Jamal al-Afghani and his teachings are one of the main pillars on which modern mass-consumed (by Muslims) Islamic movements are constructed.
While there are those that say whether or not he was a freemason is not relevant to understanding his message, what becomes necessarily relevant is the motivations for his actions and teachings. The Ottomans judged him to be a dangerous munafiq, and essentially held him captive, others heralded him and his students as their saviors.
“He belongs to the select band of men who have wielded the greatest influence on the rising Muslim generations in the modern times” – Nadwi, At-Talib Blog
“Dr. Muhammad ‘Emarah, answered these contentions stating: “Those who question his race and religious orientation would like to, in light of these accusations, establish his dishonesty, for indeed, he has stated about himself that “I am Afghani.” And his words and writings illustrate that he was a sunni. Thus, the objective of behind these accusations is to destroy the man who is cherished by all.” – suhaibwebb.com
“The result was that this school impacted every Islamic reform effort at whose forefront was the Muslim Brotherhood lead by Imam Hassan al-Bana. [May Allah have mercy upon all of them].” – suhaibwebb.com
Whatever his admirers may say, the reality is that questioning his race and religious orientation is a necessary result of reading Afghani’s own words. To understand what he wrote one must first understand the context of the time and audience to which Afghani corresponded.
In the days before mass media and mass literacy in the Middle East, it was generally safe to correspond with high class Europeans and their magazines rather freely. As long as these works were not being translated back to Arabic, there was really no practical chance of one’s words coming back to bite the author. There is also much evidence indicated Jamal ad-Din interrupted numerous translations of his letters back to Arabic in his lifetime.
This was how orientalists such as Johann Ludwig Burckhardt were able to report on Muslim activities while assuming Muslim identities. As time went on and the success of impostors such as Burckhardt and “Ali Bey el Abbasi” gave the West new ways to manipulate and reform the religion. Hence much of ‘revivalist’ thought from Wahabis to the movements supported by al-Afghani’s thought were backed by the West, particularly, Western intellectuals.
The Prophet (S) said “You will follow the ways of those nations who were before you, span by span and cubit by cubit, so much so that even if they entered a hole of a mastigure (lizard) you would follow them.” We said “O Allah’s messenger (Do you mean) the Jews and the Christians?” He said “Whom else?”
So what did Jamal ad-Din al-Afghani write to the Europeans when he thought no one was ‘listening’? In a series of debates with Renan, Afghanis viewpoints became clear.
“If it is true that the Muslim religion is an obstacle to the development of sciences, can one affirm that this obstacle will not disappear someday? How does the Muslim religion differ on this point from other religions? All religions are intolerant, each one in its way. The Christian religion, I mean the society that follows its inspirations and its teachings and is formed in its image, has emerged from the first period to which I have just alluded; thenceforth free and independent, it seems to advance rapidly on the road of progress and science, whereas Muslim society has not yet freed itself from the tutelage of religion. Realizing, however, that the Christian religion preceded the Muslim religion in the world by many centuries, I cannot keep from hoping that Muhammadan society will succeed someday in breaking its bonds and marching resolutely in the path of civilization after the manner of Western society…No I cannot admit that this hope be denied to Islam.”
“Wherever it has established itself, this religion has tried to stifle science and it has been marvelously served in its aims by despotism”
(“Answer of Jamal al-Din to Renan Journal des Debats, May 18, 1883 in N. R. Keddie, An Islamic Response to Imperialism, p. 183)
Much of this letter speaks for itself. I find the last line most interesting. For all the discussions in the excerpt about religion being an obstacle and an impediment to progress, the article concludes with the hope that western style civilization and abandonment of faith not be ‘denied to Islam’. Through this language, Islam is redefined from a faith to a political movement, just as he redefines Christianity to mean “the society that follows its inspirations and its teachings and is formed in its image”.
And this is how faith began to be separated from the religion.
