Irfan Pathan
Pathan was born 27 October 1984 in Baroda, Gujarat, India and is of Pashtun (Pathan) ancestry, belonging to the Pathan community in Gujarat. He grew up with his elder brother Yusuf in a mosque in Vadodara, in an impoverished family. His father served as the muezzin. Although their parents wished them to become Islamic scholars, Pathan and his brother took an interest in cricket. Their games on the grounds off and inside the mosque often necessitated apologies from their father to Muslim worshippers who visited it. In the beginning his deliveries did not reach the other end of the cricket pitch, but rigorous six-hour training sessions in blazing heat and his family's sense of discipline saw him progress steadily.
Bacha Khan
In 1910, at the age of 20, Khan opened a mosque school in his hometown of Utmanzai. In 1911, he joined independence movement of the Pashtun independence activist Haji Sahib of Turangzai. However, in 1915, the British authorities banned his mosque school. Having witnessed the repeated failure of revolts against the British Raj, Khan decided that social activism and reform would be more beneficial for the Pashtuns. This led to the formation of "Anjuman-e Islāh-e Afghānia" (, "Afghan Reform Society") in 1921, and the youth movement "Pax̌tūn Jirga" (, "Pashtun Assembly") in 1927. After Khan's return from the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca in May 1928, he founded the Pashto-language monthly political journal "Pax̌tūn" (, "Pashtun"). Finally, in November 1929, Khan founded the "Khudāyī Khidmatgār" (, "Servants of God") movement, whose success triggered a harsh crackdown by the British authorities against him and his supporters. They suffered some of the most severe repression of the Indian independence movement from the British Raj.