Jamal-al-Din Afghani

For more information on Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, visit Britannica.com.

c. 1838 - 1896

Influential and charismatic Muslim leader.

One of the most seminal figures of the nineteenth-century Islamic world, Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, although not a major philosophical thinker, spoke and wrote effectively on such subjects as anti-imperialism and the strengthening of the self; these themes were to become increasingly central to the Muslim world. Much of what Afghani and his followers said about his life was myth, and many myths about him persist, even now when a more accurate picture can be drawn.

Ample evidence now indicates that Jamal al-Din was born and raised in northwest Iran (not in Afghanistan, as he usually claimed). It also appears that he got his higher education in the Shiʿite shrine cities of Iraq, where treatises in his possession show that he was attracted to the innovative, philosophical Shaykhi school of Shiʿism. From Iraq he went to India (c. 1857), and it seems likely that in India (and possibly in Bushehr in south Iran, which was under British wartime occupation around the time of his stop there) he developed his lifelong hatred for the British. After travels, apparently to Mecca and the Levant, he went across Iran to Afghanistan, where documents show he claimed to be a Turk from Anatolia. He soon entered into the counsels of the Afghan amir, whom he advised to fight the British, but he lost favor and was expelled when a new pro-British amir assumed power. After a brief stop in India, he went to Istanbul (1869 - 1871).

In Istanbul, he showed the reformist, self-strengthening part of his persona by entering the Council of Higher Education and signing up to give a public lecture at the new university. This lecture in which Afghani said that philosophy and prophecy were both crafts got him and the university and its director (the real targets of the ulama) in trouble. (This view accords with the teachings of the medieval philosophers, who are still taught in Iran today, although they are anathema in western Islam.) Afghani was expelled and went to Cairo, where he had stopped briefly on his way to Istanbul.

In Cairo, Afghani did his most important work (1871 - 1879), educating and inspiring a group of young thinkers and activists, many of whom (such as Muhammad Abduh, Saʿd Zaghlul, Abdullah Naqim, and Ibrahim al-Laqqani) continued to be important influences in later Egyptian political and intellectual life. The Muslim philosophers constituted the subject of Afghani's teachings; he stressed their belief in natural law, in reason, and in speaking one way to the religious masses and a different way to the intellectual elite. In the late 1870s, when government debt thrust Egypt into an international crisis, Afghani and many of his followers ventured more openly into politics. He encouraged his followers, who included Syrian immigrants as well as Egyptians, to found newspapers, some of which published his lectures. He also gave talks to, secretly joined, and became the leader of a Masonic lodge, which he used as a political vehicle.

He and his chief disciple Abduh favored the deposition of Khedive Ismaʿil and the accession of his son Tawfiq, whom he expected to influence. When Tawfiq became khedive (1879), however, the deposition and accession were accomplished by the British and French, to whom Tawfiq was beholden. Tawfiq opposed Afghani's fiery anti-British speeches and activities, and soon had Afghani deported. There is no evidence that the British had a hand in this deportation.

Afghani went back to India, via Iran, and from 1880 to 1882 he chose to stay in the south-central Indian state of Hyderabad, which was ruled by a Muslim prince. During these years, Afghani wrote his most important articles and the short treatise known in English as "Refutation of the Materialists." In 1883, Afghani went to Paris, where Abduh rejoined him. Using funds that probably came from the Briton Wilfrid Blunt and a Tunisian general, they founded the newspaper al-Urwa al-Wuthqa (The firmest bond), which was sent free throughout the Muslim world. The paper, which primarily printed theoretical articles and critiques of British policy in Egypt, Sudan, and elsewhere, was one of the chief sources of fame for its two editors.

In Paris, Afghani also wrote a response to an article by Joseph Ernest Renan in which Renan had asserted that religion, and particularly the Semitic Muslim religion, was hostile to science. Afghani's response, frequently misrepresented as a defense of Islam, in fact agreed that all religions were hostile to science; it differed only in saying that Islam was no more hostile to science than Christianity, and that since Islam was several hundred years younger, it might evolve, as had Christianity. Renan then voiced his essential agreement with Afghani, who, he noted, was not a Semite.

After stopping publication of al-Urwa al-Wuthqa, probably for financial reasons, Afghani went to London (1885), where he joined Blunt in the latter's schemes to negotiate British withdrawal from Egypt and Sudan. There is no evidence for Afghani's claim that he was at the time an envoy of the Sudanese Mahdi. Although it was the only occasion when he cooperated with the British (and even then it was with the goal of removing them from Egypt and Sudan), this period and Blunt's books about it accounted for the reputation Afghani acquired in some quarters of being a British agent.

