that he left behind.
Keywords: Al Baghdadi, Kitchener School of
Medicine, Khartoum, Baghdadi Trust
Ahmed Hashim Bey Al Baghdadi
Walking down the southern side of Farouk
Cemetery in Khartoum, a small building
inside the far end of the cemetery is visible.
Looking intently, one could differentiate a
miniature building of the old Kitchener
School of Medicine with its characteristic
tomb. There lies the grave of Hashim Bey Al
Baghdadi erected by the graduates of the
school of medicine.
Baghdadi died on 22nd of January 1933.
During the celebration of the first graduates
meeting in 1966, graduates and students of the
medical school marched in a parade all the
way from the school building to Baghdadi‟s
grave where they paid tribute to the worthy
and compassionate man, the spiritual father of
medical students. As the years went by, young
medical students remember Al-Baghdadi as a
lecture theatre that bears his name and as a
place where they spend long hours with eyes
half-opened and half-closed listening to
endless medical lectures.
So who is Hashim Bey Al Baghdadi?
The name suggests an Iraqi origin, but Hassan
Najeela, the Sudanese writer described him as
a benevolent man from „Al Ashraf‟ of Iraq
known as Ahmed Hashim Al Baghdadi. Dr
HC Squire, the first lecturer of medicine at Kitchener School of Medicine (KSM) who
came to the Sudan in 1908, reported that
Baghdadi was of Persian decent and that he
migrated to Sudan in 1900(2). Dr Squire had
closer ties with Al Baghdadi and it would,
therefore, be more likely that Al Baghdadi
was of Persian extraction. Al Baghdadi was
born in Baghdad in 1875. Little is known
about his earlier beginnings in Iraq prior to his
migration to the Sudan following the AngloEgyptian
reconquest led by Lord Kitchener in
1898. He was amongst the first wave of
traders and merchants who thought to try their
fortunes in the newly conquered territory of
the British Empire. Al Baghdadi quickly
established himself as a trader in the
antiquities and in few years he amassed a
decent wealth which enabled him to buy and
own many properties and assets in the
sprawling new capital, Khartoum and also
across the Nile in Omdurman. He also had
some trade partnership with several Coptic
merchants like Abdel Masseih Tadros and
Bolous Girgis Suliman. According to Alsafi,
Al Baghdadi was known to have a pleasant
character and was very much loved by his
contemporaries, but very little filtered out of
his private life. He was known to have lived in
a modern house in Khartoum helped by
several servants from Cairo and Baghdad. He
also spoke fluent Arabic with a Persian accent,
but did not speak English. Amongst his
special interests was "Persian Poetry", with
which he was famous for entertaining his
guests. According to Dr Ali Badri, a graduate
of the first batch in 1928 and Dr Al Hadi
Alnagar who graduated in 1933, Al Baghdadi
was an amiable and pleasant person who held
some liberal views. He was married to a
woman from one of notable families in
Omdurman, a marriage that did not last long
as by the time of his death he had no wife by
his death bed.
Following the death of Lord Kitchener in
1916, while on warship destined for Russia,
an appeal was launched to establish a medical school in Khartoum in his memory. The
School was inaugurated in 1924. During the
third year of the medical school and in 1926,
Hashim Bey Al Baghdadi began to take
interest in the school of medicine. From that
date he subscribed an annual sum of £300 a
year towards the upkeep of the students and
this subscription was later merged in the
general account of the school. By the time of
his death in 1933 and according to his will all
his property had been formed into a Trust and the income from the Trust was to be devoted
to the maintenance of the school. This brought
£500 pounds a year, but later a good deal
more. In his last years, the Kitchener School
was his main interest and many of the early
students became recipients of his generosity .
The first batch of graduates, honoring his
support to the school, invited Baghdadi to take
part in their graduation photograph in 1928.
 |
| The first batch of students graduating from the Kitchener School of Medicine in 1928. Standing from left to right: Dr Tahir Yousif, Dr Ahmed Akasha, Dr Fadil Al Bushra, Dr Daoud Iskander, Dr Al Nour Shams Al Din. Sitting from left to right Dr Ali Badri, Hashim Bey Al Baghdadi, Dr Amin Al Sayed. |
This remained a tradition until the time of his
death in 1933.
It was an irony that the name of Hashim Bey
Al Baghdadi became very much
associated with the medical school from that
time onwards. The first few batches of the
KSM students and graduates established close
relations with Hashim Bey.
Dr Ali Badri, one of the first seven graduates
of the KSM, who went on to be the first
Sudanese Minister of Health in 1947,
remembered Al Baghdadi as a generous and
benevolent man, but lived a secluded life and
held some personal liberal views. However,
his relationship with the students was more of
a fatherly relation; he provided them with
fatherly and financial support in addition to
his donations to the school. During his final
illness, graduates and final year students
attended at his bedside, round the clock,
helping nurse and looked after him. It had
been said that on his last day Al Baghdadi
came out of coma for a brief time, he looked
around and saw the graduates and students
surrounding his bed, he then gave a wide
smile of acquiescence then handed his soul to
the creator. His house, until recently,
remained along the street named after him,
Hashim Bey Street, neighboring the Faculty of
Medicine.
Al Baghdadi left all his fortunes to the
medical school as „Wagf‟ (Endowment). This
comprised vast number of properties,
including houses, shops and other assets.
According to Ahmed Al Safi these were up to
33 rented shops in the market of Khartoum
alone, in addition to about 14 rented
properties in Omdurman.
Early in the 1970‟s an ambitious plan to
develop and upgrade the assets left by Al
Baghdadi was proposed. Prof Ali Khogali,
then Dean of the Faculty of Medicine and
Deputy Vice-Chancellor of the University of
Khartoum, recalled that the plans were
prepared in the Department of Architecture of
the Faculty of Engineering and passed by the
University Council. However, the Ministry of
Finance and Sudan Bank declined to provide
the necessary funds for the project after it has
been sanctioned at all levels. In later years, the
Waqf was diverted to the University of
Khartoum itself rather than to the Faculty of
Medicine, however a recent effort brought the
funds back under the control and utilization of
the Faculty of Medicine.
Baghdadi had no family and was only
survived by the generosity, benevolence and
charity that he left behind.