Raihana Tyabji

"If there is anybody about whom I can say is my ideal of a human being, it is Bapu...His never-failing tenderness, never-failing respect for human personality, no matter who it was, from the lowest Harijan. In fact I never saw in Bapu any difference between high and low. I regard him as a very great yogi, and the longer I live and the more I come to know about these things, the more convinced I am that Bapu is one of the greatest yogis ever lived, because the things which he did could only have been done by a yogi of very high order. His whole consciousness was so utterly unique. I never saw him disturbed."

Raihana Tyabji (1901-1975)
From interview in "Understanding Gandhi: Gandhians in Conversation with Fred Blum", Edited by Usha Thakkar and Jayshree Mehta, p 162-163, Sage Publications, 2011.

Riahana Tyabji was a singer, author, and Muslim saint who was a dedicated devotee of Mahatma Gandhi. As a young person, Tyabji narrowly avoided an arranged marriage through arduous prayer to God, which she claims resulted in her development of a miraculous case of vitiligo, thus deterring her suitor. After her eventful childhood, Tyabji renounced her generous family inheritance and devoted her life to spirituality and service to Gandhi. Despite her upbringing in a strict Muslim family, Tyabji was also an ardent follower of the God Krishna and would famously sing devotional songs to Krishna for audiences of thousands of people without the aid of a microphone. Tyabji also wrote her famous book “The Heart of a Gopi” about the early life of Krishna.