36 A PILGRIMAGE FOR PEACE
behalf also/' Badshah Khan never missed a single namaz
(prayer) or roza (fast). With that he combined a rare
catholicity of outlook. " I do not measure the strength
of a religion by counting heads/' he once told the late
Mahadev Desai, " for, what is faith until it is expressed
in one's life ? It is my inmost conviction that Islam is
amal, yakeen, muhabbat (work, faith and love) and with-
out these the name Mussulman is sounding brass and
tinkling cymbal The Quran Shareef makes it absolutely
clear that faith in One God without a second and good
works are enough to secure a man his salvation/'
" I think, at the back of our quarrels is the failure to
recognize that all faiths contain enough inspiration for
their adherents/' he remarked on another occasion. " The
Holy Quran says in so many words that God sends mes-
sengers and warners for all nations and all peoples and
they are their respective prophets. All of them are
AhM-kitab (Men of the Book)......I would even go fur-
ther and say that the fundamental principles of all reli-
gions are the same, though details differ because each
faith takes- the flavour of the soil from which it springs/'
The period between 1924-29 was a hard testing time
in the struggle for independence. Communal passions
mounted high and many lost their moorings. But the
Khan brothers kept their heads above the storm and never
wavered. Badshah Khan ceaselessly toiled and undertook
long and arduous tours on foot to carry to the tribesmen
in their villages and mountain fastnesses the message of
truth and non-violence and the new technique of fight
without weapons which Gandhiji had presented. When
the 1930 struggle came, he with his brother was again
in the thick of the fight. Yet, strangely enough, they had
never met Gandhiji all this time. It was only at the
Karachi session of the Congress in 1931 that he and his
Khudai Khidmatgars, whose fame had travelled before
them, first came into contact with Gandhiji and fellow
workers in the cause in other parts of India.
The Khudai Khidmatgar movement was primarily
conceived as a movement for social reform and