary people are also stifled by a government and police force that are among the most corrupt in the world, led by an army that answers to no one. But it is a measure of the country's underlying goodness, and a sign of hope, that 60 years after independence the most revered figure in Pakistan is not a mullah or a sports hero, but a 79-year-old man who routinely washes dried blood off dead bodies and fishes his clothes from a donation barrel.

Abdul Sattar Edhi began serving his fellow citizens a few years after the founding of Pakistan, when he opened a free clinic in Karachi. Later he bought a dented Hillman station wagon, its blue paint peeling, and turned it into Pakistan's first private ambulance. He shuttled poor people to medical care and collected the bodies of the city's homeless from the gutters, washed them, and gave them a proper burial. "I felt it was my duty as a human being," he says, recalling the revulsion he learned to overcome. "It was obvious the government wasn't going to do it."

Decades later, that hasn't changed. While the military accounts for a quarter of the national budget, less than 3 percent is spent on education, health, and public welfare. And so Edhi still tends to Pakistan's dirty work, body by body. His one-man charity is now an acclaimed international foundation. His single, beat-up old station wagon has grown into a fleet of 1,380 little white ambulances positioned across Pakistan, tended by thousands of volunteers. They are usually first to arrive on the scene of any tragedy. In May 2002, when police found the remains of Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal reporter murdered in Karachi, it was Edhi who gently collected the body parts, all ten, and took Daniel Pearl to the morgue.

Edhi was born in the Indian town of Bantva, 250 miles (400 kilometers) from Mumbai. As a teenager, he'd gone with his father to hear Jinnah, the tall, gaunt, visionary founder of Pakistan, deliver a speech urging local Muslims to join him in the new country. At first his father hesitated. But during partition, when Hindu mobs began marauding nearby, the family joined the more than 14 million people from both countries—Muslims, Hindus, and Sikhs—who fled their homes and crossed to the other side of the line. As many as a million people died in sectarian riots, massacres, and killings along the way.

Edhi's adopted city of Karachi has grown from a population of 450,000 in 1947 to a surging metropolis of more than 15 million people. It may be the most cosmopolitan of Pakistan's cities, but it is among the most dangerous as well—a place where Pakistan's widening gap between rich and poor is on full display. Karachi is a sprawling universe of ramshackle neighborhoods that radiate north, west, and east from the glitzy seaside hotels, office towers, and diplomatic fortresses downtown, where car bombs are an occupational hazard and personal security a billion-dollar-a-year business. Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups are known to operate in the squalid "no go" neighborhoods of Karachi, beyond the reach of police and perhaps even Inter-Services Intelligence, Pakistan's powerful military intelligence agency.

In the middle of all this sits Edhi, a dignified man wearing a gray shalwar kameez (Pakistan's national dress) and a furry black cap in the style Jinnah wore—a fitting touch in a man who describes himself as a "super patriot." In a neighborhood of litter-strewn streets, Edhi's headquarters is a cluttered office that adjoins the two small rooms where he lives with his wife, Bilquis, his partner in the foundation. Edhi's operation relies on donations; he refuses to accept government money or even a ride in someone else's car. He travels by ambulance, in case someone needs help along the way. Outside Edhi's office, a metal crib is stationed on the stairway beneath a sign reading, "Don't Kill Your Baby." Every Edhi Foundation office in the country has such a crib, where a mother can leave an unwanted baby, no questions asked. Edhi's Karachi office alone receives 90 babies a month, half of them alive.

Today a young nurse in a head scarf brings in a newborn left in the crib overnight, a girl wrapped in a soft floral blanket, perhaps four days old, her arms and legs shrunken and disfigured. The nurse places her on Edhi's desk, like a gift. He picks up the infant and gently strokes her malformed hands with his finger, whispering to her in Gujarati, his native language, his long gray beard tickling her nose. As this little girl grows, she'll be given medical care in one of the foundation's clinics, sheltered in its orphanage, educated in one of its schools, and sent forth into a carefully arranged marriage with job skills and a dowry. Edhi has given away hundreds of brides at the foundation's wedding facility, a cross between a Bollywood set and the Elvis Suite at a Las Vegas hotel, with a bed in the shape of a heart. A bulletin board in the lobby is filled with dozens of wedding pictures, each happy bride a miracle child plucked from Edhi's rescue cradle.

