JAMALUDDIN AFGHANI
Life History JAMALUDDIN AFGHANI
(1838-1897)
The second half of the Nineteenth Century has been an eventful period in the history of Europe. Napoleonic wars had come and gone, razing to the ground hitherto accepted social values, and enthroning some new ones in their place. A new spirit of enquiry was sweeping all over Europe, and giant strides were being made in the realm of science and technology, that were to later on leave the peoples of other parts of the world gaping with wonder. "So Western civilisation quickened, energized, progressed with giant strides, shook off its medieval fetters, grasped the talisman of science, and strode into the light of modern times".1 Along with the pursuit of material gain through modern methods and techniques of production, European nations were also every year making the weapons of modern warfare deadlier, which ultimately enabled them to have military superiority over the continents of Asia and Africa and in the countries of Latin America.
The flourishing industries of Europe needed raw materials, and Asia and Africa were rich storehouses for agricultural and other raw materials, which could perpetually keep the wheels of European industry moving. Under what came to be known as free market enterprise, the principle on which profit motive worked, business meant to buy cheap and to sell dear. The raw material producing continents of Asia and Africa, under such circumstances, became irresistible temptations in the eyes of Western nations, and an unashamed and tyrannical era of downright exploitation began to darken the two continents with the shadow of oppression.
Once happy and prosperous nations lay prostrate under the iron heel of western imperialism, in the perpetuation of which no deed, however crooked or barbaric, was considered as sufficient justification to prevent the Western powers in their police In this pursuit of setting up colonies, secular Europe was readily and strongly backed by the Church and the clerg Christianity seemed to look upon these new colonies as happy hunting grounds to convert the non-Christians, and there grew up a powerful alliance between Christian Churches and European commerce. This conflict between Europe and the Orient sowed the seeds of racial antagonism, brought into being by the arrogance of the West, which was to later on loom on the world horizon as a major international problem.
While the West moved forward as a prospective conquering world force, the countries of the Muslim world continued to remain unmoved, thus falling behind in the struggle for their survival. The Turks, who had hitherto been a dominant power in Europe, alas, began to show signs of lethargy and ceased to cultivate the art of war. The rising tide of Turkish victories in Europe had halted at the gates of Vienna in (1683), and this encouraged the European nations not to fear any more the might of the Ottoman Empire. Thereafter, Turkey began to be plagued with assaults by Western powers, leaving her in a state of near collapse.
The Eighteenth Century saw the entire might of the Western world pitched against the slender defences of Muslim countries in Eastern Europe and in the Indies, but the major portion of the world of Islam from Morocco to Central Asia remained unmolested and undisturbed. The picture had undergone a change in the Nineteenth Century, and almost all the Muslim countries came to be harried and harassed by the military proclivities of the West. With destructive weapons of war undreamt of before this in its hands, and backed by the marvels of the Industrial Revolution, the Western world concentrated its attacks on the Muslim countries, with a view to bring them, one after another, under Western political domination and economic exploitation.
These almost defenceless countries fell before the superior might of European nations, and they came to be distributed as spoils of war among the Western powers. England avariciously grabbed India and Egypt, establishing over them a control that satisfied their economic and political ends Russian armies were pillaging the cities of Central Asia after having crossed the Caucasus. France unfurled the banner of its imperial designs, conquering parts of North Africa. “Other European nations 'grasped minor portions of the Muslim heritage .... Plunged in lethargy, contemptuous of the European 'misbelievers', and accepting defeats as the inscrutable will of Allah, Islam continued to live its old life, neither knowing nor caring to know anything about Western ideas or Western progress."
