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Jamāl ad-Dīn al-Afghani (also known as Sayyid Jamāl ad-Dīn Asadābādī and commonly known as Al-Afghani, b. 1839, Kunar, Afghanistan [or Hamadan, Iran] – d. March 9, 1897, Istanbul, Ottoman Empire), was a political activist and Islamic ideologist who travelled throughout the Muslim world during the late 19th century. He is one of the founders of Islamic Modernism as well as an advocate of Pan-Islamic unity and Hindu-Muslim unity in India against the British, he has been described as having been less interested in minor differences in Islamic jurisprudence than he was in organizing a united response to Western pressure. He is also known for his involvement with his follower Mirza Reza Kermani in the successful plot to assassinate Shah Naser al-Din, whom Afghani considered to be making too many concessions to foreign powers, especially the British Empire.
As indicated by his nisba, al-Afghani claimed to be of Afghan origin. His true national and sectarian background has been a subject of controversy. According to one theory and his own account, he was born in Asadabad, near Kabul, in Afghanistan. Another theory, championed by Nikki R. Keddie and accepted by several modern scholars, holds that he was born and raised in a Shia family in Asadabad, near Hamadan, in Iran. Supporters of the latter theory view his claim to an Afghan origin as motivated by a desire to gain influence among Sunni Muslims or escape oppression by the Iranian ruler Naser ud-Din Shah. One of his main rivals, the sheikh Abu l-Huda, called him Mutaʾafghin ("the one who claims to be Afghan") and tried to expose his Shi'a roots.
Al-Afghani was educated first at home and then taken by his father for further education to Qazvin, to Tehran, and finally, while he was still a youth, to the Shi'a shrine cities in present-day Iraq (then-part of the Ottoman Empire). It is thought that followers of the Shi'a revivalist Shaikh Ahmad Ahsa'i influenced him. Other names adopted by Al-Afghani were al-Kabuli ("[the one] from Kabul") Asadabadi, Sadat-e Kunar ("Sayyids of Kunar") and Hussain. Especially in his writings published in Afghanistan, he also used the pseudonym ar-Rumi ("the Roman" or "the Anatolian").
At the age of 17 or 18 in 1856–57, Al-Afghani traveled to British India and spent several years there studying religions. In 1859, a British spy reported that Al-Afghani was a possible Russian agent. The British representatives reported that he wore traditional clothes of Noghai Turks in Central Asia and spoke Persian, Arabic nnd Turkish fluently. After this first Indian tour, he decided to perform Hajj or pilgrimage to Mecca. His first documents are dated from the Autumn of 1865, where he mentions leaving the "revered place" (makan-i Musharraf) and arriving in Tehran around mid-December of the same year. In the Spring of 1866, al-Afghani left Iran for Afghanistan, passing through Mashad and Herat.
After the Indian stay, all sources have al-Afghānī next take a leisurely trip to Mecca, stopping at several points along the way. Both the standard biography and Lutfallah's account take al-Afghanī's word that he entered Afghan government service before 1863, but since documents from Afghanistan show that he arrived there only in 1866, we are left with several years unaccounted for. The most probable supposition seems to be that he may have spent longer in India than he later said and that after going to Mecca he traveled elsewhere in the Ottoman Empire. When he arrived in Afghanistan in 1866 he claimed to be from Constantinople, and he might not have made this claim if he had never even seen the city and could be caught in ignorance of it.
He was spotted in Afghanistan in 1866 and spent time in Qandahar, Ghazni, and Kabul. Reports from the colonial British Indian and Afghan government stated that he was a stranger in Afghanistan and spoke the Persian language with an Iranian accent and followed European lifestyle more than that of Muslims, not observing Ramadan or other Muslim rites. He became a counselor to Mohammad Afzal Khan, the eldest son of the former Amir, during his war against his half-brother Sher Ali Khan. He encouraged Muhammad Afzal to turn away from his father's British-aligned policy and turn to the Russians for support. In 1868, Sher Ali Khan prevailed against Muhammad Afzal and expelled al-Afghani from the country. He traveled to Constantinople, passing through India and Cairo on his way there. He stayed in Cairo long enough to meet a young student who would become a devoted disciple of his, Muhammad 'Abduh. Once at Constantinople, he met with Grand Vizier Mehmed Emin Ali Pasha and secured an appointment to the Council of Education. He spoke at the opening of Istanbul University, giving a speech typifying the Modernist spirit animating the ongoing Tanzimat Reforms.