Despite his selfless deeds, Edhi is often attacked as "un-Islamic" by Pakistan's hard-line mullahs, who cite his policy on infidels. He has none. Edhi never asks whether an abandoned child, a psychiatric patient, a dead person, or a battered woman is Sunni or Shiite, Hindu or Christian—or, for that matter, Punjabi or Sindhi, Baluchi or Pashtun, Mohajir or Kashmiri. "I'm a Muslim," says Edhi, "but my true religion is human rights."

In modern Pakistan, that's an increasingly lonely position. There are many thousands of dedicated doctors, lawyers, teachers, social workers, and humanitarians—including some in government—who, like Edhi, are working to move their country forward, but the space in which they operate is shrinking. Recently, at Musharraf's bidding, parliament passed a bill to restrict the activities of NGOs and human rights groups. Even as he promotes "enlightened moderation," Musharraf accuses such groups of humiliating Pakistan by publicizing abuses, and declares them a threat to the national interest.

Such rhetoric only emboldens the Islamists, whose influence is growing across Pakistan. Edhi gets half a dozen death threats a week, ranging from crank calls to serious warnings that made him temporarily flee the country. Religious militants harass his offices—a campaign orchestrated, Edhi believes, by Pakistan's Islamist political parties, which compete with him for financial support. A few years ago, a new Edhi Foundation hospital, which cost three million dollars to build, was taken over by students from a radical madrassa north of Karachi. Intimidated by the mullahs, the police refused to act on Edhi's complaint, and his hospital is now a dormitory, with student laundry—black turbans favored by the Taliban—flapping from the windows, like flags over conquered territory.

24th August 2007, 16:33

the Great Khan the Great Khan is offline

International Star

Debut: Feb 2005

Runs: 6,259

Wickets: 41

Quote:

Such rhetoric only emboldens the Islamists, whose influence is growing across Pakistan. Edhi gets half a dozen death threats a week, ranging from crank calls to serious warnings that made him temporarily flee the country. Religious militants harass his offices—a campaign orchestrated, Edhi believes, by Pakistan's Islamist political parties, which compete with him for financial support. A few years ago, a new Edhi Foundation hospital, which cost three million dollars to build, was taken over by students from a radical madrassa north of Karachi. Intimidated by the mullahs, the police refused to act on Edhi's complaint, and his hospital is now a dormitory, with student laundry—black turbans favored by the Taliban—flapping from the windows, like flags over conquered territory

jahaalat of the highest order...Edhi is a momin, a true role model..yet our society treats him like dirt..pathetic really!!....

24th August 2007, 16:39

Joseph K.

County Captain

Debut: Sep 2006

Runs: 2,419

Wickets: 35

Overseas Pakistanis can help Edhi a lot with their donations but it would be sad to see a hospital or a school or a library built with people's donations to be taken over by anybody for any reason other than what people donated for.

24th August 2007, 17:21

Hash

Living Legend

Debut: Oct 2003

Venue: Neptune

Runs: 24,990

Wickets: 392

Quote:

Originally Posted by the Great Khan

jahaalat of the highest order...Edhi is a momin, a true role model..yet our society treats him like dirt..pathetic really!!....

Our society does not treat him like dirt......only a jaahil vocal minority of our society treats him like dirt. The jaahils will always be jaahils, no amount of education will change them because they have closed their minds to any other philosophy than the one they have been brainwashed to believe.

Edhi is one rare shining light we have in Pakistan. He is a star who everyone in the world can look up to with admiration. EDHI ZINDABAAD.

24th August 2007, 17:35

Joseph K.

