Sayyid Jamal al-Din al-Afghani

Thinker and political figure who held an important place in the intellectual and political life of the Islamic world in the XIX century and influenced the Islamic awakening. His full name was Sayyid Jamal al-Din Muhammad ibn Safdar al-Afghani al-Husayni. The source notes that his life story still has points requiring clarification, because he led a very eventful life and because the information in the sources is contradictory.

The sources agree that he was born in Sha'ban 1254 (November 1838); where he was born, however, is disputed because it bears on his nationality and his school (see Plurality of Views). The title Sayyid and the nisba al-Husayni derive from the claim that his lineage goes back to Husayn. According to one account he stayed in Kabul until the age of eighteen and received his first education from his father Safdar, a scholar; he studied language, history, religion, philosophy, mathematics, medicine and politics, and then went to India. On his pilgrimage journey he passed through many countries and performed the hajj in Mecca in 1273 (1857). Returning to Afghanistan he entered the service of Dost Muhammad Khan; after the Khan's death in 1279 (1863), Muhammad A'zam, who won the ensuing struggle for power, made him chief minister.

When Shir 'Ali seized power he went to India, but the British administration required him to leave the country. Early in 1870 he went to Egypt and from there, probably at the invitation of Sultan Abdülaziz, to Istanbul; he established relations with Âli Pasha, Fuad Pasha, Saffet Pasha, Münif Efendi and Hoca Tahsin Efendi, and became a member of the Meclis-i Kebir-i Maarif. He gave an Arabic address at the opening of the Darülfünun-ı Osmani on 20 February 1870. When, in a lecture during Ramadan of the same year, he counted philosophy and prophethood among the crafts, Şeyhülislam Hasan Fehmi Efendi declared him an unbeliever, and Âli Pasha decided to expel him. Cevdet Pasha later stated that the affair had arisen from a misunderstanding.

In March 1871 he went to Cairo and stayed eight years; he taught at his house, and his gatherings turned increasingly to politics. He opposed the Khedive Isma'il Pasha. According to the source he joined the Scottish masonic lodge and, when he was expelled because the lodge did not wish to enter politics, founded a lodge attached to the French Grand Orient. He was expelled from Egypt by the Khedival government's notice of 26 August 1879. In Hyderabad in India he wrote his refutation of the naturalists; during the 'Urabi Pasha revolt (1882) he was placed under surveillance in Calcutta, and after the revolt was suppressed he left India.

In his last period, from 1883 to his death in 1897, he turned to the ideal of solidarity and unity among all Islamic countries. In Paris he took charge of the newspaper of the al-'Urwa al-wuthqa society and called his pupil Muhammad 'Abduh from Beirut to be its chief writer; the paper, whose first issue appeared on 13 March 1884, could publish only eighteen issues (the last in October 1884) because of obstacles. His debate with Ernest Renan increased his fame. At the invitation of Nasir al-Din Shah he went to Iran, and left when his calls for reform set him against the shah. He stayed in Russia in 1886-1889; he returned to Iran a second time, but because of his criticism he took refuge in the shrine of Shah 'Abd al-'Azim, was removed from it by force and expelled near Basra. After this he spoke harshly against the shah; the source records that he was later held responsible for the shah's assassination. From Basra he contacted the Iranian ulema and encouraged resistance to the tobacco concession; in 1891 he moved to London and wrote against the shah.

Through the ambassador in London, Rüstem Pasha, Abdülhamid II invited him to Istanbul, and he accepted the second invitation. A house in Teşvikiye and a salary were assigned to him. At the sultan's wish he prepared a report on Islamic unity and Shi'i-Sunni rapprochement; of the letters written for this purpose, numbering up to 600, some 200 received replies. In time the sultan reduced his contact with him, strict surveillance was imposed and his requests to leave the country were refused; on the other hand, Iran's demand for him as its own subject was not granted. He did not recover from the cancer that struck him, died in Istanbul on 9 March 1897, and was buried in the Şeyhler Cemetery at Maçka. According to the source, the present empty tomb there was built in 1926 by an American named Charles Cron; in 1944, at the request of the Afghan government, his bones were transferred to the country whose name he bore, Afghanistan.

His Circle of Influence — His most important pupil, friend and helper was Muhammad 'Abduh; Rashid Rida, Qasim Amin, Sa'd Zaghlul and 'Abd al-Qadir al-Maghribi are also among those he influenced. According to the source he influenced Abdülhamid II, at least at the level of ideas, on Islamic unity and Shi'i-Sunni rapprochement; Ottoman intellectuals of different lines, such as Mehmet Emin Yurdakul, Yusuf Akçura, Ahmet Ağaoğlu, Mehmed Âkif, Ahmet Hamdi Akseki, Said Nursi and Şemseddin Günaltay, benefited from his conversations and writings. In India his influence appeared in the first quarter of the XX century in the circle of Abu al-Kalam Azad, and Iqbal was among those who esteemed him. It is stated that among the leaders of the movement that led in Iran to the constitution of 1906 and the first parliament were men formed in his school. In Algeria 'Abd al-Hamid ibn Badis is counted indirectly as belonging to his school; Malik Bennabi said: "We owe the beginning of the reform movements in the Islamic world to al-Afghani."

His Poetry and Sufi Line — He was not a poet; this section summarises his line of thought as the source reports it. In his view materialism has harmed humanity in every age, and a religion, however weak, is better for humanity than materialism; religions offer the mind three beliefs and the soul the virtues of modesty, trustworthiness and truthfulness. He says the gate of ijtihad is open: whoever knows should exercise it, and whoever cannot should choose consciously. He states that misunderstanding of divine decree and predestination harmed Islamic civilisation, and that man's partial will has an effect that determines the outcome. He says Sufism has developed methods for acquiring knowledge of matters beyond reason, but that its language must be interpreted in harmony with the outward sense of the texts. Among the causes of decline he lists the transformation of the caliphate into kingship, the spread of the doctrine of compulsion (jabr), the inadequacy of education and the division of Muslims; he sees the remedy in mentality, belief and morals, that is, in a return to pure Islam and the Qur'an, and in widespread education beginning with women. The source considers it more accurate to place him among the renewers and reformers rather than among modernists in today's sense.

His Works — He was a man of ideas and action who expressed his thought mostly in conversation and wrote little; part of what he wrote has been lost. The works known with certainty to be his are Haqiqat-i madhhab-i naychari, written in Persian in India and first printed in Hyderabad (1298/1881) (its Arabic translation by Muhammad 'Abduh, al-Radd 'ala al-dahriyyin, Beirut 1886), and Tatimmat al-bayan on the history of Afghanistan (Cairo 1879). Most of the articles of al-'Urwa al-wuthqa came from 'Abduh's pen but in their ideas belong to al-Afghani. Also mentioned are his glosses on al-Dawani's commentary on al-'Aqa'id al-'Adudiyya, the Risalat al-waridat he dictated to 'Abduh, and the Khatirat compiled from his conversations by Muhammad Pasha al-Makhzumi. Muhammad 'Imara published his works in 1968 and 1979, and 'Ali Shalash his unknown writings in 1986.