Abstract

Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, also called Badshah Khan, is a nearly unknown champion of nonviolence in South Asia and a forgotten Muslim ally of Mohandas Gandhi. The story of Khan's Khudai Khidmatgars movement in what was to become Pakistan is not only inspirational but also instructive, exploding as it does several widespread myths about nonviolence. Today, the United States is embroiled in that region in the longest war in American history and among the Pashtun people from whom Khan arose. Thus his story, according to this article, has a revolutionary potential. When young Malala Yousafzai cited Badshah Khan in a speech at the United Nations in 2013, therefore, she may have done more good than she realized.