County Captain

Debut: Sep 2006

Runs: 2,419

Wickets: 35

Support Edhi:

http://www.edhifoundation.com/default.asp

24th August 2007, 17:57

darkmoon459 darkmoon459 is online now

ODI Star

Debut: Dec 2005

Venue: Dallas,TX,USA

Runs: 3,312

Wickets: 112

Occupation: biz owner.

Abdul Sattar Edhi is one of the Positives out of few that pakistan can be proud of and pakistanis can hold their heads high,A true servant of Islam and Pakistan and a projection of what Humanity is all about.
May Allah bless him,nourish his efforts and protect him from Radicals of all kind.

24th August 2007, 19:28

Kashif

International Star

Debut: Jan 2005

Venue: In a Desert

Runs: 5,794

Wickets: 137

2 Decades ago, I, my sister and grandmother were involved in a car accident in Karachi near Hassan Square. An Edhi ambulance van was there within 5 minutes. Even today, Edhi emergency services are usually the first people there at any emergency. There are some amazing people in Pakistan doing selfless work, please support them.

Last edited by Kashif : 24th August 2007 at 19:30.

24th August 2007, 21:06

Disco_Lemonade Disco_Lemonade is online now

PakPassion.net Graphics Design Squad

Debut: Jan 2006

Venue: Karachi

Runs: 4,034

Wickets: 81

Occupation: studying, textile engg.

Quote:

Originally Posted by the Great Khan

jahaalat of the highest order...Edhi is a momin, a true role model..yet our society treats him like dirt..pathetic really!!....

dont agree with you.. Edhi Saab is the most respected personality in Pakistan.

24th August 2007, 22:23

Team Slayer Team Slayer is offline

ODI Star

Debut: Jan 2005

Runs: 3,460

Wickets: 204

He's a role model for all Muslims, particularly those aspiring to change the ummah.

It says a lot about him that he's accepted so unconditionally by most. That alone, in my opinion, suggests that his efforts have been blessed by Allah [swt]. What he has done is he's set up an ajr-generating machine...a true sadaqah jariah...that will continue to accumulate good deeds for him as long as it exists. And it all started with Rs. 5000. We all have more than that, yet what are we doing to change the condition of the ummah?

May Allah bless him, accept from him and multiply his rewards so that he's resurrected on the Day of Judgment with mountains and mountains of good deeds, ameen.

#10

24th August 2007, 23:39

Daoud

World Class Player

Debut: Sep 2003

Venue: Sydney

Runs: 16,645

Wickets: 158

Wonderful read. Im pretty sure that if there was an official poll about who the greatest Pakistani would be, it would be him. It is very rare that one person is so needed by so many. May Allah bless him and his wife for all they've done and may he give them the capacity to carry their work on for years to come

#11

25th August 2007, 00:41

Amir_rulez Amir_rulez is offline

International Debutant

Debut: Feb 2005

Venue: USA

Runs: 2,600

Wickets: 40

Occupation: Student

Edhi commands nothing but respect. Wonderful human being.

#12

25th August 2007, 11:56

Boi

World Class Player

Debut: Mar 2007

Venue: UK

Runs: 12,118

Wickets: 242

Occupation: Student

hes a great person and a real role model for all the pakistanis

#13

25th August 2007, 17:51

Faisalabad Faisalabad is offline

Local Club Player

Debut: Oct 2006

Runs: 274

Wickets: 11

He is the true servant of Islam and Pakistan. A true muslim and Pakistani. This guy is just everything, we can never thank him enough. Honestly where would we if he wasnt there,700 ambulances, just imgaine how many lives he has saved, how many homeless he has saved and how many orphans and women who faced violence. Hats off to him. We all Pakistanis just need to join hands with him and progress further, he deserves the Noble Peace Prize bcz he has done what Dr Younis did, and its just the nationality to be honest which he doesnt get it for. After all he has done for more than 50 years, other thing this award isnt going to do anything bcz what he is doing and has done is much more better than the Noble Peace Prize.

Thank you Mr Edhi.

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