Remembering Muslim Scholars: Jamal al-Din al-Afghani
mohammad
Jamal al-Din al-Afghani was born in Asadabad, Iran, in 1838; he died in
Istanbul, Turkey, on March 9, 1897. A philosopher and politician, he
promoted the concept of unity of all Muslims against British rule in
particular and against global western interests in general. His call
for
Muslim solidarity influenced Egypt's nationalist movement, Turkey's
Tanzimat reforms, as well as Iran's constitutional and Islamic
revolutions.
It is commonly agreed that Al-Afghani was born into a family of sayyids
of Asadabad, Hamadan. Al-Afghani himself, however, claimed that he was
born in the village of As'adabad, near Kabul, Afghanistan. Neither
claim can be verified; the account of Afghani's childhood pieced
together
from the information provided by his biographer, Mirza Lutfullah
Asadabadi, is sketchy at best. Later events in his life, however,
indicate
that he was educated at home until the age of ten. Thereafter he
attended
school in Qazvin and Tehran. During his teens, he studied theology and
Islamic philosophy in Karbala and Najaf, centers of Shi'ite learning in
Iraq.
In 1855, around the age of seventeen, al-Afghani traveled to India via
the port of Brushehr, on the Persian Gulf. In India, he became
acquainted with British imperialism and observed how Muslims were
systematically discriminated against in receiving government
appointments as well as
in participating fully in religious and educational institutions.
Indeed, the Muslims' struggle against British tyranny left an indelible
impression on young al-Afghani. And increasingly he came to agree with
the
Indians who claimed that the British intended to undermine and
discredit Islam. From India, al-Afghani traveled to Mecca before
returning to
Karbala and Najaf, centers at which he had studied earlier. He remained
in Iraq until 1865, when he traveled to Iran and, the following year,
to Afghanistan.
Documented reports of al-Afghani's residence in Afghanistan date to
1866, when he was part of the entourage of Muhammad A'zam Khan, the
military ruler of Qandahar under Dost Muhammad Khan. When Dost Muhammad
died
in 1863, his three sons fought among themselves for the rulership. Amir
Shir 'Ali Khan, Dost Muhammad's third son, assumed power in Kabul,
pledging to modernize the nation. Shir 'Ali's brothers, however,
rebelled
in Qandahar and ousted him in 1866. A'zam became king, and al-Afghani
became his close confidant. As part of his duties, al-Afghani
reportedly
drew up a national recovery plan for Afghanistan that included
provisions for a network of schools, establishment of centralized
government,
institution of a national newspaper, and a well-regulated communication
system. In politics, he advised the king to ally himself with Russia to
prevent the steady northward movement of the British accross the Pujab.
A'zam's rule, however, was short-lived. Shir 'Ali returned in 1868,
deposed Muhammad A'zam and expelled al-Afghani--a foreigner who spoke
dari
with a farsi accent. He retained al-Afghani's modernizing reforms,
however.
Al-Afghani was a clergyman with a strong constitution. He is reported
to have had a magnetic personality and a dogged determination, both of
which he used competently to penetrate exclusive circles in which he
could promote his cause. And he cherished secrecy at the expense of
social
norms. He wore a white turban while calling himself a sayyid, and
adamantly refused any association with women. He was quick-tempered,
quick
of action, and quick to envisage a British plot at every turn.
Afghanistan afforded al-Afghani a worthy education by supplementing his
understanding of the dynamics of struggle against imperialism with a
possible response. He came to realize that the Shi'i and Persian
rational
philosophy that had inspired him in India could be used to rid the
Muslim masses of ignorance and poverty, especially if they were
enhanced
with armed struggle and savage confrontation. If Afghans with their
bare
hands could defeat the forces of Britain in the First Afghan War, he
posed the question, what impact would the force of the total Muslim
community under a charismatic ruler have on the West! Al-Afghani then
made a
point of injecting himself into the growing confrontation between the
Muslim East and the Christian West.
The Muslim ruler charismatic enough to realize al-Afghani's secret
aspiration was Abdulaziz, the Ottoman sultan. Forming a master plan,
al-Afghani befriended the Ottoman Sultan from afar and, in 1869,
traveled to
Istanbul expecting to be named the Sultan's confidant. Turkish
officials, steeped in the Tanzimat reforms, however, did not pay him
the
attention that he felt he deserved; they appointed him to a lesser
position
on the Council of Education. An opportunist, al-Afghani used the
Council
as a forum for the promotion of his ideas and delivered a series of
inspiring lectures on reform. The contents of the
lectures--anti-imperialism, need to modernize Islamic society, and
Shi'ite rationalist
philosophy--raised the ire of Istanbul's Sunni holy men. al-Afghani was
denounced as a heretic, especially when he compared the Sunni holy
men's
understanding of God with an ordinary man's knowledge of a craft.
