Moloo Musalli: In Search of Lost Humanity By Dr Muhammad Amjad Saqib Readings ISBN: 978-9696403630 195pp.

Dr Muhammad Amjad Saqib, the founder of the NGO Akhuwat, is a well-known and respected figure in Pakistan. His organisation successfully subverted the dominant microfinance model of the times by starting an interest-free microfinance programme based on principles of Qarz-i-Hasna [interest-free loan].

Akhuwat was founded in 2001, and has now gone beyond microfinance services into a much broader poverty alleviation programme, covering not only finance but also education, vocational training and disaster relief. In Pakistan’s bleak socioeconomic landscape, Akhuwat is an example of how to keep hope alive.

Dr Saqib has spent a lifetime engaging with Pakistan’s citizenry at all levels, but particularly with the poor and marginalised sections of society. The book under review, Moloo Musalli, is a series of pen portraits and short essays, which draws from his interactions with people all over the country over the past decades.

The title is symbolic of an ordinary citizen of Pakistan — someone who does not have titles, wealth, assets or a family name to draw from. It refers to the landless, the poor, the downtrodden — those who are marginalised and exist at the fringes of society. All of the short essays in this book refer in one way or another to such people.

Almost all of the essays are difficult to read, simply because they highlight truths that many of us prefer to forget. There is the story of Sonoo in ‘A Prostitute’, whose father sold her........

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