Just at this period of history, when the West stood triumphantly over many Muslim countries, the world of Islam was to show the first signs of a new revivalism. Western arrogance had ignited the flame of consciousness and self-respect in some young revolutionary Muslim minds, and they were soon to set into motion revolutionary ideas that would waken from lethargy Muslims from China to Morocco and from the Congo to Central Asia. The forces let loose by the West also came to the help of the Muslims, for they were now stirred by new ideas and concepts such as nationalism, scientific education, democracy, freedom. The new spirit of revivalism, coupled with the hatred against the West due to her ceaseless pressure, brought about a gradual awakening among Muslims all over the world. The world of Islam had been roused to a new realisation of its strength and importance, and there was to be now no going back to a state of indifference and passivity in the face of aggression from the West.
A great revolutionary phase had been reached and revolutionary ideas stirred the minds of Muslims. Among those who were the pioneers in bringing about this awakening, the name of He Jamaluddin Afghani stands out very prominently. He was a descendant of Hazrat Imam Husain, and the great and renowned calligraphist, Sayed Ali Tirmizi. According to Lutfullah Asadabadi, the forefathers of Jamaluddin Afghani were settled in Asadabad, a town some distance from Hamdan in Iran, among whom can be mentioned Shaikh-ul-Islam jalaludoullah and Qazi Sayed Saleh Ali Sayeed-al-Shaheed who were well known ulema of their time.
As a matter of fact, his ancestors were known for their learning and piety. His father, Sayed Safdar, a disciple of the great darvesh, Shaikh Murtaza, was an accomplished scholar. who had mastery over a wide range of subjects. A recluse by nature, Sayed Safdar spent most of his time in the privacy of his own small garden attached to his modest house in Asadabad. Sayed Safdar was married to Sikina Begum, a daughter of Mir Sharafuddin al-Husainy al-Qazi. Jamaluddin was born in Asadabad in the month of Shaban in the year ( 1254 A.H. ), equivalent to( A.D. 1838 ). He was to be later on known as Sayed Jamaluddin Afghani al-Husainy.
Coming from a family of renowned scholars, Jamaluddin at an early age was put under a rigorous life devoted to religious studies, with the result that he was soon well versed in the Holy Quran, Hadith, Fiqah, philosophy, medicine; astrology was a subject that particularly attracted him. According to some sources, he continued his studies up to the age of ( 18 ) in Bukhara, at which age he undertook a visit to Teheran and from there came to visit India. The stars of the British raj in India were in their ascendant at that time, and Jamaluddin's young mind came to be profoundly impressed by Western thought and learning, which had obtained a foothold in India. From India he proceeded to the Hejaz to perform Haj, staying in that country for one year. He spent that time in the Hejaz widening the horizons of his learning, studying under competent masters.
After a year's stay in the Hejaz, he returned to Afghanistan, where he accepted employment in the service of Amir Dost Mohamed Khan. On the death of Dost Mohamed Khan, he was succeeded by Amir Sher Ali Khan, who ordered his four sons to be arrested. The imprisoned brothers had sympathisers outside the prison walls, as a result of which three of them were able to escape. While the Amirship of Afghanistan continued to be the prize, and encouraged court intrigue and treachery, Jamaluddin continued to be steadfast in his duties as an employee of the King, and because of this he had succeeded in attracting royal attention.
Therefore, when Amir Murad Azam Khan ascended the throne, he appointed Jamaluddin Afghani as his special adviser. The times were turbulent, and princely ambition often found an outlet in a bold bid to win the crown, and so Amir Mohamed Azam Khan was defeated by Sher Ali Khan, who was proclaimed King of Afghanistan. Jamaluddin Afghani decided to go to the Hejaz for Haj once again, and to this end he sought the leave of the Amir. The Ambassador of Iran in Kabul had been pleading with the Afghan Goyernment not to allow Jamaluddin Afghani either to visit Iran or to pass through that country. His efforts succeeded and Jamaluddin Afghani was given permission to go to the Hejaz, on condition that he did not pass through or sojourned in Iran.
