Osama Shafie gets the occasional odd look but at the end of the day, he says he is “blessed” with people’s appreciation. With a toolbox on his waist and a hammer in his hand, the 59-year-old man suddenly stops on a sidewalk, leaning over a sticking nail. Brandishing a plier, he carefully pulls it out and keeps walking.
Shafie, a Syrian refugee, is a volunteer “fixer” in the southeastern Turkish province of Diyarbakır and finds his calling in helping others when he noticed nails, screws and other stuff protruding from pavements, often left over from a carelessly discarded barrier or a road sign. The barely visible nails and screws fixed on the ground, often lead inattentive pedestrians to trip over.
The Syrian man, who fled civil war in his country six years ago, is inspired by one of Prophet Muhammad’s hadiths which says people who remove physical obstacles on the roads, even a small stone, thus keeping people unharmed, will obtain Allah’s blessing. “I do it for people and animals and to earn Allah’s blessing,” Shafie, who also picks up any randomly discarded garbage he comes across while walking on the street, including pieces of broken bottles. “People question what I am doing with a hammer on the ground but when I tell them what I am doing, they thank me. I will be glad if I can inspire others to take on the good manners the Prophet instructed us to do,” he told Ihlas News Agency (IHA) on Tuesday.
He also fixes misplaced pavement stones and prunes branches of trees close to the ground, so that “people will not stumble.” “Since my youth, I tried to do something charitable in my daily life and discovered I could do this here in Diyarbakır. It never tires me, on the contrary, I feel happy when I know I have helped people,” he said. “Some people offer me money when they see me doing it but I refuse them. I only anticipate Allah’s blessing when I do this,” he said.
