(First edition)

The recent revolutionary developments taking place in the Muslim lands in the form of demolition of monarchies, strong winds blowing in favor of establishment of the rule of Shari❛ah and the non-apologetic and confident assertions of Muslim intellectuals regarding Islam being a functioning modern system of life, might have bewildered many an observer; particularly the western scholars of the traditional orientalist training. These arrogant “outsiders” have almost written off Islam as a spiritual force and material system capable of coping with ‘change’, a process known as modernization – a term which ultimately amounts adoption of Western cultural values and world-view. It is arrogance since it arbitrarily brushes aside any definition of a value-system other than their own. The East still continues to be the White man’s burden, now borne by the Western experts and intellectuals.

However, for the Muslims themselves these developments are not new but inherent in the Islamic system itself. For them, with its few but most potent unchanging values, Islam provides for the maximum scope of creative activity in time. It is a mistake, committed by the non-Muslim observers generally, to ascribe the comparative economic and intellectual backwardness of Muslims to the ‘dogma’ of Islam. To be sure, Muslim civilization achieved its full material prosperity and intellectual brilliance during the medieval period when the Muslims were undoubtedly much more attached to their faith than they were later. The reasons of Muslim cultural decline lie somewhere else and are to be investigated more by economists, sociologists and other social scientists than researchers of religion, as such. One common factor, however, underlying the process of decay of all civilizations seems to be the transformation of their central ideology, Islam in the case of Muslims, into a power-structure (State) with its social, cultural and economic ramifications. This transformation is apparently a logical consequence of the desire of creating a society based on that ideology. Nevertheless, ideology always losses some of its essential features while passing through the process of such transformation. This has happened with Islam also when it was gradually relegated to background by the state which became its own objective. Secondly, the abstract ideology itself cannot guarantee the ‘progress’ of a people unless it creates a culture through knowledge. Like the modern Western culture, the medieval Muslim culture was based on sciences developed by the Muslims after their mastery over most of the Hellenic, Persian and Indian scientific heritage, without any hindrance from Islamic faith.

However, with the degeneration of state from a culture-promoting agency into a self-perpetuating system, knowledge lost its predominant status in culture. Muslim state after detaching itself from Islamic faith and science set in motion the process of decay of society. For its survival, it had to seek alternate sources of power which were available in the form of army and religious elite, the ‘ulamã—a product of the age of decay. While the army protected the existing power-structure, the ❛ulamã, as the custodians (and not creators) of theological (and not all) sciences, preferred either to support it or remain indifferent, ostensibly to arrest the process of political disintegration. However, the transformation of Islam into an empire and, on the other hand, knowledge losing its culture-building role, did not mean the death of Islam, as such. It remained at the center of Muslim consciousness giving rise to various philosophical, legal mystic and theological trends paving the way for the future divisions of Muslims into different sects, mystic orders and schools of law. From about the 8th century of its inception, Islam, the means of acquiring knowledge of life, had itself become the object of knowledge – pure theology. This theology, moreover, was stagnant and not creative.

Thus at the advent of modern age, it was a politically weakened and intellectually dormant Muslim society which suddenly found itself face to face with a mighty West with its power-generating scientific brilliance. It was not the familiar Crusadic confrontation between Christianity and Islam; it was now knowledge versus ignorance. The question was how to deal with this new challenge. The theologians could not come to the rescue. A different kind of guidance was required and it emerged. Muslim societies of 18th and 19th centuries responded to this new situation with a new intellectual leadership which studied it with admirable clarity. It found that in the changed context Islam has to be understood not merely as theology but more as a working political, economic and social system. This had to be done with reference to the new values of human society and culture emerging out of the tremendous expansion of knowledge in Europe. To perform this task they had first to question the total authority of the medieval theological system over knowledge. The basic features of the new Muslim response, thus, were liberation from the traditional theological totalitarianism and Islamic reconstruction of society in the changed intellectual and cultural context. This response however, did not represent the Muslim consensus but a minority of Muslim thinkers while the majority consisting of the ❛ulamã resolutely resisted any shift from what they considered to be the authentic traditional theological positions. To such minority belongs Jamãl al-Di̅n al-Afghãni̅.

Afghãni̅ (1838-39 –1897) is unique among the Muslim thinkers of the modern age who continues to serve as a source of inspiration for Muslim intellectuals, both conservative and modern, as well as the Muslim political elite of present day, in general. Intellectuals of modern sensibility like Iqbal find in his thought a framework for the reconstruction of religious thought in Islam. In recent history, the hopes of Muslim political and religious elite and their struggle for establishing an Islamic democratic political system and bringing Muslim countries together can be traced back to Afghãni’s movements of constitutionalism and Vaḥdat al-Islãmiyah.