When Al-Afghani could speak of ‘Islam’ as a society, with a determined focus on rules, laws and ‘advancement’, while being completely separated from matters of spiritual faith itself, the ability to fool Muslims looking for a ’cause’ fell well into his grasp.
However, correspondence with Westerners was not the only means by which Afghani made his intentions clear. Numerous evidences exist of his hostile attitude towards faith and tradition.
Further facts and excerpts:
in 1871 he left Istanbul for Cairo because he was accused of heresy by the Ottomans.
In Egypt, the writer Abbas Mahmud al Aqqad tells us Afghani had a reputation for heresy amongst ‘the divines’.
In Cairo, he mixed with dogma, writes his contemporary Abdull al-Nadim, who was not an enemy
“what gave rise to criticism . . . and some of his disciples became known for their heresy and for their great opposition to religion, either through misunderstanding or perverse teaching, so that many of the believers turned away from him” (ref: Muhammad Ahmad Khalafallah (1956), Abdullah al-Nadim wa mudhakkiratuhu al-siyasiyya (A.N . and his Political Memoirs) p 52, Cairo.
Shaikh Abd al Qadir al-Maghribi recounts a story Afghani used to tell which concerned a believer and an unbeliever. The believer would exhort the unbeliever to pray by telling him:
“Try to pray regularly for forty days, and see whether you can give up prayer afterwards” to which the unbeliever retorted “Give up praying for forty days, and see whether you can ever resume the practice afterwards” – (ref Abd al-Qadir Maghribi (1926), al Bayyinat Vol I, pp 48-49. Cairo)
His friend and protege, Adib Ishaq wrote that Afghani
“He became expert in the study of religion, wrote Selim al-Anhuri, “until this led him to atheism and belief in the eternity of the world. He claimed that vital atoms, found in the atmopshere, formed, by natural evolution the stars which we see and which reolve round one another through magnetism, and that the belief in an all knowing First cause was a natural delusion which arose when man was in a primitive stage of evolution and corresponded with the stage which his intellectual progress had reached”
Sheykh Mustafa Abd al Raziq was to become the head of Al-Azhar in 1945 – 1947. He reported that after his arrival in Paris 1883, Afghani suffered a change in belief:
“(He) Became a rebel against religion, and came to believe it was the enemy of science, reason and civilization so much so that he gladly and deferentially acquiesced in Renan’s attack on Islam” - ref: Rashid Rida (1923), al-Manar vol XXIV, p 311
Finally in private letters between Afghani and his student Abduh, his student writes
“We regulate our conduct according to your sound rule: we do not cut the head of religion except with the sword of religion (nahnu al-an ala sunnatika al qawima la naqta ra’s al-din illa bi-saif al-din) Therefore, if you were to see us now, you would see ascetics and worshippers [of God] kneeling and genuflecting, never disobeying what God commands and doing all that they are ordered to do. Ah! how constricted life would be without hope!” (ref Documents, published: Tehran , Plates 138-140) also (ref: Kedourie (1966), Afghani and Abduh, London).
Now knowing the desire of such individuals in attacking the faith of Islam, using the pretext of Islam, a universe of questions opens up to us.
At a minimum, ‘modern Muslims’ need to ask themselves: to what extent has this corruption and redefinition of social ‘Islam’ entered their own psyche and thought?
The fact that Jamal ad-Din Afghani, who was at least a heretic if not apostate, is a noted influence of the Muslim Brotherhood, Jamaat e Islami, Hizb ut-Tahrir, the Indian Khilafat Movement, and basically every political Islamic reform movement today requires a major reconsideration of the fundamentals of reform itself.
Johann Ludwig Burckhardt fooled Muslims across the lands in his knowledge of the Arabic language and Islamic sciences. He assumed the identity of “Shaikh Ibrahim ibn Abdullah” and traveled across Middle East, even entering Makkah and Medina and performing Hajj, reporting all the details back to his European employer. It was in 1809 that he went to Aleppo Syria to study Arabic and learned Shariah.
