During World War I, an Ottoman soldier entrusted Palestinian businessman Rushdi Efendi with a large sum of money and told him to look after it until he returns from the war.
Rushdi waited for the soldier to come back but he never did. Eventually, the money was passed down to his nephew Raghib Al-Alul so that he could keep it safe.
“It is a trust given by a Turkish soldier during World War I. He gave it to one of my uncles and said, ‘I entrust it to you until I return from the war’. Until this day, the entrusted money has remained with us. We don’t know if the Turkish soldier died in the war or died afterward. And we don’t know his name as my uncle forgot it.”
