When Baba was alive, I heard him say to someone who feared that Baba would pass away and with him all his work and influence ‘Hunadande Hanin’ which is Mahratti for "From within the tomb I will beat with sticks." i.e., that death of his body will not terminate his influence or activity.
When Baba passed away in 1918, he was 22. Even then he was not sufficiently serious to have any development on the religious side. He felt however grieved at Baba’s disappearance and started off on his travels again. In 1926, he was going back North. Then in the Swat valley (Malekand Agency) he found the tomb of a great saint, Akun Baba, who was a Sayyad, a direct descendant of Mohamed. His miraculous powers were the subject of popular legends. That Akun Baba is said to have locked up Lord Roberts on a hill for three months and 11 days. During Abdulla Jan's stay there, one night he had a dream in which a saint appeared. ‘Who was it?’ It was not Akun Baba that he had prayed to, but Sai Baba who was seated on a chair near his head. When he woke, he remembered the dream. So, he found he was still under Baba’s care, though it was eight years since Baba passed away. As Sai was kind enough of his own accord to give him Sakshatkar, 1500 miles away from Shirdi, his reverence for Sai increased and his former idea that Sai Baba had deceived him by giving him no help during the five years of his stay was found to be wrong. At This discovery he returned to India with full faith in Sai Baba.
In 1924 he married and started living at Korhale, four miles from Shirdi. He is lucky enough to have Baba’s appearance before him once in two or four years and he moralises on the past and sees the vanity of human wishes. Baba was surrounded by crowds in his lifetime, and it was hard to find room in the Mosque on account of these crowds of men swarming around him, and a large number of dogs intermingled in the crowd. Abdulla Jan describes that the Mosque in 1936 looked deserted.
When Baba was in the flesh, Abdulla Jan once expressed his fear that Baba would expire and all his work and influence would pass away with him. Baba said that from within the tomb he would beat with sticks meaning that the death of his body would not terminate his influence or activity.
The five tenets of Islam are 1) uttering the Kalami or declaration of faith, namely, There is no god but God and Mohamed is the Prophet; 2) Panch Namaz, saying the Namaz five times a day, at dawn, at 10 a.m., at 12 noon, at 5 p.m. and at night, kneeling and bending the body at each utterance. 3) Fasting, especially all the forty days of Ramzan and on other occasions about 8 or 10 times in the year; 4) Alms-giving. 5) Haj Yatra that is, going to Mecca. These are the five tenets of Islam. Of these, Baba observed only alms-giving. His alms-giving was a princely scale and he supported over two hundred homeless beggars at Shirdi and distributed not merely vegetarian food, but also meat for non-vegetarians specially prepared as samaradhana from his Hundi, by himself. He also distributed clothes to the poor periodically. In addition to regular donations to certain persons, he also gave liberally to dancers, athletes, acrobats and Ramadasis and all sorts of people that came to him for alms. His reputation as a liberal Maharaj was known very far from Shirdi and attracted people like Madras Ramadasis and this man Tarbella Abdulla Jan.
Source: Devotees Experiences of SRI SAI BABA by B.V.NARASIMHASWAMIJI