After almost 50 years of begging and panhandling on Jeddah`s streets, no one suspected that their blind, old, beggar neighbor was accounted as one of the millionaires of the district of al-Balad.

Eisha, a 100-year-old woman who spent nearly half of her life begging, died suddenly in her home`s bathroom. The neighbors were saddened to see the woman taken by an ambulance, but surprised later to hear that she left an estimated 3 million SR wealth and an additional SR1 million in jewels and gold coins, as well as 4 residential building in the same district.

One al-Balad resident, Ahmed al-Saeedi, who grew up in the same district with Eisha since they were children and who spent considerable amounts of time caring for her, was one of the very few to be aware of Eisha`s vast fortune.

Al-Saeedi told news agencies that Eisha did not have any relatives except her mother and sister, who both died before. He was the one who buried Eisha in Ummana Hawwa (Our Mother Eve) Cemetery.

Al-Saeedi recalls that he had asked Eisha to quit begging on many occasion and to enjoy her wealth, but she refused, saying, “She was preparing for hard times.”

15 years ago, Eisha entrusted al-Saeedi with SR1 million worth of gold and coins, which accounted for SR250 at that time but which value SR1,000 each. Saeedi has, for now, handed the gold to one of the most respected and trusted residents of the district who has promised to hand it to authorities.

Beside her money fortune, Eisha also possessed a number of residential buildings which she gave for poor people like herself to live in without paying rent. The residents of those buildings are now asked to vacate as concerned authorities are about to confiscate them, but the residents refuse to evacuate, claiming no one could ask them to evacuate the buildings since they were never rented to them in the first place.