One Problem, Two Solutions: Syed Jamal Uddin Afghani or Sir Syed Ahmed Khan - II
By Mohammad Ashraf Chaudhry
Pittsburg , CA
If Sir Syed was like, shabnum, the dew drops; Afghani was an Atishfisha, a volcano. He can be likened in leadership to a fox, or at best, to a Tolstoy type, a hedgehog in the garb of a fox.
Basically he was a revolutionary thinker and philosopher, a Goethe, a curious person. Though junior to Sir Syed by twenty years, most people often still term him as the founder of Islamic Renaissance. He offered to the Muslims the same solution that Sir Syed had offered: the acquisition of modern sciences. For Muslims, it is not a matter of choice, but an obligation.
If Sir Syed was like an open book, Afghani was more like a mythical character. He was diffused, scattered, frittered, and centrifugal. Sir Syed was local because his domain was the Indian Muslims; Afghani, on the contrary, was global because he targeted the entire Muslim world.
If Sir Syed wanted to restore the Muslim Umma’s lost honor and self-confidence through alliance with the colonial powers, urging them to see opportunity in adversity; Afghani was for a total defiance. He wanted all the Muslim countries to join hands in unity against the British colonialism. He did not want them to form one Islamic government, or have one khalifa. In other words, Afghani envisioned a sort of an OIC, an Arab League, or UNO in the 19 th century. He was global in that sense.
He always saw himself as a proto-type of such luminaries as Imam Ghazali and Ibn Khaldun, a kind of Martin Luther of Islam. He was born in Khurasan, but he preferred himself to be addressed as Afghani, some say, just to hide his Shia denomination, and some say, he did so just to have more acceptability in the Sunni majority Muslims.
As said earlier, a great leader should not spend all his time and energy just to motivate people, just to raise the dust. Unfortunately Afghani did that. He had amazing competence to inspire and persuade people. Somehow, his vision could not save Muslims from getting de-motivated. It often became a liability. In all the more than seven countries ( Iran, India, Afghanistan, Turkey, Egypt, England and France) where he lived, he was either forced to leave or he felt constrained to move. Wherever he went, he electrified people. Was he a trouble-monger? Basically, he was too hot to be handled. Allama Iqbal called him the modern day Mujaddid. After Shah Wali Ullah, Afghani can rightfully be hailed as the first genuine, serious modern Muslim thinker.
Through his lectures and letters, he preached that the teachings of Islam and of Science were quite compatible, and were not opposed to each other. Logically, he proved, especially on the West, and on the French secularist, E Renan (who contended that Islam was anti-logic), that since science was a form of knowledge, therefore, its acquisition for Muslims was a religious obligation. Science in itself was not bad; its application could be. Science was a Muslim legacy; it had been invented by them. It transferred from them to the West. Therefore, taking it back was their legitimate right.
He also forwarded an interesting logic. The presence of spirituality in man was instrumental in goading him to rise above the baser animalistic feelings, and to think righteously and to do good acts. Secondly, love for one’s own religion was good, because a sincere votary of it would always feel the urge, not to hate other religions, but to learn more about them. The modern term, pluralism, owes its genesis to Afghani. Third, Afghani highlighted the point that truthfulness, honesty and modesty are the three sterling virtues that religion promotes, and all those nations that practiced them and applied them, prospered. The Greeks fell to the Romans and the Romans fell to the Arabs and the Arabs fell to the colonial powers only when they abandoned these virtues and became materialistic and greedy.
Afghani first time explained the overwhelming presence of humanism in Islam on the West. He had no problem with Darwin other than that Darwin did not believe in God. Many of his predictions came true. Once he said that quest for knowledge could take man to the Moon.
But, some of his political theories and the suggested course of action which Muslims should adopt carried more attraction for the revolutionary-minded people, irrespective of the circumstances, than the cool-headed statesmen. Though Afghani may not have intended so, but somehow religion and politics made a dangerous mix in later years. He preferred political power with a view to implementing Islamic ideologies. Even Iqbal admitted in one of his lectures that Afghani frittered away his energies on so many things. Had he not done so, he would have ideally succeeded in removing the ‘intellectual bewilderment’ which exists in the Muslim world due to the Western ascendancy in materialism on one hand, and the spiritual values of Islam on the other hand.
Afghani dedicated himself to the breaking of the British hold over the East and for this he was willing to make any compromises, even with secular Russia and Protestant Germany and France. Recent history of this mode of thinking, especially as events happened in Afghanistan after the Russian invasion, and after the subsequent involvement of another Super power in the region, tells us how wrong such thinking could be. Religion must emerge from within, it cannot be stuffed down the throat forcefully. People begin to vomit, and they are doing so in that region.
Political power via religion sets a dangerous trend. Even his own disciple and a great scholar of Islam, Muhammad Abduh did not fully endorse his views. Afghani, no doubt, gave a powerful call for the reinterpretation of Islam in order to make it compatible with the requirements of the Twentieth Century, but his political activities shut him out to other avenues where he could have been more effective. He unlike Sir Syed did not leave behind any durable institution. Even in personal life, he had been more or less like a nomad.
