Obituary

Mehmet Sadık Eratik has passed away. Our honorary president Lokman Ayva tells us about him: He was Beyazay's first elected president and held that office for many years. He gave Beyazay its name and financed Beyazay's work for years. His good deeds and his efforts were not limited to Beyazay alone. He supported many students with scholarships — something I learned only when it slipped out during a private conversation one day. A significant number of them went on to serve the country. He would meet, without question or enquiry, the needs conveyed through people he trusted, and he never wished to meet those who wanted to see him and thank him for the help he had given. With a charitable team he set up privately, he would send regular material aid especially to women with children and no one to look after them. He bought and donated flats and buildings to many associations and foundations so that they could educate students. One of the last things he did, quietly and without fuss, was to finance the water placed in the water dispensers of hospitals on the Anatolian side. Sadık Bey was a true Istanbul gentleman, a man who expressed himself extremely well and had a wonderful tone of voice. Born in 1931 to Albanian parents, he graduated top of his class from Istanbul Boys' High School and then studied pharmacy; he was a man of very high intellectual calibre. He worked on behalf of pharmaceutical companies until he lost his sight in a terrible traffic accident, and after becoming blind he opened his own pharmacy. There he also began the medicine production he had dreamed of, and continued it for many years under the name İdeal Ecza. He began trading shares in 1969, when the word “stock exchange” was hardly known in Türkiye. He worked in the stock market for many years and never lost on it. These words of his, which I witnessed in conversation with people who asked his advice, are still in my ears: “I buy small shares. And when I buy, I choose transactions in such a way that neither I nor the person opposite me will lose. I pay no heed to speculation. I do not buy the shares of companies engaged in unlawful business. I do not enter into transactions that would increase their value. I know the people running the company closely and I follow them.” The stock market community knew him as “Sadık the Blind”. In all the time we spent and worked together I never once encountered a lie, an inconsistency, backbiting or slander from him. I never once saw him complain about his blindness, but he had sorrows that burned his heart. I too was personally blessed with many kindnesses from him, both material and spiritual. And so I pray to my Lord: our elder brother Sadık always did good to Your servants; he strove to be a servant worthy of You and always to understand Your Qur'an. You appreciate all of this better than we do. And as Your servants our prayer is: have mercy on him, protect him from every hardship, place him in Your Paradise together with our Prophet, and grant him the sight of Your countenance.” Al-Fatiha for his soul