During all of this he continued to send reports of his travels to England, to be published by the “African Association”.
By the following spring, in fact, he was able to report to the African Association that “I am now so far advanced in the knowledge of Arabic that I understand almost everything that is said in common conversation and am able to make myself understood on most subjects …” (ref: Saudi Aramco World, Volume 18, Number 5 )
This progress in Arabic and Islamic Law went to higher and higher levels:
Burckhard prompted steeped himself in Arab life and became so proficient in Arabic and the Koran that Islamic scholars proclaimed him an authority on Islamic Law. In 1812 he turned up in Cairo, having adopted the name Sheykh Ibrahim ibn Abdullah (ref: The Rape of the Nile. Fagan, B. pub 2004)
One of his works was about the Wahabis, entitled “Notes on the Beoudins and Wahabys”. What he really thought of Islam was exposed pretty clearly in the following passage. Reading this passage also emphasises the fact that the Wahabis were essentially an anti-Ottoman religious movement.
“The founder of this sect is already known : a learned Arabian named Abd el Wahab, who had visited various schools of the principal cities in the East (as is much the practice with his countrymen even now), being convinced by what he had observed during his travels, that the primitive faith of Islam or Mohammedism, had become totally corrupted, and obscured by abuses, and that the far greater part of the people of the East, and especially the Turks might justly be regarded as heretics. But new doctrine and opinions are as little acceptable in the East as they are in the West ; and no attention was paid to Abd el Wahab until, after long wanderings in Arabia, he retied with his family to Derayeh at the period when Mohammed Ibn Saoud was the principal person of the town..”
He mentioned other betraying munafiqs in his dealings. It is sometimes hard to imagine to what extent outright hypocrisy exists and was proven to exist within the Muslim community. Numerous ayats of the Quran address the aspect of hypocrisy at various levels.
Another famous hypocrite was “Ali Bey el Abbasi”, who Burckhardt speaks about:
“He (the Pasha) entertained a notion, suggested to him by some of his Frank counselors at Cairo, that, in some future account of my travels, I might perhaps boast of having imposed upon him, like Ali Bey el Abbasi, whose work had just been received at Cairo, and who declares that he deceived not only the Pasha, but all the ‘olemas‘ or learned men, of Cairo.
Interestingly enough, his travels and experience gave Burckhardt the context to see what was coming up ahead in history due to the Wahabis and Arab rebellions:
Whenever the power of the Turks in the Hedjaz declines, which it will when the resources of Egypt are no longer directed to that point by so able and so undisturbed a possessor of Egypt as Mohammad Ali, the Arabs will avenge themselves for the submission, light as it is, which they now reluctantly yield to their conquerors; and the reign of the Osmanlis in the Hedjaz will probably terminate in many a scene of bloodshed.
And blood was indeed shed, not just between Turks and Arabs, but Wahabi Arabs slaughtered hundreds of Sunni Arabs in the city of Taif.
Burckhardt’s agenda in this travels was not to change or reform Islam. He knew the futility of reform movements trying to grow under the authority of the Osmanli Khalipha, he was witnessing the Wahabi movement already. Rather, he used his Islam to provide a sympathetic cover identity to allow him to conduct exotic expeditions in areas Europeans previously had never entered.
However, while these people fooled the ‘ulema’, they didn’t fool everyone. One of his simple guides through these lands eventually exclaimed:
“I see now clearly that you are an infidel, who have some particular business amongst the ruins of the city of your forefathers; but depend upon it that we shall not suffer you to take out a single para of all the treasures hidden therein, for they are in our territory, and belong to us,” according to Burckhardt.
Final Thoughts
The basis of Islamic ‘knowledge’ and ‘scholarship’ falls apart when it can exist at the highest levels without sincerity. Sitting in association of people who are learning or teaching ‘knowledge’ who have not one ounce of faith in their heart demonstrates an inherent deficiency in the ‘knowledge’ they are discussing, learning, writing, and memorizing in the first place.
