The Jeddah Floods disaster on Nov. 25, 2009, has been extensively covered. It exposed corruption and insincerity towards the development of Jeddah. King Abdullah went on to question in direct reference where all the money -- allocated for the development of the country -- had gone. 

Human-interest stories too like that of Farman Ali Khan – a Pakistani who rescued 14 lives before succumbing to the floods – received much attention.

But they are not the only ones. I recently heard a first-hand experience of my brother's colleague, an Egyptian, whom we'll call Ahmad. He was stuck in flowing water on that day of disaster. He was holding on to a pole tightly when a GMC SUV was drifting away with a family inside it.

The vehicle was near him, so he held out a helping hand for the family to come out of that car. 

The man (or family) ridiculed Ahmad, blurted out racist comments because he was black or of a different nationality. Ahmad urged they at least give him the baby. The family wasn't interested. They drifted away. A while later Ahmad saw the GMC drown in front of his eyes.

Subhan Allah! Such a sorrowful and pitiful end. The family obviously had not realized the danger they were in. How I wish they had at least respectfully denied the help. May Allah have mercy on them and forgive them.

This story is a lesson for us. We never know when our death will come. We cannot be fooling ourselves and be oblivious of something that is certain to come. Behaving arrogantly, forgetting that Allah is watching us and that we may be brought to account anytime, is not only foolish, but extremely dangerous.

On the opposite side of the spectrum is a story reported by Al-Madinah newspaper, translated by Arab News on Dec. 16, 2009, about an old woman in her 60s – Fatima Al-Ghamdi – and her sick husband who  left their home in Quwaizah to escape the floods and look out for a safe place:

"She had put all her cash and jewels worth more than SR500,000 in a small suitcase, which she carried in her left hand. The water was rising and it was becoming increasingly difficult for her husband to walk steadily against the current.

“If I did not hold him firmly with both my hands he would fall and the floodwaters would wash him away. I had no time to think. I just dropped the suitcase and looked the other way to avoid watching all my valuables disappear in the flood. My husband was dearer to me than anything else in the world,” Fatima told Al-Madinah newspaper.

She said she was happy they could reach a safe place without any incident. They were provided with a temporary apartment in another part of the city.

“But we were left penniless. At times I thought about the lost jewelry but I suppressed them as my husband was more valuable to me,” she said.

However, 11 days after the flood her husband received a call from a stranger. The man said he had come across a suitcase that had a paper with Fatima’s name on it and he wanted to return it.

“I did not believe in my wildest dreams that the valuables carried away by the flood would be returned to me. I thought that the man might have stumbled upon a battered suitcase and all its contents might have scattered in the flood or anyone who might have discovered it would have stolen them,” she said.

But the jewelry box was returned to her and none of its contents was missing.

Aun Al-Ghamdi, a policeman, was the man who found the suitcase. He apologized to them for the delay in returning the box. He said he had tried for 10 days to get their address. He said the suitcase flowed into his car, which was submerged on a road three kilometers from the Quwaizah neighborhood.

“I was on my way to Makkah on Nov. 25 when I ran into the flashflood. In fact, I rescued some people. But as the water was very high, I could not go ahead anymore. I also took the suitcase with me,” he said.

He said he opened the box out of curiosity and was dazzled by its glittering contents. When he found the bank paper with Fatima’s name on it he contacted the bank. The manager refused to give any information for data protection purposes. After 10 days he finally relented and gave Al-Ghamdi Fatima’s telephone number.

Overcome by gratitude, the couple presented him with a check for a large sum of money, but he refused to take it, saying he preferred a reward from the Almighty."

Such reports tell us that there is still quite a lot of good remaining in an increasingly selfish world. There are people who are honest and trustworthy. There are people whose sole purpose is the hereafter in everything that they do. Also, we should know that Saudis are like any other people -- good and bad. We should not stereotype them based on the actions of a segment of a society or because of some laws that irk us (read: sponsorship). 

Imagine if the people with power and responsibility were as honest as that policeman (Insha Allah), what difference it would do to the society. That is what I call is real change.

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