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‘Pakistan’s Mother Teresa’ Abdul Sattar Edhi, one of the world’s leading philanthropists, dedicated his life to aiding the poor and destitute, and had, over the last six decades, almost single-handedly improved welfare in Pakistan through Edhi foundation. Despite running a huge charitable organisation, Edhi could often be seen begging on the roads to fund his organisation.
Alas! Abdul Sattar Edhi is no more with us. He met his Lord on 8th July of this year. His death is a real loss for all those who care for human sufferings.
Abdul Sattar Edhi was the greatest Pakistani philanthropist, social worker, ascetic and humanitarian. He was the founder and head of the Edhi Foundation in Pakistan and ran the organization for the better part of six decades. He was known as the ”Angel of Mercy” and was considered Pakistan's "Most Respected" and legendary figure. In two thousand thirteen, The Huffington Post said that he might be "The World's Greatest Living Humanitarian.”
Revered by many as a national hero, Edhi created a charitable empire out of nothing. He masterminded Pakistan’s largest welfare organisation almost single-handedly, entirely with private company and donations. To many, Edhi was known as the “Father Teresa” of Pakistan.
He started his career as a street hawker, selling pencils and matchboxes in Karachi. Then in nineteen fifty one , he opened a tiny dispensary in Karachi’s poor neighborhood of Mithadar where his priority was to give maximum help to the poor and the needy. He worked steadily and then due to his devotion, determination for philanthropy proceeded to launch a nationwide organization.
Even a single word uttered by Abdul Sattar Edhi used to make a huge impact on people; that was the stature of Pakistan’s greatest philanthropist.
Throughout his life, Edhi sahab set examples for the world to follow through his actions. In fact, more work and less talk remained his principle till the very end.
Although there’s no dearth of great quotes by perhaps the greatest Pakistani who ever lived, I’ll mention the following quotes which I believe will leave you inspired for the rest of your lives.
1. “My religion is humanitarianism, which is the basis of every religion in the world.”
2. “I do not have any formal education. What use is education when we do not become human beings? My school is the welfare of humanity.”
3. “Never take anyone’s death to heart Bilquis (his wife). Remember God by the equality with which He implements it. Nobody is different, the richest to the poorest, from here to the end of the globe face it equally. What an example of equality.”
4. “So, many years later there were many who still complained and questioned, ‘Why must you pick up Christians and Hindus in your ambulance?’ And I was saying, ‘Because the ambulance is more Muslim than you’.”
5. “Empty words and long praises do not impress God. Show Him your faith by your deeds.”
6. “Chasing after desires creates inner turmoil. When the devil becomes guide, dacoits and gangsters are manufactured. He makes men fight against their souls to survive expensive items and most lose everything in the face of his strength. The internal enemy can only be overcome by a personal revolution.”
7. “The dead has only one place to go… up. Wherever you bury them, they will go the same way, up.”
8. “The Holy Book should open in your souls, not on your laps. Open your heart and see God’s people. In their plight you will find Him.”
9. “Those who believed in changing the world were either hungry by circumstance or practiced deprivation by choice.”
. “Appearance is a distraction, surrendering it develops truth and humility in abundance.”
Humanity SALUTES You Edhi Sahab! May Your Soul Rest in Peace (AMEN).
Abdul Sattar Edhi was a hero to Pakistan's poor and needy. Abdul Sattar Edhi was a beacon of hope in a country too often mired in despair. He was an ascetic in a country where politicians regularly skim millions of dollars through corruption; a humanitarian in a country rife with sectarian hatred and violence; and ultimately the provider of public services in a country where the government often fails to provide even the most basic ones, like adequate hospitals and ambulances.
In the course of his lifetime, he had gone from being a refugee to running Pakistan's most renowned philanthropic organization, the Edhi Foundation. Established in 1951, the foundation currently runs hospitals, orphanages, morgues, legal aid offices, centers for the abandoned and drug-addicted, and has almost 2,000 ambulances, which it dispatches to the scenes of the terrorist attacks that occur with alarming frequency across the country.