Real knowledge is that which has a fundamental prerequisite of faith and builds faith in the tradition of the Holy Prophet (S). The inheritors of the Prophet (S) are not those who know a worldly science, there are those who know the meaning and power of transmitting faith.
Rubbing of the two eyes with the back of the index fingers at the time the muadhdin says ‘I bear witness Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah’ assured the Prophet’s intercession
Daylami has recorded this report in his Musnad al-Firdaws, tracing it through Abu Bakr (R)
Wahabis reject its meaning since it is not a hadith of the Prophet (S). To them I say, the words of Abu Bakr (R) are closer to our hearts than yours.
When we hear the Saudis have demolished holy sites and made them into toilets and parking lots, its usually difficult for some people to truly understand or feel emotion. The connection that wahabi-influenced Western Muslims have to, say, the Hazrati Khadijas (R) old house and the Prophet’s (S) birthplace is shaky at best.
However, few places are mentioned as often in childrens tales as the Cave of Hira at Jabl al-Nur (Mountain of Light). Even these people with confused ideologies find their hearts drawn to the stories of the cave. What would it be like to see that cave, pray where the Prophet (S) first received Quran?
Recently family members have come back from Umrah and took some pictures of the situation of the cave.
First we see the standard Bidaa/Innovation disclaimer one would expect from the Wahabi’s who control and are ‘guardians’ of the holy places. Not many people make the trip up the mountain, especially after reading this warning. Only two men traveled up alone to see these sights, they encountered no rush of littering people. Much of this seems to have been sitting there for months or years.
Of course, this means they will give little care to maintaining this place, its all “Bidaa” to them.
Once you are finally up the mountain, the path immediately before the seating place of the Prophet (S):
Its difficult to compare this to times in the past when entire contingents were paid by the government/people to keep places such as this in spectacular condition.
Climb up through these boulders to see where the Prophet (S) would sit and meditate:
This is the view of the area, the large rock in the center may have served as the Prophet’s (S) chair:
Supposedly before construction one could look outwards to see the Kabaah from here, yet its difficult to get past the view of the garbage:
The entire area is littered with not only actual garbage but also graffiti, visitors will often pray here:
The mountain side
Interesting snippet of an article about the Wahabis work on Islamic sacred sites:
Dr Irfan al-Alawi, historian, founder and former executive director of the Islamic Heritage Research Foundation, who is one of the most vocal opponents of the destruction of the Haramayn and their environs, says that last year the Saudi Ministry of Islamic Affairs distributed a pamphlet in the Masjid-e Nabawi calling for the demolition of the green dome. Endorsed by Abdul-Aziz al-Sheykh, the kingdom’s current grand mufti, the pamphlet brazenly declared: “The green dome shall be demolished and the three graves [where the Prophet, Abu Bakr and Umar are laid to rest] flattened in the Prophet’s Mosque.” The groundwork for such sacrilegious statements was prepared by another prominent Saudi scholar, the late Muhammad ibn al-Uthaymeen, who for 35 years delivered khutbas in the Masjid al-Haram. “We hope one day we’ll be able to destroy the green dome of the Prophet Muhammed [saws],” he said, in a recording provided by Dr Alawi.
Dr Alawi estimates that 300 historic sites have been destroyed or are scheduled for destruction. An old house that had belonged to Umm al-Mu’mineen Khadijah al-Kubra (ra) was recently razed to make room for a public toilet facility, among other things. The birthplace of the Messenger (saw) in Makkah was first turned into a library and named “Maktabat Makka al-Mukarrama”, and is now being turned into a parking lot. While libraries are important, the plan was not based on the Wahhabis’ desire for learning but on their determination to destroy all vestiges of Islam’s heritage. The few remaining historical sites in Makkah can be counted on one hand and will probably not survive much past the next Hajj, according to Dr Alawi. “It is incredible how little respect is paid to the House of Allah [in Makkah].”
