Abdul Ghaffar Khan (1890 – 1988)
Also known as or Badshah Khan was a pashtun non-violent activist and close confidante of Mahatma Gandhi.
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My religion is truth, love and service to God and humanity. Every religion that has come into the world has brought the message of love and brotherhood. Those who are indifferent to the welfare of their fellowmen, whose hearts are empty of love, they do not know the meaning of religion.
The Holy Prophet Mohammed came into this world and taught us ‘That man is a Muslim who never hurts anyone by word or deed, but who works for the benefit and happiness of God's creatures.’ Belief in God is to love one's fellow men.
“It is my inmost conviction,” Badshah Khan said, “that Islam is amal, yakeen, muhabat” – selfless service, faith, and love.
Pathans! Your house has fallen into ruin. Arise and rebuild it and remember to what race you belong.
It has not, no more than our prosperity will drop from heaven. There secret of their prosperity is that they have men and woman who sacrifice their luxuries, their pleasures, and their comfort for the sake of the prosperity of the nation. We do not have such men amongst us. We look only to our own self-interest and let the country go to the devil. In other countries, people have learnt that no man is an island. But in our country every one lives in a dream-world of his own – like the animals. Any animal can find a place to live, find a mate, rear it's young. Can we call ourselves the crown of creation if we do just that and nothing more"?
Whenever I had an opportunity to address the people in different parts of our province, I told them clearly that indeed, I was of the opinion that India should not be divided because today in India we have witnessed the result. Thousands and thousands of young and old, children, men, and women were massacred and ruined. But now that the division is an accomplished fact, the dispute is over. " I delivered many speeches against the division of India, but the question is: has anybody listened to me? You may hold any opinion about me, but I am not a man of destruction but of construction. If you study my life, you will find that I devoted it to the welfare of our country. We have proclaimed that if the Government of Pakistan would work for our people and our country the Khudai Khidmatgars would be with them. I repeat that I am not for the destruction of Pakistan. In destruction lies no good. "Neither Hindus nor Muslims, nor the Frontier, not Punjab, Bengal or Sindh stands to gain from it. There is advantage only in construction. I want to tell you categorically I will not support anybody in destruction. If any constructive programme is before you, if you want to do something constructive for our people, not in theory, but in practice, I declare before this House that I and my people are at your service... (February 1948)
Only a dead nation remembers its heroes when they die. Real nations respect them when they are alive.
"In 1958, Ghaffar Khan wrote that he had been killed ’by those people for whom he had forsaken his own people’."
There is nothing surprising in a Muslim or a Pathan like me subscribing to the creed of nonviolence. It is not a new creed. It was followed fourteen hundred years ago by the Prophet all the time he was in Mecca.
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