ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Abdul Sattar Edhi, the Pakistani philanthropist whose name became synonymous with charitable causes and who achieved an almost saintly status in Pakistan, died on Friday in the southern port city of Karachi. He was 88.

His son Faisal said Mr. Edhi had been undergoing treatment for renal failure at the Sindh Institute of Urology and Transplantation when he died.

The death was widely mourned in a country that is hungry for role models and heroes. To many, Mr. Edhi was known as the “Father Teresa” of Pakistan.

“We have lost a great servant of humanity,” Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said in a statement. “Abdul Sattar Edhi was the real manifestation of love for those who are socially vulnerable, impoverished, helpless and poor. If anyone deserves to be wrapped in the flag of the nation he served, it is him.”