Her name is Sharbot Gula. Some will remember her simply as “the Afghan girl,” made famous by her picture on the cover of National Geographic in 1985. It is a gripping portrait, almost haunting as she gazes at the camera. There’s a long story behind the iconic cover photograph and a longer one that followed it. Here is the simple summary.
The cover made National Geographic A LOT of money. Steve McCurry, the photographer, had taken her picture in an informal girls’ school in a refugee camp. Years later he returned to several refugee camps, hoping to find her still alive.
Many remembered Sharbot Gula, and she was invited to come back and meet the man who had made her visage so famous. Now widowed with three children, her life had been terrifically difficult and dangerous. National Geographic decided to establish a fund to provide for her children’s education and medical care.
“What can we do for you?” she was asked.
Imagine being handed a blank check and knowing that your children will be cared for. Now you can have anything you want. Anything.
Sharbot Gula, a devout Muslim, asked that she be given enough money to pay for the Hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca that all Muslims are expected to make in their lifetime.
How many of us upon being asked what one thing we most want in our life would choose to invest in our spiritual life? Ever since I heard the story of her “rediscovery,” I have been humbled by this woman’s choice.
May the devotion of Sharbot Gula become an inspiration for each of us to develop the hunger and thirst for God that will lead us to seek Him above all else.