Afghani then accepted an invitation from the anti-British Russian publicist Mikhail Katkov to go to Russia, but on the way he stopped in Tehran for several months. His plotting against the British in Russia came to nothing, but both in Iran and Russia, as usual, he won contacts with men in high places by dint of his personality. When the shah's party came to St. Petersburg on its way west, Afghani was snubbed, but he caught up with them in Europe and believed he had been given a mission in Russia by the prime minister. He returned first to Russia and then to Iran, but the prime minister, AliAsghar Amin al-Soltan, refused to see him. Amin al-Soltan planned to expel him, but Afghani avoided banishment by going to a shrine south of Tehran, where he continued to see his followers. A letter attacking concessions to Europeans, including the tobacco concession to the British, was attributed to Afghani, and he was forced to leave Iran for Iraq in midwinter.

From Iraq and then also from Britain, Afghani helped influence the movement against the tobacco concession (1891 - 1892). An invitation from the Ottoman sultan, Abdülhamit II, brought him to Istanbul, where he soon was forbidden to write or speak publicly. When one of his Iranian followers killed Naser al-Din Shah in 1896, the Iranians tried unsuccessfully to gain Afghani's extradition, but his death from cancer (1897) made the issue moot.

Although Afghani is known mainly as a panIslamist, the characterization applies to him only from the year 1883 or so. He was primarily concerned with awakening and strengthening the Muslim world, especially against the encroachment by the British, and for this purpose he sometimes stressed political reform, sometimes local nationalism, and sometimes a pan-Islamic approach. He was a charismatic speaker and teacher, but his writings do not measure up to the standard set by the writings of many of his contemporaries. Despite many facets of his life that underscore his unorthodoxy, he remains for many a model figure of modern Islam. Because he voiced so many of the ideas then in the air among politically minded Muslims, the potency of his influence and especially the myths surrounding him have remained strong.

Bibliography

Hourani, Albert. Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age, 1798 - 1939. New York and London: Oxford University Press, 1962.

Kedouri, Elie. Afghani and Abduh: An Essay on Religious Unbelief and Political Activism in Modern Islam. London and Portland, OR: Frank Cass, 1997.

Tamimi, Azzam S. "The Renaissance of Islam." Daedalus 132, no. 3 (Summer 2003):51.

— NIKKI KEDDIE

Jamal-al-Din Afghani.

Sayyid Jamāl-al-dīn al-Afghānī (Persian: سید جمال الدین الافغاني; actually Sayyid Muḥammad ibn Ṣafdar -سید محمد بن صفدر)(born 1838^[1] - died March 9, 1897) was a political activist and Islamic nationalist active in Qajarid Persia, Afghanistan, Egypt, and the Ottoman Empire during the 19th century. One of the founders of Islamic modernism,^[2] and an advocate of pan-Islamic unity,^[3] he has been described as "less interested in theology than he was in organizing a Muslim response to Western pressure."^[4]

Contents 1 Early life 2 Political activism 3 Political and religious views 4 Death and legacy 5 References 6 Further reading 7 External links

Early life

Jamāl-al-dīn was born in the village of Asadābād, near Hamadān, Iran, into a family of local sayyeds.^[1][5] Although some older sources claim that Jamal al-Din was born in a district of Kunar Province in Afghanistan also called Asadabad,^[6][7] overwhelming documentation (especially a collection of papers left in Iran upon his expulsion in 1891) now proves he was born in 1838 in Iran. He spent his childhood there and was brought up as a Shia Muslim.^[1][5][8]

According to the best evidence, he was educated first at home, then taken by his father for further education to Qazvin, to Tehran, and finally, while he was still a youth, to the Shi'ite shrine cities in Iraq.^[5] It is thought that followers of Shia revivalist Shaikh Ahmad Ahsa'i had an influence on him.^[9] An ethnic Persian, Jamal-al-Din claimed to be an Afghan in order to present himself as a Sunni Muslim ^[10][11] and to escape oppression by the Iranian ruler Nāṣer ud-Dīn Shāh.^[5]

Political activism

"Asadabadi square" in Tehran, Iran.