This condition was accepted, and he left Kabul for the Hejaz via India in( 1285 A.H. ) The British ostensibly extended to him special courtesies during his stay in India, but being apprehensive of his revolutionary predilections, they would not allow him to meet Indian Muslims alone, but only under the watchful eyes and alert ears of the Indian police intelligence. At the end of about a month's stay in India, he was offered a passage in a Government ship that was leaving the shores of India for Egypt, which offer he accepted. On his first visit to Cairo, he lost no time in establishing contacts with leading Muslim ulema and intellectuals exchanging views with them on the state of affairs prevailing in the Muslim world and how best to bring about its social, economic and political regeneration. During his stay in Cairo, he frequented the University of Al-Azhar, where he discussed various religious problems with the teachers at the University.
From Cairo he came to the Hejaz, where he renewed old acquaintances and friendships and struck some new ones. Those that discussed with him problems of the world of Islam were impressed by his deep-rooted anxiety to give a lead to the Muslims, so that they may become alive to the dangers that were enveloping their national lives under Western imperialism. A restless spirit by nature, and having an irrepressible itch for travelling, he left the Hejaz for Turkey. His reputation as an outstanding Muslim had preceded him, and the Prime Minister of Turkey, Aly Pasha, gave him a welcome in Constantinople, worthy of a prince. Jamaluddin Afghani seemed to have liked the Turks, as he made many friends among the leading political leaders of that country, and his stay came to be prolonged beyond the period he had contemplated.
At the end of a stay of six months, he became a member of “Danish Osmani", a powerful organisation of young Turks. He began to give lectures in Constantinople, which were largely attended by young intellectuals. rousing thereby the jealously of many Turkish ulema, who banded themselves into a united front in order to oust him from Turkey. They issued a fatwa that Jamaluddin Afghani was unorthodox in his beliefs and was, therefore, a kafir. Recalling those days in Turkey, Jamaluddin Afghani in later life told one of his friends that he went to a gathering in Constantinople being addressed by the Shaikh-ul-Islam of Turkey, Hasan Fahemy, and that without any outward signs of humility or formality, he went and sat near the Shaikh, at which the latter was very angry, and he never forgave him this affront.
The campaign of vilification by the ulema was backed by the press that they controlled and it succeeded ultimately, and a royal order was issued, ordering Jamaluddin Afghani to leave Turkey immediately. The decree was obeyed, and he left Constantinople only to reach Cairo on the day of Nauroz, 21st March, ( 1871 ). A chance meeting between two persons sometimes proves an event of far-reaching consequence, and so it happened when Jamaluddin Afghani met in Cairo a Minister of the Government, namely Riaz Pasha. The Minister obtained Government sanction for a monthly allowance to be given Jamaluddin Afghani, and he was employed on the staff of Al-Azhar University, where many students that came to study fell under his spell and influence. It was mostly the life and work of these young intellectuals that later on proved to be the main cause of Egypt's fight for national liberation. He taught his students how to interpret Islam in terms of the times in which they lived, with special attention being devoted to free Muslim countries from Western domination.
This roused the suspicions of the British and the French that Jamaluddin Afghani was sowing revolutionary political ideas in the minds of young Egyptians under the garb of religious education. Under instructions from London, Vivian, the British ConsulGeneral in Cairo, prevailed upon Tawfiq Pasha, the Khedive of Egypt, to force Jamaluddin Afghani to leave Egypt. British and French diplomacy succeeded, and Jamaluddin Afghani left Cairo under Government orders.
“Djemal-ed-Din was the first Muhammadan who fully grasped the impending peril of Western domination, and he devoted his life to warning the Islamic world of the danger and attempting to elaborate measures of defence. By European colonial authorities he was soon singled out as a dangerous agitator. The English, in particular, feared and persecuted him. Imprisoned for a while in India, he went to Egypt about 1880 and had a hand in the anti-European movement of Arabi Pasha. When the English occupied Egypt in 1882, they promptly expelled Djemal, who continued his wanderings, finally reaching Cons tantinople".
