Khan advocates peaceful struggle over war and political activism. In his article ‘The Vatican as a Principle’, Khan quotes how in 1920 the Pope agreed to confine his jurisdiction to the Vatican City despite ruling as the uncrowned king of Christian Europe for centuries. 
Khan writes,“For centuries, each succeeding Pope was the uncrowned king of Christian Europe. Today, a palace for the Pope still exists in the city of Rome. But, in later times, great differences arose between the Church and secular people. The Pope ultimately saw that he could not return to the previous position, so he agreed to confine his jurisdiction to the Vatican City, which is recognized by the government of Italy. Eventually, even from this territorially small domain, the Pope continued to hold great religious sway not only over Italy, but also over many other parts of the world. 
“This history of the Vatican gives us an important principle—if you cannot keep your control over the whole, then agree to restrict yourself to a small part. Muslims who are engaged in infructuous fighting in different countries should take the opportunity to succeed in the same way in other fields—that is, they should be ready to accept a “Vatican”.
On this account, Khan further quotes the example of Saddam Hussein (1937 – 2006) who ruled Iraq for almost twenty-one years. Khan writes that Saddam Hussein owned eight palaces in Iraq which covered some 32 square kilometres (7,900 acres) in total.  According to Khan, Saddam Hussein could have kept his “Vatican” and used his wealth to create education institutions instead of fighting a war even though he understood that the circumstances did not allow him to retain his current position.
Khan writes, “The area of the Vatican is a mere 110 acres, while the cumulative area of Saddam Hussein’s eight palaces was 7,900 acres. This story shows that it could have been possible for Saddam Hussein to establish a peaceful kingdom for himself. He could have given up political power and, with his eight palaces, he could have built the largest university of the world. Stanford University, the second largest university in the world at present, has an area of 8,000 acres. Had Saddam Hussein changed his thinking from the political to the peaceful, he could have made a university compound of 7,900 acres. It would have been regarded as one of the biggest educational centres in the world.”
Khan further writes, “Saddam Hussein was obsessed with political power and so he could not understand the importance of the non-political option available to him. This is the case of all Muslim leaders of the present age—they have remained unrealistically obsessed with political power. But political power has limitations, so it has not been possible for them to achieve their goals through it. When they have not been able to achieve their goals, they have become seriously frustrated, as inevitably happens when human beings go against the law of nature.”
Expanding his argument that “political power has limitations”, Khan quotes an excerpt from Barack Obama’s June 18, 2015 speech given at the end of his second Presidential run. 
‘I am frustrated, and you have every right to be frustrated, because Congress doesn’t work the way it should.  Issues are left untended. Folks are more interested in scoring political points than getting things done – not because any individual member of Congress is a bad person – there are a lot of good, well-meaning, hard working people out there – but because the incentives that have been built into the system reward short term, reward a polarized politics, reward being simplistic instead of being true, reward division. And as mightily as I have struggled against that, it still is broken.’
This statement has a great lesson for those Muslim activists who are fighting for the same unrealistic goal, that is, to bring about change through political power.
Khan concludes his point and writes, “Almost all political leaders have been obsessed with political authority. They wanted to acquire political positions so that they would be able to bring about change. But history tells us that this is a case of having exaggerated expectations of political power, because when these leaders acquired political authority, they were still unable to bring about any real change.
History shows that no one has been able to bring about change through political activism. According to the law of nature, real change always comes through peaceful struggle in non-political fields.”