A Man to Match His Mountains

Eknath Easwaran

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."

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