However, conservative clerics found his views too radical. The university was closed in 1871 and al-Afghani was expelled. He then moved to Egypt and began preaching his ideas of political reform. The Egyptian government originally gave him a stipend, but due to his public attacks on France and England, he was exiled to India in August 1879, where he stayed in Hyderabad and Calcutta. He then traveled to Constantinople, London, Paris, Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Munich.
While in Egypt, al-Afghani sought the removal of the ruling regime of Khedive Ismail which he viewed as pro-British and used freemasonry as an organizational base for his political activities. During this period, al-Afghani had also considered assassinating Khedive Ismail. He perceived freemasonry as a means of advancing his anti-colonial, anti-imperialist, pan-Islamic causes. Al-Afghani's political activities would play a decisive role in overthrowing Ismail Pasha from the throne and making Tawfiq Pasha as the Khedive.
However, local Masons asserted that they were not interested in politics and sought reconciliation with the British Empire. Around 1875-1876, an incident wherein Masons lavishly praised a British imperial visitor was a major reason for al-Afghani's quitting Freemasonry. After realizing the indifference of the Masons and their political subservience to the British Empire, al-Afghani eventually left Freemasonry.
In 1884, al-Afghani began publishing an Arabic newspaper in Paris entitled al-Urwah al-Wuthqa ("The Indissoluble Link") with Muhammad Abduh; the title sometimes translated as "The Strongest Bond", is taken from Qur'an 2:256. The newspaper called for a return to the original principles and ideals of Islam, and greater unity among Islamic peoples. He argued that this would allow the Islamic community to regain its former strength against European powers.
When al-Afghani was visiting Bushehr in southern Iran in the spring of 1886, planning to pick up books he had shipped there and carry on to Russia, he fell ill. He was invited by Shah Nasser ad-Din's Minister of Press and Publications to come to Tehran. However, he fell from favor quite quickly and the Shah asked him to be taken to Russia, where Al-Afghani spent 1887 to 1889.
From Russia, he traveled to Munich and returned to Iran in late 1889. Due to his political activities, the Shah planned to expel him from Iran, but al-Afghani found out and took sanctuary in the Shah Abdul-Azim 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 al-Afghani quarreled 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 "fountainheads" of the successful 1891 protest against the granting of a tobacco monopoly to a British company, and the later 1905 Constitutional Revolution.
After Iraq, al-Afghani went to England in 1891. He was later invited by a member of Abdulhamid II's court in 1892 to Istanbul. He traveled there with diplomatic immunity from the British Embassy, which raised many eyebrows, but was granted a house and salary by the Sultan. Abdulhamid II aimed to use al-Afghani for Pan Islamism propagation.
While in Istanbul in 1895, Al-Afghani was visited by a Persian ex-prisoner, Mirza Reza Kermani (who had been a servant and disciple of Al-Afghani), and together they planned the assassination of the Shah, Naser al-Din. They both collaborated with Mirza Malkam Khan, the former Qajar envoy to London, in his London-based paper Qanun to attack Qajar rule. Kermani later returned to Iran, and assassinated Naser-al-Din at gunpoint on May 1, 1896, while the Shah was visiting the same shrine Al-Afghani had once taken refuge in. Kermani was executed by public hanging in August 1897, but the Iranian government was not successful in extraditing Al-Afghani from Istanbul. Al-Afghani himself died of cancer in Istanbul in the same year.
Al-Afghani's ideology has been described as a welding of "traditional" religious antipathy toward non-Muslims "to a modern critique of Western imperialism and an appeal for the unity of Islam", urging the adoption of Western sciences and institutions that might strengthen Islam. According to Muhammad Abduh, Al-Afghani's main struggle in life was to decrease British domination of eastern nations and to minimize its power over Muslims.