Unfortunately, his revolutionary stance, carried great attraction for the religious fanatics. Today, many accuse him of fathering all the religious movements that seek political power by using religion. Even in religion, many of Afghani’s interpretations and conclusions are strange and unconvincing. For example, he spent ten years of his life in doing research on the role of women in politics. He called it a sign of bad-omen, a Nahusat.
“Al-Afghani is convinced that if Aisha had not intervened in the public affairs of the Muslim state, Muslim history would have taken the path of peace, progress, and prosperity”… according to him, Allah wanted to use the experience of Aisha to teach the Muslims a lesson; “It seems that Allah created women to reproduce the race, bring up future generations, and be in charge of households; He wanted to teach us a practical lesson that we cannot forget”. He spent ten years of his life to write a book on “Aisha and Politics”. Keep women out of politics, women and politics are a combination of ill omen… Aisha proves that woman was not created for poking her nose into politics”. Quotes Fatima Mernissi in her book, “The Veil and the Male Elite”. How can anybody in the right state of mind ignore the role of women in Islam? Why did he remain silent on the role of the first lady of Islam, a working, business CEO, Hazrat Khatija?
His criticism of Sir Syed is also uncalled for. He accuses him as a Mulhid, materialistic; naturalist, an atheist and even an enemy of Islam and a traitor, a shame of Muslims.
In many matters and views he is self-contradictory. It is true, Afghani was not a traditional religious preacher. In fact, he often appears to be fed up with religion. He wanted modernism in Islamic countries, but at his own terms. He also did not approve of coercion in religion and politics, but his teachings have taken people in that direction. But the 110 years history after the deaths of Sir Syed Khan and Afghani abundantly makes it clear who of the two was right and who was wrong; who produced far-reaching positive effects on Muslims; and who impacted them negatively. Muhammad Abduh of Egypt and Sir Syed Ahmed Khan of India are closer to each other than Jamal uddin Afghani and Sir Syed were. The current fight between the religious extremists and the moderates goes back to the legacy these two mentors handed over to the Muslims.
This speech was made by the writer on the forum of PADF on April 4, 2010 at the Chadni Restaurant in Fremont, in its fourth literary function presided over by Dr. Agha Saeed. One senior member from the audience left in disgust, accusing Sir Syed of approving the use of knife and fork while eating and allowing urination while standing. Even after 113 years after the death of Sir Syed Ahmed, Muslims in India are worse off today than they are anywhere. According to Dr. Pervez Ahmed of North Florida University, “Muslims in India are less educated, poorer and more often unemployed than Hindus”. Their illiteracy rate is 30%, compared to Hindus’ 19%; their GDP income is $109 compared to Hindus’ $461. Muslims’ representation in religio-centric governments, like Gujarat and West Bengal in state public sector, is zero percent. Less than 4% of Muslims graduate from school; one in 25 undergraduate students and one in 50 post-graduate students in premier university and colleges are Muslims.
Muslims make 14% of India’s population, but their share in government employment is only 4.9% and in India’s security agencies, it is even further lower, 3.2%; just one percent Indian Muslims own hand pumps for irrigation; The only place where they outnumber the majority Hindus’, is the jail (much like the African Americans in America). Dr. Pervez is saying the same thing which Sir Syed Ahmed Khan said 135 years ago: “convert today’s challenges into tomorrow’s opportunities”, through education. Who cares whether you eat with a fork or with your fingers!.
During the construction of our Islamic Center of which I am the founding President, quite a few brothers insisted on exploiting the possibility of installing some Indian type toilets, which according to them are more Islamic. They also wished the presence of some sod-pieces, to serve as Watwanis. Quite a few still believe that the whole Jumma Prayer gets destroyed if the Imam makes a little deviation in the delivery of his Arabic Khutba. English words in it, in their opinion, are a blasphemy. Making a formal Dua after the prayers in poetical Arabic phrases is a part of the prayers.
We may continue doing so for another millennium. The fact of the matter is that those who release themselves by standing, or who use forks and knives in eating are still the dominant people; their superior knowledge had put them in that position some five hundreds ago. And those who like al-Afghani are fighting for the supremacy of Islam by using religion for political empowerment are still living in the medieval times, or are fighting in the caves. In anger, they are targeting the schools first. Basically, they are promoting the rule of ignorance and Jahalia as a way of Islam. They still have not grasped the meanings of what knowledge, and what a tremendous source of power it is; what true Islam is? After all, We the Muslims are not more sensitive in matters of honor than the Japanese, the Germans, and the Vietnamese. They succumbed to the European powers, but they staged a comeback through knowledge. The Chinese offer another example; and so does India. The buzarg (senior citizen) who had left in disgust felt further disgusted when I asked him, “Have you never used a fork or spoon in your life?”. I was not angry; I was just sad.