Jamaluddin Afghani was once again in India, settling down in Hyderabad, Deccan, from where he started publishing a magazine that propagated his anti-Western views on world politics. But at that time there was war between Britain and Egypt, and being out and out pro-Egypt and anti-British, Jamaluddin Afghani was brought under police surveillance from Hyderabad to Calcutta, where he lived more or less under house arrest until the war was over. Whenever an opportunity presented itself, he went on sowing seeds of discontent and hatred against Western colonialism. Among the most notable Indian Muslim leaders who came under his influence were Sir Salar Jang Bahadur and Sayed Hasan Bilgrami. All those young Muslims of the time, who had realised the political impotency of India under the British became his ardent followers, and they went on increasing in number as he went on touring India-Hyderabad, Calcutta, Bombay, Patna.
Jamaluddin Afghani thereafter visited the United States of America, stayed there for about four months, returned to London, and went over to Paris, where he met the English author and political leader, Wilfrid Scawen Blunt, who became his lifelong friend and admirer.
Blunt writes that in one of his earliest meetings with Jamaluddin Afghani, the latter told him that in India the police agents follow and track all patriots, and that when he was in India his activities were being constantly watched by the police. On the least pretext, he continued, they send young patriotic intellectuals to jail, and deny them all avenues of employment or occupation. He was emphatic in his view that Hindus and Muslims must unitedly deal a death-blow to British imperialism in India.
Later on Blunt wrote in one of his books that before proceeding to India. Blunt obtained letters of introduction from Jamaluddin Afghani to three of his friends in India. When he visited them separately and presented them the letters of introduction, each one of them rose from his seat, kissed the letter, opened it and read it. Blunt writes he was struck with the respect and reverence in which celebrated Indian Muslims held Jamaluddin Afghani. Jamaluddin Afghani stayed in Paris for almost three years, during which time he published a magazine in French, Le Lien Indissoluble".
This magazine was read far and wide in the Muslim world, and India was certainly one of the countries where it was popular with young Muslims. The British, alarmed at the campaign of hatred against the British being propagated by the magazine, put a ban on its entry into India. But young Indian Muslims continued to finance the magazine in Paris, and he went on spreading his mission of crusade against Western imperialism. He had also met Mehdi Sudani, and the two became great friends, keeping in touch with each other through mutua: friends and occasional secret letters. During his stay in Paris, Jamaluddin Afghani often wrote in French magazines articles on the condition of Muslims in India, exposing the autocratic rule of the British in India. The great Frenchman, Ernest Renan, had written in one of his articles that Islam was opposed to the modern spirit of search for scientific truths, which roused Jamaluddin Afghani to protest.
The two giants met in a public debate, and Jamaluddin Afghani conclusively proved during the course of his reply in the debate, by quotations from the Holy Quran and from the Hadith, that islam encouraged the spirit of inquiry and the pursuit of knowledge. At this time, Gladstone had ceased to be the Prime Minister of England and Randolph Churchill, a friend of Blunt, had taken over that office. Blunt invited Jamaluddin Afghani to England as his guest, so that he may have free and frank personal talks with Randolph Churchill and suggest to him solution to the problems that plagued the relationship of England with india and with the world of Islam. During his stay for three months as the guest of Blunt, he met the Prime Minister often and did his best to influence him so that there may be a change in the attitude of Britain towards Muslims and India.
Imperial policies die hard, and in spite of his best efforts he Could not succeed in achieving any positive results. Disappointed, he left England and came to Iran, staying in Shiraz, Ispahan and Teheran for about six months. Nasiruddin was the Shah of Iran at that time. Jamaluddin Afghani met him often, and every time in his conversation with the King, he brought up the question of his autocratic rule, which sat oppressively on the shoulders of the people. He pleaded for granting more rights to the people and for the introduction of some necessary reforms.
Minds swayed by selfish consideration hardly ever see the light of logic and reason. The King lost his patience on being pestered with advice which ran contrary to his nature, and he ordered Jamaluddin Afghani to leave Iran without any delay. Forced to leave Iran, he proceeded to Moscow in the hope that he would be able to enlist the support of Russia in freeing the Muslim world from British bondage. He made Petrograd his headquarters, where he stayed for about two years. The Czar was the absolute monarch of all Russia, and his Muslim subjects along with those of other faiths continued to submit passively to his every whim and caprice. Through the good offices of some friends, who were high up in the imperial court, Jamaluddin Afghani was able to meet the Czar frequently.
