JAMAL AD-DIN AL-AFGHANI

born 1838, Asadabad, Persia [now Iran] died March 9, 1897, Istanbul in full Jamal Ad-din Al-afghani As-sayyid Muhammad Ibn Safdar Al-husayn Muslim politician, political agitator, and journalist whose belief in the potency of a revived Islamic civilization in the face of European domination significantly influenced the development of Muslim thought in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Very little is known about Afghani's family or upbringing. Despite the appellation Afghani, which he adopted and by which he is known, some scholars believe that he was not an Afghan but a Persian Shi'ite (i.e., a member of one of the two major divisions of Islam), born in Asadabad near Hamadan in Persia. An appreciable part of Afghani's activities took place in areas where Sunnism (the other major division of Islam) was predominant, and it was probably to hide his Persian and Shi'ite origin, which would have aroused suspicion among Sunnites, that he adopted the name Afghani. As a young man he seems to have visited, perhaps in order to extend and perfect his theological and philosophical education, Karbala' and an-Najaf, the Shi'ite centres in southern Mesopotamia, as well as India and perhaps Istanbul. The intellectual currents with which he came in contact remain obscure, but whatever they were, they made him early into a religious skeptic. Only from about November 1866, when Afghani appeared in Qandahar, Afg., can evidence be pieced together to form a consecutive and coherent picture of his life and activities. From the death in 1863 of the famous D ost Mohammad Khan, who had ruled for more than 20 years, Afghanistan had been the scene of civil wars occasioned by the quarrels of his sons over the succession. In 1866 one of these sons, Shir 'Ali Khan, was established in the capital, Kabul, but two of his brothers, Mohammad Afdal Khan and Mohammad A'zam Khan, were threatening his tenure. In January 1867 Shir 'Ali was defeated and expelled from Kabul, where Afdal and, upon his death shortly afterward, A'zam reigned successively in 186768. At the end of 1866 A'zam captured Qandahar, and Afghani immediately became A'zam's confidential counselor, following him to Kabul. He remained in this position until A'zam was in turn deposed by Shir 'Ali, who succeeded in regaining his throne in September 1868. That a foreigner should have attained so quickly such a position was remarked upon in the contemporary accounts; some scholars speculate that Afghani (who then called himself Istanbuli) was, or represented himself to be, a Russian emissary able to obtain for A'zam Russian money and political support against the British, with whom A'zam was on bad terms. When Shir 'Ali succeeded in regaining the throne, he was naturally suspicious of Afghani and expelled him from his territory in November 1868. Afghani next appeared in Istanbul in 1870, where he gave a lecture in which he likened the prophetic office to a human craft or skill. This view gave offense to the religious authorities, who denounced it as heretical. Afghani had to leave Istanbul and in 1871 went to Cairo, where for the next few years he attracted a following of young writers and divines, among them Muhammad 'Abduh, who was to become the leader of the modernist movement in Islam, and Sa'd Pasha Zaghlul, founder of the Egyptian nationalist party, the Wafd. Again, a reputation of heresy and unbelief clung to Afghani. The ruler of Egypt then was the khedive Isma'il, who was both ambitious and spendthrift. By the mid-1870s his financial mismanagement led to pressure by his European creditors and great discontent among all his subjects. Isma'il tried to divert their wrath from himself to the creditors, but his maneuvers were clumsy, and, in response to French and British pressure, his suzerain, the Ottoman sultan, deposed him in June 1879. During this period of political effervescence, Afghani attempted to gain and manipulate power by organizing his followers in a Masonic lodge, of which he became the leader, and by delivering fiery speeches against Isma'il. He seems to have hoped to attract thereby the favour and confidence of Tawfiq, Isma'il's son and successor, but the latter, reputedly fearing that Afghani was propagating republicanism in Egypt, ordered his deportation in August 1879. Afghani then went to Hyderabad and later, via Calcutta, to Paris, where he arrived in January 1883; his stay there contributed greatly to his legend and posthumous influence as an Islamic reformer and a fighter against European domination. In Paris, Afghani, together with his former student 'Abduh, published an anti-British newspaper, al-'Urwat al-wuthqa (The Indissoluble Link), which claimed (falsely) to be in touch with and have influence over the Sudanese Mahdi, a messianic bearer of justice and equality expected by some Muslims in the last days. He also engaged Ernest Renan, the French historian and philosopher, in a famous debate concerning the position of Islam regarding science. He tried unsuccessfully to persuade the British government to use him as intermediary in negotiation with the Ottoman sultan, Abdlhamid II, and then went to Russia, where his presence is recorded in 1887, 1888, and 1889 and where the authorities seem to have employed him in anti-British agitation directed to India. Afghani next appeared in Iran, where he again attempted to play a political role as the shah's counselor and was yet again suspected of heresy. The shah, Naser od-Din Shah, became very suspicious of him, and Afghani began a campaign of overt and violent opposition to the Iranian ruler. Again, in 1892, his fate was deportation. For this, Afghani revenged himself by instigating the shah's murder in 1896. It was his only successful political act. From Iran, Afghani went to London, where he stayed briefly, editing a newspaper attacking the shah and urging resistance to him and particularly to the tobacco concession that had been granted to a British subject. He then went to Istanbul, in response to an invitation made by an agent of the sultan. The sultan may have hoped to use him in pan-Islamic propaganda, but Afghani soon aroused suspicion and was kept inactive, at arm's length and under observation. He died in Istanbul. His burial place was kept secret, but in 1944 what was claimed to be his body, owing to the mistaken impression that he was an Afghan, was transferred to Kabul, where a mausoleum was erected for it. Elie Kedourie Additional reading A. Albert Kudsi-Zadeh, Sayyid Jamal al-Din al-Afghani: An Annotated Bibliography (1970). Nikki R. Keddie, An Islamic Response to Imperialism (1968), includes the main writings of Afghani in translation, together with a long introduction dealing with his life and ideas. Elie Kedourie, Afghani and 'Abduh: An Essay on Religious Unbelief and Political Activism in Modern Islam (1966), sets forth and examines much new evidence on which a radical reevaluation of Afghani's role and significance is based. Homa Pakdaman, Djemal-ed-Din Assad Abadi, dit Afghani (1969; in French), contains a large number of documents by and about Afghani and is a useful supplement to the works of Keddie and Kedourie.