Abdul Sattar Edhi

Abdul Sattar Edhi married Bilquis in 1965. His wife was a nurse who worked at the Edhi dispensary and shared her husband’s humanitarian beliefs. She worked alongside him for as long as he was alive and runs a free maternity home and organizes the adoption of abandoned babies. The couple had four children.

Edhi lived an austere life and shunned all kinds of publicity. Despite being the recipient of numerous international honors, he preferred to stay away from the limelight.

He suffered kidney failure in 2013 and remained in ill health for the rest of his life. He died on 8 July 2016 at the age of 88. He wanted to donate his organs, but due to his illness only his corneas were suitable.

Abdul Sattar Edhi was born on 1 January 1928, in Bantva, Bantva Manavadar, Gujarat, in British India into a Memon family. From a young age, he was raised to be benevolent towards the needy and the less privileged.

His mother suffered a stroke and became paralyzed when the young boy was 11 and from then on, he devoted a considerable part of his time caring for his mother. This experience imbibed in him sensitivity and empathy for the sick, mentally ill and challenged people. His mother died when he was 19.

The partition of India happened in 1947, and, Edhi and his family migrated to Pakistan. It was a terrible time marked by widespread violence and devastation with millions killed.

While Edhi managed to escape alive, he faced massive struggles in rebuilding his life in Karachi, Pakistan. Aged around 20 at that time, the young man was penniless and destitute. Yet his personal troubles did not deter him from joining a charity run by the Memons, the Islamic religious community to which his family belonged. However, he was disappointed that the charity served only those from the Memon community but not others.

Initially he found work at a wholesale shop and later on became a commission agent selling cloth in the wholesale market in Karachi. During this time, he became very serious about serving the sick and the needy and set up a small medical center of his own where he provided care even to those who arrived late in the night.

In 1951, he founded the Edhi Foundation in Karachi to provide 24-hour emergency medical assistance to the needy and maternity facilities to homeless and destitute women, among other services.

The Asian flu epidemic broke out in 1957 and Edhi realized the urgent need to expand his services. With the epidemic ravaging Karachi, the number of patients grew steadily with very few doctors to cater to them. Determined to do the best he could, he begged for donations on the streets to treat the growing number of patients and appealed to medical students to volunteer their services.

He eventually received a generous donation from a rich businessman which helped him buy his first ambulance. Over the ensuing years his selfless service caught the public attention and soon the donations started flowing in, enabling him to set up several hospitals, orphanages, women’s shelters, and rehab centers not only in Karachi, but also in other cities across Pakistan.

Abdul Sattar Edhi founded the Edhi Foundation which today runs the world's largest ambulance service (operating 1,500 of them) and offers 24-hour emergency services. It also runs charitable hospitals, orphanages, homeless shelters, women's shelters, and rehab centers for drug addicts and mentally ill individuals.