In 1857, Jamal al-Din spent a year in Delhi and after performing the pilgrimage of Hajj in Mecca, he returned to Afghanistan in 1858. He became a counsellor to the King Dost Mohammad Khan and later to Mohammad Azam. At that time he encouraged the king to turn to Russians and to oppose the British. However, he did not encourage Mohammad Azam to any reformist ideologies that later were attributed to Jamal al-Din. ^[5]

In 1859 a British spy reported that Jamal Al-Din is a possible Russian agent. The British representatives reported that he wears traditional cloths of Noghai Turks in Central Asia, speaks fluently Persian, Arabic and Turkish. ^[12] Reports from the British Government in India and Afghani government say that he was a stranger in Afghanistan, spoke Persian with Iranian accent and followed European lifestyle more than that of Muslims, not observing Ramadan or other Muslim rites. ^[5][12] In 1868, the throne of Kabul was occupied by Sher Ali Khan, and Jamal al-Din was forced to leave the country.^[5]

He decided to travel to Istanbul, although he journeyed through Cairo on his way there. He stayed in Cairo long enough to meet a young student who would become a devoted disciple, Muhammad 'Abduh^[13].

In 1871, Jamal al-Din moved to Egypt and began preaching his ideas of political reform. His ideas were considered radical, and he was exiled in 1879. He then travelled to different European and non-European cities: Istanbul, London, Paris, Moscow, St. Petersburg and Munich .

In 1884, he began publishing an Arabic newspaper in Paris entitled al-Urwah al-Wuthqa ("The Indissoluble Link"^[1]) along with Muhammad Abduh. The newspaper called for a return to the original principles and ideals of Islam, and for greater unity among Islamic peoples. This, he argued, would allow the Islamic community to regain its former strength against European powers.^{[citation needed]}

Jamal al-Din was invited by Shah Nasser al-Din to come to Iran and advise on affairs of government, but fell from favour quite quickly and had to take sanctuary in a shrine near Tehran. After seven months of preaching to admirers from the shrine, he was arrested in 1891, transported to the border with Ottoman Mesopotamia, and evicted from Iran. Although Jamal al-Din quarrelled with most of his patrons, it is said he "reserved his strongest hatred for the shah," whom he accused of weakening Islam by granting concessions to Europeans and squandering the money earned thereby. His agitation against the Shah is thought to have been one of the "fountain-heads" of the successful 1891 protest against the granting a tobacco monopoly to a British company, and the later 1905 Constitutional Revolution.^[14]

Political and religious views

Jamal al-Din's ideology and has been described as a welding of "traditional" religious antipathy toward unbelievers "to a modern critique of Western imperialism and an appeal for the unity of Islam", urging the adoption of those Western sciences and institutions that might strengthen Islam.^[11]

Although called a liberal by a contemporary English admirer, Wilfrid Scawen Blunt,^[15] Jamal al-Din did not advocate constitutional government. In the volumes of the newspaper he published in Paris, "there is no word in the paper's theoretical articles favoring political democracy or parliamentarianism," according to his biographer. Jamal al-Din simply envisioned "the overthrow of individual rulers who were lax or subservient to foreigners, and their replacement by strong and patriotic men."^[16]

According to another source Jamal al-Din was greatly disappointed by the failure of the Indian Mutiny and came to three principal conclusions from it:

• that European imperialism, having conquered India, now threatened the Middle East
• that Asia, including the Middle East, could prevent the onslaught of Western powers only by immediately adopting the modern technology of the West
• and that Islam, despite its traditionalism, was an effective creed for mobilizing the public against the imperialists. ^[17]

He believed that, in fact, Islam (and its revealed law) was compatible with rationality and, thus, Muslims could become politically unified whilst still maintaining their faith based on a religious social morality. These beliefs had a profound effect on Muhammad Abduh, who went on to expand on the notion of using rationality in the human relations aspect of Islam (mu'amalat) ^[18].

In 1881 he published a collection of polemics titled Al-Radd 'ala al-Dahriyyi (Refutation of the Materialists), agitating for pan-Islamic unity against Western Imperialism. It included one of the earliest pieces of Islamic thought arguing against Darwin's then-recent On the Origin of Species; however, the ideas attributed to evolution are sufficiently caricatured as to strongly argue he had not himself read Darwin's writings at the time.^[19] In his later work Khatirat Jamal al-Din al-Afghani (The Ideas of al-Afghani), he admitted that the validity of the principle of selection, claiming it had been long known and used by the Islamic world. However, while accepting transitions from non-living matter to plants (abiogenesis), and plant to animal, he rejected the transition from ape to Man due to the question of the soul.^[20]

Among the reasons why Jamal al-Din is thought to have had a less than deep religious faith was his lack of interest in finding theologically common ground between Shia and Sunni (despite the fact that he was very interested in political unity between the two groups),^[21] and his failure to marry. He is said to have "picked up female companionship when he wanted it without any show of religious scruples.", probably practising the temporary marriage (nikah al-mut'a) that only Shia communities recognize as licit (halal) ^[22].