Before
long, the confrontation between the ulema and al-Afghani became too
volatile for Abdulaziz to support. al-Afghani was expelled from Turkey.
With his hopes dashed, al-Afghani returned to Egypt in 1871 to pursue
his teaching as well as his dream of creating a Pan-Islamic nation free
from imperialist domination. While thus engaged, in a series of
lectures on reform, he grafted the example of Egypt's economic
strangulation
by European banks to medieval Islamic philosophy concluding that the
situation would not have obtained if Western exploitation was not
operating in the region. He also formed and led a Masonic lodge in
Cairo, among
whose members were counted such promising young leaders as Muhammad
'Abduh, a future leader of the Pan-Islamic movement.
al-Afghani's activities in Egypt brought him in direct confrontation
with Khedive Isma'il and his suzerain, Sultan Abdulhamid II, as well as
with European, especially British, powers. al-Afghani had placed
Khedive
Isma'il in a difficult position by openly condemning his financial
mismanagement as the cause of Egypt's capitulation to European bankers.
To
ward off al-Afghani's allegations, Isma'il blamed the foreign bankers
who, in turn, pressured the Sultan to depose the Khedive. In 1879, when
he ran out of alternatives, the Sultan dismissed the Khedive.
Muhammad Tawfiq Pasha, Isma'l's son, expelled al-Afghani from Egypt
that same year. From Egypt, al-Afghani traveled to Hyderabad, south of
India where, for two years, he offered seminars, gave public lectures,
and
wrote. "The Refutation of the Materialists" (1881) was written at this
time. This essay affords a glimpse of al-Afghani's growing interest in
social consciousness, modernism, and rational thinking.
Writing within the Utopian tradition, al-Afghani described his vision
of the "Virtuous City," as a hierarchically structured society that
functions on the principles of shame, trustworthiness, and
truthfulness,
and aspires to the ideals of intelligence, pride, and justice. Higher
intelligence, al-Afghani argued, leads to new capabilities and advanced
civilizations; pride leads to competition and progress; and justice
leads
to global peace and harmony among nations. Naturalists (neicheris),
al-Afghani argued, intended to destroy the solidarity of the Virtuous
City
through division and sectarianism.
>From Hyderabad, al-Afghani traveled to London and, shortly thereafter
to Paris, where he engaged the French philosopher Ernest Renan in a
debate on the position of scientific discovery in Islam. Then, in the
1870s, al-Afghani accomplished his most consequential activity--his
collaboration with Muhammad 'Abduh on editing a revolutionary journal
in Arabic
called al-'Urwat al-Wuthqa (the firmest bond). This publication
established al-Afghani as the champion of Pan-Islamism, the movement
blamed as
the chief cause of Abdulhamid's 1877 defeat in the Russo-Turkish
War--whereby the Tanzimat reforms had been proved ineffective--and in
the
1882 occupation of Egypt by Great Britain. Al-'Urwat al-Wuthqa
published
articles by al-Afghani and 'Abduh on diverse topics. The Sultan was not
impressed. Disappointed, al-Afghani left for Russia. Waiting at the
port of Bushehr to collect his books, he received an invitation from
Nasir
al-Din Shah, the sovereign in Tehran, who had read a translation of an
essay from al-'Urwat al-Wuthqa. When this brief interview did not go
well, al-Afghani resumed his trip.
In Russia, al-Afghani continued his anti-British activities. He argued
that, with his mobilization of Indian and Central Asian Muslims,
Russians could easily drive the British out of the subcontinent. The
Russians
humored him, delaying his departure to irk the British. al-Afghani's
two-year visit in Russia gained for him a second royal invitation to
Tehran. Iran of the 1890's was much like Egypt of the 1870's. It was
plagued with financial mismanagement and hounded by foreign investors,
who
sought concessions on every resource. The shah, however, unlike the
Khedive, ruled under the protection of divine right. He could sell Iran
to
whomever he pleased.
