Tens of thousands attend Pakistani philanthropist’s funeral

In a press release, J.Salik stated that Abdul Sattar was a great asset of Pakistan.

“Take good care of the poor of my country”, said celebrated Pakistani philanthropist Abdul Sattar Edhi on Friday night, while breathed his last.

Edhi’s funeral prayers will be offered today, after which he will be laid to rest at the Edhi village he founded 25 years ago. Edhi sahib was a true Muslim who practised his faith and love for humanity, without ever exploiting religion or propagating his services for self-promotion. Arrangements for women were made at the Mithadar residence of Abdul Sattar Edhi.

She said simply if Pakistani people follow his teachings and spirit, no power in the world can stop it from becoming a welfare state. Pakistan’s Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif called him “a great servant of humanity”, and said he would receive a posthumous presidential medal and a state funeral. The PM announced Edhi would be awarded Nishan-e-Imtiaz posthumously.

Mr Edhi never finished school but later said that the world of suffering became his tutor. “That in itself is a measure of his greatness”, said a Twitter user named Imran Khan. He prayed to the almighty Allah to rest the departed soul in eternal peace and grant patience to his family to bear this irreparable loss. (For those to whom such modesty and understatement evoke Gandhi, it should be noted that Edhi had few of Gandhi’s questionable and retrograde views on social questions.) His decency may have been borderline fanatical, but that is the only thing about him that was.

While Pakistan mourns the death of national icon Abdul Sattar Edhi, a journalist chose to go to extreme lengths to cover the story of the passing – and got right into the humanitarian’s grave, according to a viral tweet.

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.

The most prominent symbols of the foundation – its 1,500 ambulances – are deployed with unusual efficiency to the scene of extremist attacks that tear through Pakistan with devastating regularity.