Death and legacy

Jamal al-Din died on March 9, 1897 in Istanbul and was buried there. In late 1944, due to the request of Afghan government, his remains were taken to Afghanistan and laid in Kabul inside the Kabul University, a mausoleum was erected for him.

References

1. ^ ^{a b c d} Britannica Encyclopædia, Online Edition 2007 - link
2. ^ Jamal al-Din al-Afghani Jewish Virtual Library
3. ^ Ludwig W. Adamec, Historical Dictionary of Islam (Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press, 2001), p. 32
4. ^ Vali Nasr, The Shia Revival: How Conflicts within Islam Will Shape the Future (New York: Norton, 2006), p. 103.
5. ^ ^{a b c d e f g} N.R. Keddie, "Afghāni, Jamāl al-dīn", Encyclopædia Iranica, Online Edition 2005-2007
6. ^ From Reform to Revolution, Louay Safi, Intellectual Discourse 1995, Vol. 3, No. 1 LINK
7. ^ Historia, Le vent de la révolte souffle au Caire, Baudouin Eschapasse, LINK
8. ^ N. R. Keddie, "Sayyid Jamal ad-Din “al-Afghani”: A Political Biography", Berkeley, 1972
9. ^ Edward Mortimer, Faith and Power, Vintage, (1982)p.110
10. ^ Edward Mortimer, Faith and Power, Vintage, (1982)p.110
11. ^ ^{a b} Arab awakening and Islamic revival By Martin S. Kramer
12. ^ ^{a b} Molefi K. Asante, Culture and customs of Egypt, Published by Greenwood Publishing Group, 2002, ISBN 0313317402, 9780313317408, Page 137
13. ^ Albert Hourani, Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age (Cambridge: Cambride UP, 1983), pp. 131-2
14. ^ Roy Mottahedeh, The Mantle of the Prophet: Religion and Politics in Iran (Oxford: One World, 2000), pp. 183-4
15. ^ Wilfrid Scawen Blunt, Secret History of the English Occupation of Egypt (London: Unwin, 1907), p. 100.
16. ^ Nikki R. Keddie, Sayyid Jamal ad-Din “al-Afghani”: A Political Biography (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972), pp. 225-26.
17. ^ Ervand Abrahamian, Iran Between Two Revolutions (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982), pp. 62-3
18. ^ Albert Hourani, Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age (Cambridge: Cambride UP, 1983), pp. 104-125
19. ^ The Comparative Reception of Darwinism, edited by Thomas Glick, ISBN 0226299775
20. ^ ibid.
21. ^ Nasr, The Shia Revival, p.103
22. ^ Mottahedeh, The Mantle of the Prophet, p. 184

Further reading

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Jamal-al-Din Afghani

• Bashiri, Iraj, Bashiri Working Papers on Central Asia and Iran, 2000.
• Black, Antony (2001). The History of Islamic Political Thought. New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-93243-2. 
• Cleveland, William (2004). A History of the Modern Middle East. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. ISBN 0-8133-4048-9. 
• "Jamal ad-Din al-Afghani." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2005. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 5 Oct. 2005<http://search.eb.com/eb/article-9043289>.
• Keddie, Nikki Ragozin. Sayyid Jamal al-Din al-Afghani: A Political biography. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972. ISBN 978-0520019867
• Watt, William Montgomery (1985). Islamic Philosophy and Theology. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. ISBN 0-7486-0749-8. 
• Mehrdad Kia, Pan-Islamism in Late Nineteenth-Century Iran, Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 32, No. 1, pp. 30–52 (1996).

External links

• Jamal-Al-Din Afghani, a comprehensive article in Encyclopedia Iranica.
• Jamal ad-Din al-Afghani, a biography.
• Al-Afghani’s Response to Imperialism by Richard Seymour, May 11 2009
• Seyyed Jamaluddin Asadabadi, the Founder of the Pan-Islamic Front
• Sayed Jamaluddin Afghani's Biography.

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