Al-Afghani's friend, the British poet, and Arabophile Wilfrid Scawen Blunt, considered him a liberal, and in some of his writings he equates the parliamentary system to the shura (consultation) system mentioned in the Qur'an. However, his attitude to the constitutional government was ambiguous because he doubted that it was viable in the Islamic world. According to his biographer, he envisioned instead "the overthrow of individual rulers who were lax or subservient to foreigners and their replacement by strong and patriotic men."
Blunt, Jane Digby, and Sir Richard Burton, were close with Abdul Qadir al-Jazairi (1808–1883), an Algerian Islamic scholar, Sufi, and military leader. In 1864, the Lodge "Henry IV" extended an invitation to him to join Freemasonry, which he accepted, being initiated at the Lodge of the Pyramids in Alexandria, Egypt. Blunt had supposedly become a convert to Islam under the influence of al-Afghani, and shared his hopes of establishing an Arab Caliphate based in Mecca to replace the Ottoman Sultan in Istanbul. When Blunt visited Abdul Qadir in 1881, he decided that he was the most promising candidate for "Caliphate," an opinion shared by al-Afghani and his disciple, Mohammed Abduh.
According to another source, Al-Afghani 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 modern technology like the West.
- that Islam, despite its traditionalism, was an effective creed for mobilizing the public against the imperialists.
Al-Afghani held that Hindus and Muslims should work together to overthrow British rule in India, a view rehashed by Maulana Syed Husain Ahmad Madani in Composite Nationalism and Islam five decades later.
Al-Afghani believed that Islam and its revealed law were compatible with rationality and, thus, Muslims could become politically unified while still maintaining their faith based on 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).
In 1881, al-Afghani 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, his arguments allegedly incorrectly caricatured evolution, provoking criticism that he had not read Darwin's writings.
In his later work Khatirat Jamal ad-Din al-Afghani ("The memoir of Al-Afghani"), he accepted the validity of evolution, asserting that the Islamic world had already known and used it. Although he accepted abiogenesis and the evolution of animals, he rejected the theory that the human species is the product of evolution, arguing that humans have souls.
Among the reasons why Al-Afghani was thought to have had a less than deep religious faith was his lack of interest in finding theologically common ground between Shia and Sunni (even though he was very interested in political unity between the two groups). For example, when he moved to Istanbul he disguised his Shi'i background by labeling himself "the Afghan".
Al-Afghani died of cancer of the jaw on March 9, 1897, in Istanbul and was buried there. In late 1944, at the request of the Afghan government, his remains were taken to Afghanistan via British India. His funeral was offered in Peshawar's Oissa Khwani Bazaar in front of the Afghan Consulate building. Thereafter, his remains were laid in Kabul inside the Kabul University; a mausoleum was also erected there in his memory. In October 2002, the American Ambassador to Afghanistan, Robert Finn, pledged a donation of $25,000 to restore the mausoleum from damage sustained during the civil war. The repairs were completed in 2010.
In Afghanistan, a university is named after him (Syed Jamaluddin Afghan University) in Kabul. There is also a street in the center of Kabul which is called by the name Afghani. In other parts of Afghanistan, there are many places like hospitals, schools, Madrasas, Parks, and roads named Jamaluddin Afghan.
In Peshawar, Pakistan, there is a road named after him as well.
In Tehran, the capital of Iran, there is a square and a street named after him (Asad Abadi Square and "Asad Abadi Avenue").
