Product Description

The triumphant story of Badshah Khan, nonviolent Muslim freedom fighter inspired by the example of Mahatma Gandhi. Khan raised the world's first nonviolent army from the fierce Pathans of North India during India's struggle for independence from Britain. His extraordinary life proves that nonviolence can be followed by those who have a tradition of violence, that it can work effectively against ruthless repression, and that it has a natural place in Islam.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #500399 in Books
• Published on: 1999-11-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 240 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9781888314007
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
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Amazon.com Review
Abdul Ghaffar Khan didn't have to struggle. Having been born into wealth and privilege, he could have cooperated with the British colonialists and lived the good life. But the violence endemic to his Pathan society, in which honor demanded that no wrong go unavenged, drove him to seek an alternative that could express the true spirit of Islam. Ghaffar Khan found this path in Gandhi's movement of nonviolence, and in one of the most remarkable social transformations in history, he turned a people known for their fierceness into the largest army of nonviolent soldiers the world has every seen. The Khudai Khitmatgar (servants of God, or Red Shirts, as the British called them) united in the cause of nonviolent revolution, fighting the British with passive resistance and noncooperation. Although the price they paid under savage British suppression was enormous, they never buckled. They won the honor of all India, and Ghaffar Khan became known as the Frontier Gandhi. Ghaffar Khan also paid an enormous personal price, ultimately spending over half of his life in prison, first under the British and then under the Pakistanis, who squelched his call for a free Pathan homeland. Nonviolent Soldier of Islam a biography by the great spiritual teacher Eknath Easwaran, keeps Ghaffar Khan's spirit alive, a beacon for all who believe in freedom, dignity, and peace. --Brian Bruya

From Library Journal
Realizing that Westerners tend to associate Islam with terrorism and nonviolence with Hinduism, Easwaran (Gandhi, the Man) set out to write a tribute to a Muslim who embodied the nonviolent tradition within Islam. Badshah Khan, a Pathan of the former Northwest Frontier Province of India (today, the Taliban of Afghanistan), raised an army of 100,000 unarmed "Servants of God" and later became one of Gandhi's closest companions. Khan and his followers endured a great deal of persecution and imprisonment under the oppressive British rule, thus challenging the myth that passive resistance always works for those who are already peaceful. Though Khan was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984, far too few people are aware of the man who was known as the "Frontier Gandhi." The publication of this book coincides with the UN General Assembly's proclamation of the beginning of the millennium as the Year and Decade of Nonviolence. Recommended for all libraries.AMichael W. Ellis, Ellenville P.L., NY
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From The Washington Post
"Eknath Easwaran's great achievement is telling an international audience about an Islamic practitioner of pacifism at a moment when few in the West understand its effectiveness and fewer still associate it with anything Islamic."

Customer Reviews

Should be a bestseller now!
This is an awesome book. I read it before 9/11/2000. I have always been interested in non-violence, and revere Gandhi and MLK Jr. We need the message of this book now, more than ever. This is "must reading" for Americans, westerners and Christians. Islam means peace. Here is a man who put his life on the line to LIVE his faith. Like Gandhi, his teacher, he suffered persecution and imprisonment for his efforts to bring a peaceful interpretation of Islam to Afghanistan and Pakistan. He is a saint who should be revered by all the people of the book.

Please, read Arif H. Akhunzada's Review with caution!
I request customers and other visitors to read the article by Arif H. Akhunzada titled "Bacha Khan legacy is Questionable" with caution because in Pakistan objective interpretation and description of history is mostly marred by the official stand on history enshrined in the so-called "Pakistan Ideology".

Pakistan Ideology i.e. the Idea that sparked the struggle for Pakistan is a highly communal, theocratic, and Pan-Islamist view of history that considers the people of the Subcontinent to be divided into two religious communities-Hindus and Muslims-with entirely different ways of life and very little in common to live in a single state or society. According to this ideology, the Idea of Pakistan was born when the first Arab Muslim invader i.e. Mohammad Bin Qasim invaded India (Sindh) and converted some of its inhabitants to Islam.

This divisive and jingoistic philosophy very well serves the interests of the military bureaucracy that has been ruling Pakistan since inception and the allied religious and fudal classess.

As Abdul Ghaffar Khan aka Bacha Khan espoused a non-communal approach to life in which the highest spiritual act and worship was the "service of humanity" irrespective of religious affiliation and practically upheld what he thought as the true purpose of life ( evident from his personal life and joint struggle with Hindus, Sikhs, etc. for freedom), he, therefore, is an anathema to Pakistani national elite. This elite, through a systematic campaign, has tried its best to malign Abdul Ghaffar Khan, mispresent him to the world and his own people i.e. Pashtuns, make him controversial, and permanently erase him from history and the memories of the successive generation of Pashtuns. These elite want Pashtun society to evolve the Taleban way.

There is also another dimension to all this. The political, bureaucratic, economic, and intellectual elite of Pakistan predominently comes from two communities; Punjabis and Muhajirs. The other three communities of Pakistan i.e. Sindhis, Baluchis, and Pashtuns have only peripheral rule in Pakistan. The Punjabi-Muhajir elite wants to build a Pakistani nation based on Islam and Hindustani Muslim Culture. Therefore, any thing that gives these marginalized communities (i.e. Baluchis, Pashtuns, and Sindhis) a sense of identity, pride, self-esteem, and confidence is virtually unbearable for the Punjabi-Muhajir elite that dominate Pakistan.

I will request the world not to forget Bacha Khan. The values and the view of life he upheld are eternal and humanistic. His legacy belongs to the entire humanity rather than a specific community. As a Pashtun, I believe that my people i.e. Pashtuns can achieve spiritual and material success only if they follow Bacha Khan's philosophy of non-voilence and peaceful struggle for personal and collective development. Unfortunately, initially British and later Pakistani state ruthlessly suppressed his movement and philosophy. The politics of the Cold War, in which radical Islam and Jehad were used as counter to communism, also have its share in weakening Bacha Khan's "Khudayi Khidmatgar Movement".

I will further request that readers should read anthropological studies on Pashtuns than relying on superficial views about them here and there.

...if you are seeking a role model look here.
Courage has to do with "big heartedness." I have read about many courageous people but few as courageous as this man. If you are a seeking a role model, a template for bringing meaning to life, then read this book. It made me realize the essence of non-violent living, gave me a clearer picture of Gandhi, helped me to see how little wisdom is exhibited in our leaders today.....and offered a hope for a new way of being. A way for bringing deep meaning to life. This is an important book and an important man. I intend to use it as a text in the class I teach at WPI.