An ATM (cash-dispensing machine) has opened on the site where the ancient mosque named after the first khalifah, Abu-Bakr Siddiq (ra), once stood. The sites of the historic battles at Uhud and Badr have become parking lots. The graves of Amir Hamza (ra) and the other shuhada of Uhud have suffered even greater indignity: garbage litters the site and the Wahhabis expressly forbid any identification-markers on them, again under the spurious excuse that this would lead to shirk. The 1,200-year-old mosque and tomb of Sayyid Imam al-Uraidhi ibn Ja‘far al-Sadiq, four miles from Masjid-e Nabawi in Madinah, was destroyed by dynamite and flattened on August 13, 2002. Imam al-Uraidhi was ninth in line from the Prophet (saw).
http://usa.mediamonitors.net/content/view/full/52814
After reading through a number of works discussing South Asian Islamic history, and also many of the references, I have thought a lot more deeply about the traditions of South Asian culture than my last series of posts on this subject. Every time I read the numerous moving stories, I marveled at how totally lost Muslim South Asians, especially ex-patriots and their children, have become from their traditional past. While the first Masjid in India was built in Kodungallur by Malik Bin Deenar(R), a Sahabi (during the Prophet’s (S) lifetime), it certainly seems that most of what occurred after that point has been forgotten by South Asian Muslims living abroad.
The Islam that I experienced in American South Asian dominated mosques and organizations was so utterly disconnected from the traditional understanding of Islam of India, that without being mentally prepared, I would certainly have considered what I was reading as pure fiction. The attraction of Muslim South Asians in America to various agenda-driven forms of Islam (and their lack of awareness as to their shifted reality by these agendas) has been complete and total. This has made the alien into the norm and the norm into the alien.
The sheer volume of information on the subject of the spirituality, plurality, tolerance and strength of South Asian Muslims, combined with the natural understanding as to how South Asian society flourished with Muslim and Hindu interaction for over the 1400 years, makes it clear that the fiction was that which I was sold most of my youth.
In fact, it was the desire and clearly defined curriculum of organizations such as ICNA and early administrations of the various masjids that I attended (dominated by South Asians at nearly all levels of organization) that Muslim youth study the life and works of Seyyid Qutb, Maududi, and Bilal Phillips.
This created an entire generation (including most of my friends) that had never heard the name of Khwaja Moiuddin Chishti (R) much less the name of a single one of the countless saints buried in South Asia. The importance of knowing those names (and therefore, understanding and respecting their teachings) is vitally important for immigrant South Asian Muslims in the West for a proper return to the spiritually moving faith connected to the Prophet (S), as practiced by these holy people who carried Islam to us.
The difference between what has become ‘modern Islam’ and the traditional Islam of South Asia and other traditional Muslim communities is striking.
One is focused on a singular attempt at ‘authenticity’ and ‘purification’ of Islam using new understandings of Hadith and discussing their authenticity, the other is focused on the application of the immediate tradition for the purpose of bettering the soul.
One is focused on the political, absorbing worldly power and doing so with various levels of crassness, looking for religious and legal legitimacy the entire time, while the other has always been about building bridges between hearts with subtlety and care.
The Islam of South Asians in the West has mirrored that of converts. Many converts were in love of the faith of Islam primarily due to its claim of textual authenticity of the Quran (and hence the faith), which was unchanged for centuries. This was in stark comparison to the faiths of the West which suffered from deep questions of relevancy and authenticity, faiths which they had left for just those reasons. There is no doubt that the weight of the extreme desire for textual authenticity led to the ‘off’ switch of South Asian immigrants in examining the Islamic faith as understood by their families for generations.
The lack of textual information about Islam in South Asia certainly did not help. Modern South Asians were brought up appreciating the written word much more than that spoken word, a side effect of making education the largest priority in their lives (a means to escape poverty of the homeland). The idea of following a way of life which couldn’t be immediately checked, verified, and looked up for confirmation led most to the path of various forms of Wahabism.