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Jamāl al-Dīn al-Afghānī, in full Jamāl al-Dīn al-Afghānī al-Sayyid Muḥammad ibn Ṣafdar al-Ḥusayn, also called Jamāl al-Dīn al-Asadābādi, (born 1838, Asadābād, Persia [now in Iran]—died March 9, 1897, Istanbul, Ottoman Empire [now in Turkey]), 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 Afghānī’s family or upbringing. Despite the appellation Afghānī, which he adopted and by which he is best known, some scholars believe that he was not an Afghan but a Persian Shiʿi (i.e., a member of one of the two major divisions of Islam) born in Asadābād near Hamadan in Persia. An appreciable part of Afghānī’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 Shiʿi origin, which would have aroused suspicion among Sunnis, that he adopted the name Afghānī. As a young man, he seems to have visited, perhaps in order to extend and perfect his theological and philosophical education, Karbala and Najaf, the Shiʿi 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 Afghānī appeared in Kandahar, Afghanistan, 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 Dōst Moḥammad Khān, 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, Shīr ʿAlī Khān, was established in the capital, Kabul, but two of his brothers, Moḥammad Afḍal Khān and Moḥammad Aʿẓam Khān, were threatening his tenure. In January 1867 Shīr ʿAlī was defeated and expelled from Kabul, where Afḍal and, upon his death shortly afterward, Aʿẓam reigned successively in 1867–68. At the end of 1866 Aʿẓam captured Kandahar, and Afghānī immediately became Aʿẓam’s confidential counselor, following him to Kabul. He remained in this position until Aʿẓam was in turn deposed by Shīr ʿAlī, 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 Afghānī (who then called himself Istanbulī) was, or represented himself to be, a Russian emissary able to obtain for Aʿẓam Russian money and political support against the British, with whom Aʿẓam was on bad terms. When Shīr ʿAlī succeeded in regaining the throne, he was naturally suspicious of Afghānī and expelled him from his territory in November 1868.
Afghānī 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. Afghānī 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 Muḥammad ʿAbduh, who was to become the leader of the modernist movement in Islam, and Saʿd Pasha Zaghlūl, founder of the Egyptian nationalist party, the Wafd. Again, a reputation of heresy and unbelief clung to Afghānī. The ruler of Egypt then was the khedive Ismāʿīl, 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. Ismāʿīl 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, Afghānī 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 Ismāʿīl. He seems to have hoped to attract thereby the favour and confidence of Muḥammad Tawfīq Pasha, Ismāʿīl’s son and successor, but the latter, reputedly fearing that Afghānī was propagating republicanism in Egypt, ordered his deportation in August 1879.
Afghānī then went to Hyderabad, India, and later, via Calcutta (now Kolkata), 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, Afghānī, together with his former student ʿAbduh, published an anti-British newspaper, Al-ʿUrwat al-wuthqā (“The Indissoluble Link”), which claimed (falsely) to be in touch with and have influence over the Sudanese Mahdī, 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, Abdülhamid 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. Afghānī 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, Nāṣer al-Dīn Shāh, became very suspicious of him, and Afghānī began a campaign of overt and violent opposition to the Iranian ruler. Again, in 1892, his fate was deportation. For this, Afghānī revenged himself by instigating the shah’s murder in 1896. It was his only successful political act.
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Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, in full Jamal al-Din al-Afghani al-Sayyid Muhammad ibn Ṣafdar al-Ḥusayn, also called Jamal al-Din al-Asadabadi, (b. 1838, Asadabad, Persia [now in Iran] — d. March 9, 1897, Istanbul, Ottoman Empire [now in Turkey]), was a 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 best known, some scholars believe that he was not an Afghan but a Persian Shi'a born in Asadabad near Hamadan in Persia. An appreciable part of Afghani’s activities took place in areas where Sunnism was predominant, and it was probably to hide his Persian and Shiʿa origin, which would have aroused suspicion among Sunnis, 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 Najaf, the Shiʿa centers 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 into a religious skeptic.
Only from about November 1866, when Afghani appeared in Kandahar, Afghanistan, 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 Dost 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 Aʿẓam Khan, threatened his tenure. In January 1867, Shir ʿAli was defeated and expelled from Kabul, where Afdal and, upon his death shortly afterward, Aʿẓam reigned successively in 1867–68. At the end of 1866 Aʿẓam captured Kandahar, and Afghani immediately became Aʿẓam’s confidential counselor, following him to Kabul. He remained in this position until Aʿẓam was in turn deposed by Shir ʿAli, 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 Aʿẓam Russian money and political support against the British, with whom Aʿẓam was on bad terms. When Shīr ʿAlī 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. Ismaʿīl 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 Ismaʿīl. He seems to have hoped to attract thereby the favor and confidence of Muhammad Tawfiq Pasha, Ismaʿil’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, India, and later, via Calcutta (now Kolkata), 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 ʿAbduh, published an anti-British newspaper, Al-ʿUrwat al-wuthqā (“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, Abdulhamid 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 al-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.
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