This sustained relevance of his thought is perhaps due to his deep insight into the future (which is our present) and, secondly, Muslim societies have not changed in essence since his times. During the later half of the 19th century he saw that the nations of the East in general and the Muslims in particular were at the verge of losing their political and cultural identities under the thrust of western imperialism and because of their inability to deal with the inroads the western culture (based on modern sciences) was making into their stagnant societies. Afghãni was perhaps the first Asian to identify these two elements of the west threatening the very survival of the East. This diagnosis, however, didn’t imply outright rejection of both. He was shrewd enough to see the relationship between the two. The rich culture and political strength of the West were essentially the product of modern knowledge. Therefore, Muslim societies had to react to these two in different ways. The task before them was two-fold—to survive against the immediate threat of imperialism and to re-emerge gradually as a powerful culture. On the political plan, Afghãni suggested unity of Muslim states (described by the western political analysts as aggressive pan-Islam which it was not) and political modernization as a means to face the designs of western imperialism. On the intellectual plane he emphasized the need to fill the gap between the medieval Muslim and modern western knowledge. However, in view of the immediate threats of European powers and of Russia he was forced to take up the political task first which turned out to remain as his main pre-occupation till his last moments.

Compared with the wide range of Afghãni’s vision, the understanding and response of the conservative and enlightened Muslim elite of his period exhibited no insight into the real nature and proportions of the problems. There was no intellectual in the Muslim world equal to the task of meeting the emerging complex challenges except Sir Syed Aḥmad khãn, Amir ‘Ali and Cirãgh ‘Ali of India. For any guidance the Muslim masses had to look up to the religious elite which could do nothing except to fall back upon the traditional theology and reassert its known positions. Against western imperialism, the ❛ulamã in different countries reacted in different ways; while the Indian ❛ulamã resisted British takeover of India (Tãḥ~rik-i Mujãhidi̅n), those in Turkey and Iran didn’t appear to be much concerned with the external potential dangers. With regard to political modernization within, the Indian ❛ulamã were understandably
indifferent. The Iranian ❛ulamã however, were fully alive to and opposed the unpatriotic moves by Nãṣi̅ruddi̅n Shãh of granting concessions to foreigners for the establishment of banks, building railways and telegraph lines, etc. The Turkish ❛ulamã did not show any opposition to the Sultan/Caliph ‘Abdul ḥami̅d II whose dictatorial regime had, in any case, suppressed all freedom. Notwithstanding their differences in political policies, all the ❛ulamã, with negligible exceptions, were one in rejecting the western sciences and education as harmful on religious grounds.

Among the Muslim modernists, none appeared to be thinking on the lines of Afghãni’s three point program of (i) defence against western imperialism through Muslim unity (ii) internal political modernization through establishment of constitutional governments, and (iii) religio-intellectual modernization. Only the Young Turks seem to be working, independent of Afghãni’s influence, for political intellectual modernization. Among his contemporaries it is only Sir Syed who could match the daring ingenuity of Afghãni. Compared with that of Sir Syed, Afghani’s thought was more wide ranging. Sir Syed, after experiencing a bitter counter-attack from the conservatives against his overzealous adventure into rationalization of Islamic metaphysics, confined himself to socio-economic rehabilitation of Indian Muslims as his ultimate objective (a reasonable requirement in the given situation). Afghãni, however, aimed at laying the foundations of an altogether new structure of Muslim society infused with the spirit of philosophy and science through concrete political measures. Although they differed in their objectives, they agreed on the basic defect of Muslim societies – intellectual stagnation. The success and failure of the two varied in nature and extent. Sir Syed failed in his attempt of religious modernization to a large extent but succeeded in leading the Indian Muslims in the direction of accommodation with social and economic changes through political cooperation with the Indian British government and popularization of modern education. Afghãni, on the other hand, failed in achieving concrete results during his lifetime in the political sphere but was successful posthumously in establishing the anti-imperialist constitutional movements and the religio-intellectual modernization trends in the Muslim world of the 20th century. In both the cases the decisive factor underlying success or failure was acceptance or rejection of compromise with the authority—- political or ideological. Sir Syed’s partial success in the educational and socio-political spheres was due to his compromise with the British and his failure in religious modernism lies in his refusal to surrender his right of independent investigation in to Islamic theology. Afghãni’s failure in gaining concrete result was due to his total rejection of any compromise either with imperialism and despotism or conservatism. Nevertheless, both continue to serve as relevant frames of reference for Muslims in various regions of the world.

Afghãni’s views with their focus on almost all vital issues of change attract greater attention.
Afghãni, indeed, serves as a model Muslim intellectual for the study of Muslim response to change. He has been studied by the western analysts primarily as a political agitator. For the Muslims, he was much more than that. No systematic study of his intellectual personality has yet been attempted, firstly because unlike that of his contemporaries his written contribution in quantity is less and, secondly, his aggressive Islamic political campaigns have overshadowed his more enduring aspects of thought. In fact, his writings and the views recorded by his disciples and companion contain rich data which not only gives an insight into his political campaigns, but, what is more important, also provide the broad intellectual framework which he offered for the urgently needed redefining of the relationship between Islam and the changing world.
The present work is an attempt to reconstruct the framework.