al-Afghani arrived in Iran from St. Petersburg at a time when Iranians
were growing increasingly alarmed by Nasir al-Din Shah's doling out
their country's resources. al-Afghani himself had distributed leaflets
condemning these concessions. Needless to say that al-Afghani was not
received by his host, who also denied al-Afghani's claim that he had
been
commissioned in Munich to go to St. Petersburg and make amends on
lran's
behalf. Worse yet, al-Afghani was clandestinely informed of orders for
his arrest. To save himself from the shah's wrath, he took sanctuary
(bast) in the shrine of Shah Abdul 'Azim. south of Tehran. From there,
using clandestine methods and superb oratorical techniques, al-Afghani
attracted Iranians in droves to listen to his fiery attacks on the shah
and his anti-reformist actions, especially the murder of Mirza Taqi
Khan, Amir-i Kabir.
al-Afghani predicted that Iran would soon capitulate to British might,
as Egypt had in 1882. He demanded that Iranian revenues be spent on the
construction of a railroad, on education and hospitals, and on a viable
army to thwart imperialism, rather than on the shah's pleasure trips to
Europe. Iranians, he said, must be given the right to express their
opinions in publications independent of the government. Iran must have
a
constitution, a parliament, and a house of justice. Above all, he
emphasized, Iranians deserved a just king.
Nasir al-Din Shah was approaching his fiftieth year of rule. Since
al-Afghani had been instrumental in his own recent humiliation to
become
the first shah to revoke his own writ--the tobacco concession--and
since
this action had precipitated Iran's first foreign debt, the shah
ordered the unruly mullah to be expelled. Ignoring the rules of
sanctuary,
the shah's guards invaded the holy shrine in 1892, placed al-Afghani,
half naked and in the middle of winter, on the bare back of a mule, and
deported him. al-Afghani went to London, where he reestablished ties
with
his lodge members and then traveled to Turkey at the invitation of the
sultan. Rather than becoming the sultan's confidant and Pan-Islamist
consultant as al-Afghani had hoped, he became the sultan's prisoner.
>From Turkey, al-Afghani continued to foment revolt in Iran, using his
devotees to carry out his behest. One such devotee was Mirza Reza
Kermani who, in 1896, was commissioned to assassinate Nasir al-Din
Shah.
Mirza Reza carried out his mission on the anniversary of the shah's
fiftieth year of reign in the very sanctuary in which al-Afghani had
been
humiliated a few years before.
al-Afghani died of cancer of the chin at the age of about sixty and was
buried in a secret grave. In 1944, the government of Afghanistan
claimed him as a citizen; his supposed remains were transferred to and
buried
on the grounds of the University of Kabul under a respectful shrine.
Jamal al-Din al-Afghani was an Iranian by birth. His activities and the
corpus of his writings reflect that. When visiting Europe, he
affiliated himself with Afghanistan; when in Afghanistan, he associated
himself
with Ottoman Turkey and called himself "Istanbuli." This was, perhaps,
necessary under his circumstances to gain the confidence of Sunni
rulers while evading Iranian officials. There are several reasons for
al-Afghani's inability to materialize his dream. First, he put too much
trust
in the goodwill of Muslim rulers and too little in the people of the
Middle East. In ignoring the grass roots support for his Pan-Islamism,
he
violated the rules of his own Virtuous City, a violation that he
regretfully acknowledged in a letter he wrote from prison before his
death.
Second, he used religion to achieve political aims and, assuming that
world rulers acted independently of one another, secretly groomed all
for
the same office--that of caliph. This policy backfired on him many
times, finally costing him his life. Third, he annoyed rulers by
lecturing
them. Nasir al-Din Shah dismissed him when al-Afghani blatantly offered
himself as a sword with which the shah could cripple the imperialists.
Perhaps the shah was more gracious than the sultan. Finally, al-Afghani
failed to distinguish between policy and personal dispositions. He
sought Queen Victoria's assistance against Nasir al-Din Shah within a
short
time of the tobacco boycott against British interests in Iran, a
boycott that he himself had helped bring to fruition.
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Selected Bibliography:
Ahmad, Aziz. "Sayyid Ahmad Khan, Jamal al-Din al-Afghani and Muslim
India." Studia Islamica 13 (1960): 55-78. Algar, Hamid. Religion and
State
in Iran, 1785-1906. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1969.
Hodgson, Marshall G. The Venture of Islam. Vol. 3, The Gunpowder Empire
and Modern Times. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974.
Keddie, Nikki R. An Islamic Response to Imperialism: Political and
Religious Writings of Sayyid Jamal al-Din "al-Afghani. " Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1968.
Kedourie, Elie. Afghani and Abduh: An Essay on Religious Unbelief and
Political Activism in Modern Islam, Frank Cass, 1966.
Kramer, Martin. Islam Assembled: The Advent of the Muslim Congresses,
Columbia University Press, 1985.