Of course, most of groups eschewed the name ‘Wahabi’ itself, preferring to claim the title ‘Muslim’ for themselves. Interestingly enough their use of ‘Muslim’ was to the exclusion of their ‘grave worshipping’ ancestors or family members, which they considered to be misguided and confused. Most likely, however, the situation was actually tragically reversed, with modernized South Asians being extremely confused about their faith and the ‘ignorant’ visitors of graves seeing with a spiritual clarity.
Many South Asian parents had not bought into their own intellectual superiority, and hence many had not adopted the Wahabi ideal in order to critique the problems ‘back home’. These parents were quiet on the subjects of question (saints, graves, intercession, etc), and very few had the ability to respond back to the arguments presented by Wahabi philosophies from their children. Growing up their entire lives in that society, it was difficult for parents to forsake that which they had learned was de-facto Islam, an Islam which had run their lives and so many loved-ones lives could not easily be discarded… Saints, Milad, Naats, Qawaali, and all. Largely, they kept their distance from argument and supported the now adjusting faith of their children.
Interestingly enough, this comfortable nature of the different Islam between father and son, mother and daughter, in matters of practice of faith was a direct consequence of the open nature of the parents Islamic faith. It is this same South Asian pluralism which had created large periods of relative peace between Hindus and Muslims over a span of centuries, which now allowed children to look, dress, and act radically different from their parents, with hardly more than a word spoken.
This is not to say that parents did not fear the children would become ‘Christian’ in the West, indeed such fears existed and were a large part of growing up South Asian in the West. However, I would argue the fear towards Christianization was much more focused on the change in culture, and what that would mean for marriage, dress and social standings than what it meant to their soul. The pluralistic values of South Asia centered around a common culture, where often the weddings of the Muslim were not so dissimilar from that of the Hindu, in terms of dress and celebration. Exiting this culture was much more profound an issue than disagreements over details of faith.
After coming to terms with the reality of the rigid nature of a singular interpretation of Islam, the American convert experience, a struggle and challenge in its own right, seemed to need an understanding of how Islam survived with pluralistic flexibility in order to continue and progress in their faith. The first struggle for those espousing a return to the traditional understanding of Islam was to establish authenticity. This was done by focusing on the Madhabs, the schools of Islamic Law. Within these Madhabs lived the intellectual contribution of all Muslim legal scholars for centuries.
However, the reality was that the average South Asian Muslim had never heard of Madhabs in any Islamic sense. Since the overwhelming majority of their society was Hanafi, there was no need to even learn the names of other approaches in matter of form or externals. So, in fact, in American Masjids, it was those espousing “Madhabs” who ended up looking as if they were speaking of something new.
As a completely wayward path, the Wahabi agenda of puritanical groups looking to take over Islam in the West was rebuffed with this larger understanding of Islamic Law. The only escape for American converts from this type of Islam, was a broader understanding of the faith with multiple legal opinions. This has become to be known as “traditionalism”, espoused by famous converts and speakers such as Sh Hamza Yusuf, Imam Zaid Shakir, and Sh Nuh Keller.
However, this following of converts, with their own issues of reconciliation of culture cannot be followed by South Asians descendants who plan on keeping their own culture alive. It seems the South Asian child’s only two choices today are assimilation into three categories: the secular West, the Western Islamic discourse dominated by anti-traditionalists, or the Islamic discourse of Arabized traditionalists. As noted in my previous articles, it is clear that a traditional South Asian Islam has been ignored by the West. Revivalists of traditional sciences in the West have ignored the South Asian contribution for too long.
A focus on historical personalities and works of South Asian descent is a personal priority of mine. It is time the Milad, Ghazal, Naat, and Qawaali was understood and loved again, not simply analyzed through the lens of a protracted argument about good and bad “innovations”.
“That is so 90′s.” It’s time to move on.
the truth on 
m.a.kidwai,CME/IND.RLY.(retd.) on 