He pleaded with that monarch to permit the Holy Quran to be translated into Russian, which had a hitherto been forbidden. The royal consent being obtained, the Holy Book was translated into Russian and printed, which was a great service to Russian Muslims. Jamaluddin Afghani was like a storm on two legs, and he was touring many countries of Europe and Asia in unending wanderings. For a while he was in Munich. then in Petrograd, and once again he come to Teheran, where he started giving lectures on the inalienable rights of the people, calling upon the Government to grant to the people their fundamental rights. The Shah knew and recognised only one right, that of ruling over his subjects as he pleased. He ordered that Jamaluddin Afghani be arrested, and on hearing this, he took shelter in a dargha, twenty miles outside Teheran.
The Shah sent five hundred soldiers to surround the dargha and to arrest hin The task accomplished, Jamaluddin Afghani was expelled from Iran and he took shelter in Busra. From Busra he wrote a secret letter to Haji Mirza Hasan Shirazi, an Iranian exile in Samra in which he forcefully condemned the conditions of decadence of decadence brought about in Iran by a selfish and incompetent monarch. British secret intelligence was dogging his steps wherever he went and, as alert as ever, they intercepted this letter, the contents of which were published in a London paper. The letter said that the people of Iran were groaning under a tyrannical rule, and that the ruling class of Iran had sold that country to kafirs and the enemies of Islam. He was now about fiftyfive and constant travelling in those difficult days, coupled with his incarceration on a number of occasions, had affected his health.
He was sick in body, but robust as ever in his spirits, intoxicated as he was with the burning passion to free the world of Islam from Western colonialism. He came to London for treatment. But a sick body could not keep him out of work, and he started a magazine in London that advocated the freedom of India from British hands. In one of his articles he wrote that the world of Christianity hates Muslims all over the world, and that Muslims must unite in order to meet this menace. Indian Muslims continued to finance his magazine, although his political thoughts were decades ahead of those of other Muslims.
The voice of this magazine, feeble at first, was now beginning to make its impact on the minds of young Muslim intellectuals in England. The Government, apprehensive of consequences, ordered the magazine to be forcefully closed, and it ceased publication. At this time Sultan Abdul Hamid was the ruler of Turkey, whose ideas on the unity and expansion of Islam, which later on came to be known as Pan-Islamism, broadly approximated with those of Jamaluddin Afghani. While Sultan Abdul Hamid wanted the unity of Islam under his personal leadership, Afghani wanted it through a free association of independent and sovereign Muslim States. In ( 1882 ) the Sultan, through the Turkish ambassador in London, invited Jamaluddin Afghani to Turkey as his guest, an invitation which he readily accepted.
The Sultan was very friendly, kind and generous to Jamaluddin Afghani, giving him a well furnished house to live in a carriage, and conferring on him a liberal monthly allowance, and for a while he lived an undisturbed and contented life in Constantinople. But the proverbial courtiers were busy pouring poison into the royal ears against the foreign guest, inventing all sorts of imaginary accusations against him. The vile campaign of insinuation succeeded, and the Sultan posted a police guard over his house, in order to cut him off from communication with the outside world. Commenting on the plight of Jamaluddin Afghani, Blunt wrote that he had gone to Constantinople to meet his friend in his days of adversity, and he found that the Sultan's anger had snatched away from Jamaluddin Afghani all his friends. In feeble health, his body under police surveillance, but his spirit soaring as high as the skies, Jamaluddin Afghani was now bedridden, struck with a serious malady.
