Recommended book :
Nonviolent Soldier of Islam – Badshah Khan
by Eknath Easwaran
When Mahatma Gandhi roused millions in a peaceful revolution against colonial rule, Abdul Ghaffar Khan seemed an unlikely man to enlist. Yet from the ruthless Pathan tradition in India’s rugged North-West Frontier Province, Khan raised history’s first nonviolent “army” of 100’000 men.
Many cautioned Gandhi against involving in his nonviolent struggle, these people with such a record of brutality. But under Khan’s leadership the Pathans proved that it is often those who are capable of great violence who have the courage to stand unarmed against injustice.
~ Eknath Easwaran
“Truth – implies love, and firmness engenders force. I thus began to call the Indian movement satyagraha; that is to say, the force which is born of Truth and love or nonviolence.”
~ M. Gandhi
“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.”
~ Badshah Khan
“Far from a passive submission to evil, satyagraha implied a dynamic resistance to personal, social, economic and political exploitation. But it used the weapon of love. Satyagraha is soul force, pure and simple”
~ M. Gandhi
“Satyagrahi – one who practices satyagraha, arms himself or herself with an indomitable will. Yet it must never give way in the face of tyranny or exploitation. There is no time limit for a satyagrahi; nor is there a limit to his/her capacity for suffering; hence there is no such thing as defeat in satyagraha.”
~ M. Gandhi
Ksatrasya ksatram “the essence of the fighter’s power,” for “with dharma (with right on one’s side|) even the weak can hope to prevail over the strong, even if be a king.”
This faith that Truth can exert itself over physical might or political coercion is a characteristic theme of Indian civilization which surfaced in modern times as the guiding principle of Gandhi’s political discoveries and secret of his successes.
~ Eknath Easwaran
“Non-violence was not passive. Non-violence in its dynamic condition means conscious suffering. It does not mean meek submission to the will of the evil-doer, but it means the
putting of one’s whole soul against the will of the tyrant”
~ M. Gandhi
Badshar Khan with Gandhi going for an evening walk whilst he stayed at Gandhi’s ashram. They were named “The two Gandhis”
Link to book
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Nonviolent-Soldier-Islam-Badshah-Mountains/dp/1888314001
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