The Hated Blessed
Stories
Lectionary Tales For The Pulpit
Series IV Cycle C
I don't feel blessed when I am mildly disliked, let alone hated. Yet, some of the people who have most profoundly changed the world have experienced the hatred of the world. For all their good intentions and humanitarian gestures, they've been misunderstood, misused and abused, knocked down or beaten up. Not the kind of blessing I'm looking for.
The roll call of the hated blessed is a long one. In the twentieth century alone it would include such figures as Martin Luther King, Jr., Mahatma Gandhi, Yitzak Rabin, Anwar Sadat, and Abdul Ghaffar Khan.
Khan? Known as the Frontier Gandhi, Khan was an advocate for nonviolence and social change in Pakistan at the same time as Gandhi was working in India. Sometimes, they walked side by side. He was the target of two assassination attempts and managed to live through thirty years in prison. In 1988, he died at the age of 98.
Khan was a Pashtun, one of many ethnic groups in Afghanistan and Pakistan. While most of his friends were fighting either the British or the Soviets, Khan was establishing schools for children and teaching nonviolence. With other Muslim leaders in India, he brought together a nonviolent coalition called the Khudai Khidmatgar or the "servants of God." The movement hoped to both reform the country and end British rule which then extended over a united India, including present-day Pakistan.
Khan traveled throughout the country day after day promoting his message of nonviolence and calling for religious harmony, women's rights, and fair distribution of land. His message wasn't always well-received. Politicians and religious leaders alike condemned him. The British, who thought Khan's rhetoric was a ploy, pursued his followers relentlessly, killing them, or destroying their homes and fields. Khan spent some of this time during the '30s and '40s in prison, often in solitary confinement.
The world doesn't know too much about this Muslim advocate for peace and nonviolence. It should. He rightly understood Islam to be permeated with a doctrine of love and peace. With a vision of the Koran that was totally pacifist, he traveled with Gandhi when riots broke out in 1946 and 1947.
Yet, because of his political differences with Pakistani authorities, his name is not mentioned in any history of Pakistan. Few people recognize him as a proponent of peace. But like others of the hated blessed in the twentieth century, his legacy is still with us. Although "excluded" and "insulted," his name goes down on the roster of the blessed.
The roll call of the hated blessed is a long one. In the twentieth century alone it would include such figures as Martin Luther King, Jr., Mahatma Gandhi, Yitzak Rabin, Anwar Sadat, and Abdul Ghaffar Khan.
Khan? Known as the Frontier Gandhi, Khan was an advocate for nonviolence and social change in Pakistan at the same time as Gandhi was working in India. Sometimes, they walked side by side. He was the target of two assassination attempts and managed to live through thirty years in prison. In 1988, he died at the age of 98.
Khan was a Pashtun, one of many ethnic groups in Afghanistan and Pakistan. While most of his friends were fighting either the British or the Soviets, Khan was establishing schools for children and teaching nonviolence. With other Muslim leaders in India, he brought together a nonviolent coalition called the Khudai Khidmatgar or the "servants of God." The movement hoped to both reform the country and end British rule which then extended over a united India, including present-day Pakistan.
Khan traveled throughout the country day after day promoting his message of nonviolence and calling for religious harmony, women's rights, and fair distribution of land. His message wasn't always well-received. Politicians and religious leaders alike condemned him. The British, who thought Khan's rhetoric was a ploy, pursued his followers relentlessly, killing them, or destroying their homes and fields. Khan spent some of this time during the '30s and '40s in prison, often in solitary confinement.
The world doesn't know too much about this Muslim advocate for peace and nonviolence. It should. He rightly understood Islam to be permeated with a doctrine of love and peace. With a vision of the Koran that was totally pacifist, he traveled with Gandhi when riots broke out in 1946 and 1947.
Yet, because of his political differences with Pakistani authorities, his name is not mentioned in any history of Pakistan. Few people recognize him as a proponent of peace. But like others of the hated blessed in the twentieth century, his legacy is still with us. Although "excluded" and "insulted," his name goes down on the roster of the blessed.