The doctors pronounced that he was suffering from cancer, and the end was not far. Unafraid of the approach of death, he continued to nurse dreams to free the world of Islam from foreign domination, to take mental notes how the unity of the Islamic world could be brought about. To him there were no sects or sectarian beliefs dividing one Muslim from another; to him all Muslims were brothers, united by the common bond of their Faith, Islam. Through adherence to Islam, they could usher in an era of Pan-Islamism. As he lay in bed, making plans for the liberation of Muslims, death visited him on 8th March, ( 1897 ). Jamaluddin Afghani died at the age of 60 for the cause of Islam. He has left an undying legend behind him. What little of Islamic unity is visible in the world today is largely due to his work".
Jamaluddin Afghani had travelled a great deal, always on is mission to bring about unity between Muslims of the world gainst the West. He was, indeed, inspired by the same zeal
as has elevated national liberators to become heroes in history. He was no more physically present, but his ideas and policies continued to influence Muslims of his time and of succeeding generations. "He held that there were two great nations, the Muslim and the Christian, engaged in a relentless struggle in which Christiandom is at present the aggressor; the fanatical spirit which produced the Crusades still continues and, however much disguised, is still the motive power behind Western policies; it gives the impetus which urges those powers to perpetuate aggression on Islam, and which shows itself in European literature in constant hatred, abuse, and ridicule of the religion of Islam. Before this relentless opposition the Muslims have no chance unless they unite in selfdefence, and it is urgently necessary that the whole commuunity rally to the support of any part attacked".
Jamaluddin Afghani was a man of imposing personality, tall and handsome. He was of brown complexion and gave one the impression that he was of Arab descent. He had a pair of big eyes that seemed to penetrate the inside of one's mind, in spite of the fact that he was myopic. However, he never wore glasses. He usually wore a long flowing role like that worn by the ulema of Constantinople. He was a sparse eater, being content with only one meal a day and, considering this, it was surprising that he was able to work for such long hours without tiring and to undertake such whirlwind and difficult journeys. But he drank gallons of tea, being very fond of that beverage like a typical Persian.
He seems to have picked up the habit of smoking cigars from the West, and wherever he went he kept himself ready with a copious supply of cigars. He had a prodigious memory, and he could remember faces and events without the least difficulty. Having a flair for languages, he was able to pick up French within three months. Whether travelling or settled in a hotel, he slept little and lightly. A brilliant orator, his eloquence easily swayed his audience. .With all that, he spoke haltingly, with a sort of deep deliberation, as he unfolded his views or thoughts on a given problem. A revolutionary by nature and by lifelong habit, he held all in equal esteem, princes and paupers. This denotes a mind that has imbibed the lesson of human brotherhood."His concept of democracy was not the annihilation of the citadet of Kingship. He was eager to make the Muslims go forward and to better their conditions.
If Kings and Princes stood in his way, he would face them boldly and overcoming them, he went ahead in his life's mission." He was the flag-bearer of the spirit of Revolution at a time when Muslims of the world were being steam-rollered by Western imperialism. "Jamaluddin Afghani was a great scholar. He was a symbol of Revolution in his political teachings. Wherever he went, within a few days he imposed a spirit of Revolution among those peoples." At the same time he was a visionary, who wanted to translate his dream of Islamic unity into reality.
Western diplomacy and machinations were his sworn enemies, and they did everything possible to nullify his work. The discomforts of a life in exile and the terrors of prison-life did not deter him from his life's mission. “Storm was raging around his life, threatening it with extinction. But Jamaluddin Afghani did not know what fear was. He was never down-hearted."' For him it was a matter of survival, a matter of life and death for the world of Islam, and if in its preservation he had to sacrifice his own life, he was prepared to pay that supreme price. "He warned the world of Islam that if they were to survive, they should unite. Disunity and division, he warned, would Weaken them and would bring about their ultimate ruin."
Jamaluddin Afghani was a champion not only of the Muslim countres, but of all countries of the East that were under Western domination. “Among those Mujahedeen of Islam, who have sacrificed their lives for the oppressed peoples of the East, whose life mission was to regenerate the world of Islam among them Allama Sayed Jamaluddin Afghani was undoubtedly, the most outstanding."
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