إِنَّا للهِ وَإِنَّـا إِلَيْهِ رَاجِعونَHe did not need a Nobel Prize to prove to us his worthHe did not desire recognition upon this fleeting earth;Had he received the award, for me, there is no doubt,
I don't care about Nobel prize , it doesn't mean anything to me . I want these people I care about humanity - Abdul Sattar Edhi
He did not need a Nobel Prize to prove to us his worthHe did not desire recognition upon this fleeting earth;Had he received the award, for me, there is no doubt,Each dollar to the poor, he would ensure was handed out.Yet by his passing now, poverty has struck the land,Who will now collect on the street for the beggar with no hand?Who will stand in humility in between speeding cars,Risking his life for one rupee to add to an empty jar?How many months he spent begging on the corner of a street,Not for himself, but for one ambulance in the stifling heat?Now that number is eight hundred vans and another thousand,A man like him is surely less than one in a thousand thousands.His boundless compassion subdued discrimination to shame,‘No religion is higher than humanity,’ he did proudly proclaim;The criminal and the corrupt, he loathed both for their oppression,His passing only stregnthens the rule of injustice and corruption.Those who knew him knew him and the rest are surely poor,Millions he spent on others but lavishness he did abhor;A simple shalwar, a simple kameez, and a hat is all he wore,God knows how little he would eat, we but saw him sit on the floor.A life of austerity from birth, he was made to endure,Yet his mother taught him always to cater for the poor,For each paisa he was given, one to a beggar he gave,Today his mother lives on in the million lives she saved. And as his family mourn him a nation is poorer indeed,No money could recompense a man of such high degree:Abdul Sattar Edhi was the Pakistan of which I have so long dreamed,Abdul Sattar Edhi was the Islam I have so long desired to breathe…
“He was the real manifestation of love for those who were socially vulnerable, impoverished, helpless and poor,” he said. “This loss is irreparable for the people of Pakistan.”
I am very sad that Abdul Sattar Edhi is no more with us. He was a man of great deeds. His death was a loss of whole world not only Pakistan. Now it is our responsibility to bring forward his work.The people of Pakistan will never forget him.
May his soul rest in peace.
One of the Great Legends of Mankind.
“Abdul Sattar Edhi”
He was born in 1928 in a small village of Bantva near Joona Garh, Gujrat (India). The seeds of compassion for the suffering humanity were sown in his soul by his mother’s infirmity. When Edhi was at the tender age of eleven, his mother became paralyzed and later got mentally ill. Young Abdul Sattar devoted himself for looking after all her needs; cleaning, bathing, changing clothes and feeding. This proved to be a losing battle against the disease, and her helplessness increased over the years. Her persistent woeful condition left a lasting impression on young Edhi. The course of his life took a different turn from other persons of his age. His studies were also seriously affected and he could not complete his high school level. For him the world of suffering became his tutor and source of wisdom.
Edhi’s journey
Born to a family of traders in Gujarat, Mr Edhi arrived in Pakistan in 1947. The state’s failure to help his struggling family care for his mother – paralyzed and suffering from mental health issues – was his painful and decisive turning point towards philanthropy. In the sticky streets in the heart of Karachi, Mr Edhi, full of idealism and hope, opened his first clinic in 1951. “Social welfare was my vocation, I had to free it,” he says in his autobiography, ‘A Mirror To The Blind’.
Motivated by a spiritual quest for justice, over the years Mr Edhi and his team created maternity wards, morgues, orphanages, shelters and homes for the elderly – all aimed at helping those who cannot help themselves.
The most prominent symbols of the foundation – its 1,500 ambulances – are deployed with unusual efficiency to the scene of terrorist attacks that tear through the country with devastating regularity.
A national hero
Revered by many as a national hero, his work spread across the country, Edhi created a charitable empire out of nothing. He masterminded Pakistan’s largest welfare organization almost single-handedly, entirely with private donations. Content with just two sets of clothes, he slept in a windowless room of white tiles adjoining the office of his charitable foundation. Sparsely equipped, it had just one bed, a sink and a hotplate.
“He never established a home for his own children,” his wife Bilquis, who manages the foundation’s homes for women and children, told AFP in an interview this year. What he has established is something of a safety net for the poor and destitute, mobilizing the nation to donate and help take action – filling a gap left by a lack of welfare state.
Edhi’s foundation also provides technical education to the disadvantaged, religious education for street children, consultations on family planning and maternity services, as well as free legal aid, financial and medical support to prisoners and the handicapped.
Despite the vast sums of money that passed through his foundation, Edhi lived modestly with his family in a two-room apartment adjacent to the headquarters of his foundation.
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.
Known in public as Maulana Edhi – a respectful title for a religious scholar – he supported and promoted working opportunities for women. Out of the 2,000 paid workers of his Edhi Foundation, about 500 are women.
At the end of my tribute to him i would like to say Those who work for Allah's will and for mankind, Allah remain his name all over the world.
In the reference there is a beautiful story about the ant.
translation:
Until, when they came upon the valley of the ants, an ant said, "O ants, enter your dwellings that you not be crushed by Solomon and his soldiers while they perceive not."
So [Solomon] smiled, amused at her speech, and said, "My Lord, enable me to be grateful for Your favor which You have bestowed upon me and upon my parents and to do righteousness of which You approve. And admit me by Your mercy into [the ranks of] Your righteous servants."Allah liked his kindness for other ants and put this story in Quran for all human of the world. Such a Reward from Allah. We can not think even cant imagin. May Allah give us the siprit to do more for others. Ameen
More about his services and organization details please visit :-
https://edhi.org/index.php/about-us/about-edhi-foundation
I am very small person to say anything about the great person Mr. Edhi.
Edhi came from humble origins and remained a quiet and modest man all his life, which in part was what inspired the nationwide love for him among Humans.
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