The Blessings of Service to Humanity – An Inspiring Story of a Pakistani Physician
By C. Naseer Ahmad
Washington, DC: “The best of people are those who are most beneficial to people,” so said the Holy Prophet while stressing the importance of service to humanity. During Ramadan, people of faith strive in every way humanly possible to follow the advice of the Holy Prophet to whom the Qur’an was revealed in this month. Dedicated believers find a way to inculcate the words of the Holy Prophet in their daily lives during the rest of the months of the year in their lives.
The Blessings of Service to Humanity is a practical translation of the Urdu memoir “Waqf-ki-Barkaat” by Dr Munawar Ahmad (who shares the last name of this writer but is not a relative). It is an inspiring story of a Pakistani physician who has dedicated his life for service to humanity.
Before narrating his amazing personal story Dr Munawar quotes the speech of his community leader in 1970 during a visit to Freetown, Sierra Leone calling on physicians, teachers and anyone and everyone imbued with talent to serve humanity in Africa where missionaries had established a head start while there were no organized efforts by Muslims then to meet the needs of poor Africans. Dr Munawar then includes a letter written to him by his father Dr Muneer Ahmad from Jeddah on April 26, 1964 after performing Haj.
Soon after, Dr Munawar, who had then returned from London after his postgraduate medical training uprooted his comfortable life in Lahore with his wife, sacrificing her permanent faculty position at a college in Lahore, and began planning to travel to Nigeria with two infants. He got the flight tickets and was all set to go when in October 1971 he received a letter, like his fellow physicians in Lahore, to report to the Commandant, Combined Military Hospital (CMH) Lahore due to the civil strife in East Pakistan and the impending conflict with India. Because the radiologist at CMH found something in his chest X-ray he was not selected.
Dr Munawar then proceeded with his plans to serve in Nigeria. The challenge was formidable: he did not know the country, its languages or culture – and more importantly – the suitability and precise location of where he would work. Friends advised him to meet Dr Zia-ud-din from Kharian, Pakistan, who was an experienced and widely respected physician working in Kano.
The meeting with Dr Zia-ud-din was critical for Dr Munawar to have an idea of the diseases prevalent in Nigeria, which could determine where to get medicines for his would-be patients, and, most importantly, where to start his practice. Because of its location the two Pakistani physicians decided that Bukuru would be a good place. Bukuru was then a small village on the outskirts of Jos, the provincial capital of the Plateau State. Besides some agriculture, there were tin mines in this area populated by Christians as well as Muslims. While there were a number of medical establishments run by Christian missionaries there was no clinic run by Muslims.
Dr Munawar rented a two-room building, with no running water, to establish his clinic. To inform the local population about the establishment of the clinic, there was a formal opening ceremony. Emphasizing his ethos, Dr Munawar began his speech with the Hadith quoted earlier. With humility, he began to serve the local population regardless of creed or ethnicity. Within a short period, patients came from near and afar turning the clinic into a reputed medical center serving humanity.
The front room of the small structure was his office, and the back room was where the family lived. During the rainy season there was standing water in the bedroom due to leaks in the ceiling. It appeared to be a primitive setting in which Dr Munawar soldiered on and was able to set up a hospital.
In 1976, Dr Munawar returned to Pakistan and restarted his pediatrics practice near Mayo Hospital Lahore. On weekends, he would serve with fellow volunteer physicians at free medical camps in villages around Lahore. He did so until his retirement.
From his book, one finds the ability of human beings to commit horrific cruelty as well as be amazingly kind. In 2013, after finishing the day’s work at his clinic in Lahore, someone tried to attack Dr Munawar with acid. Luckily, he survived and recovered after a short stay in hospital. About a year later, someone tried to throw acid on him again. In his book, there are no words of anger on the attacker, just an expression of gratitude to God for saving him from serious injury.
When he was in Nigeria, a British woman started bringing her child to Dr Munawar’s clinic after learning that he was trained in London. On one of her visits to the clinic, the woman wanted to meet his wife in their living quarter at the back of the clinic. It happened to be one of those days when there was standing water in the room owing to rain. Later, when she met her husband, a mining company executive, the lady described the challenging daily life of Dr Munawar and his family. A few days later, the British couple returned to the clinic and handed over the keys to a furnished house in the company’s housing complex saying that you do so much for human beings, so this is the least we can do for you. They remained family friends while in Nigeria and when Dr Munawar returned to Lahore, the British couple visited them and stayed as the family’s guests for three weeks.
This is not only an inspiring story of human kindness but also a glowing exemplar of the blessings of service to humanity.
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