Abdul Ghaffar Khan: An Islamic Gandhi

Abstract

Abdul Ghaffar Khan was a mid-twentieth-century Pashtun of the Northwest Frontier Region known as the "Frontier Gandhi" or the "Islamic Gandhi." His career was marked by rejection of the badal blood feud, and the belligerent Pashtun tribal code. Accepting instead a non-violent interpretation of Islam, Khan was heavily influenced by Mohandas K. Gandhi, and came to interpret the heart of Islam, including the concepts of jihad, as essentially about peace, service, and non-violence. Khan traveled widely in the frontier region that later became Pakistan, and his most significant achievement was to raise a non-violent army of Khudai Khidmatgars or "Servants of God" from his own Pashtun people. His legacy is important to further understand a non-violent alternative of Islamic political resistance.