Pakistan has often been criticised, mostly by Pakistanis themselves, as a land which has produced too few role models and too few heroes of any note. But we need to rethink this hypothesis and look at the heroes who have emerged from within various parts of the country. In some cases, they are only slightly known, or not really known at all, outside their native areas.

One such person was the late Maulana Khanzeb, assassinated in early July in his native Bajaur. Maulana Khanzeb was an unusual cleric in the sense that he was a leading member of the ANP, or Awami National Party. His death brings another blow to a party already decimated by the assassination of its key leaders, one after the other. In Bajaur, another middle-level leader of the ANP was killed very soon after Khanzeb.

But the story of Maulana Khanzeb is one that is worth talking about and telling. It seems he has already been forgotten in the weeks and few months that have followed the burial and the talk about a man who represented leadership of many kinds. Maulana Khanzeb was a cleric outside the norms associated most often with that word. An excellent orator, he promoted the political philosophy of the late Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, or Bacha Khan, suggesting that a secular, non-violent mode of life and politics was best for countries. He spoke openly about his views on this matter and combated the views of others who insisted that secularism could not exist in an........

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