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Intel - Terrorism
Jamal al-Din al-Afghani

"In God we trust.
All others we monitor."

• Accounts of his life are highly contradictory, perhaps reflecting a deliberate program of deception by al-Afghani himself. What is certain is his lifespan, which is from 1838-1897. Much of his formative years seem to be very unreliable, so it is not detailed in the present report.

• In the case of al-Afghani, the Ottoman Empire had yet fall. What al-Afghani was probably reacting to, and trying to change, was the decline of the Ottoman Empire. Famously called the "sick man of Europe" the power and influence of the Ottoman Empire was easily overshadowed by his lifetime. The Ottoman Empire: Was it the Sick Man of Europe? The British Empire was in great expansion under Queen Victoria, the scientific and industrial revolution was in full swing, and Africa was being partitioned by the European powers.

• As early as the writings of the nineteenth-century Islamic revivalist Afghani we encounter allusions to the notion of "raf' rayat al-sulta/supremacy" and "ghalab/dominance" as the basic features of Islam.
  [source: Challenge of Fundamentalism, p. 92]

• A central theme in al-Afghani's works is the principal of Muslim supremacy. For al-Afghani, Islam is the most perfect expression of the world of God, and all other religions are inherently inferior by comparison. The problem, for al-Afghani, is that the Ummah (the worldwide Muslim community) has lost sight of the importance of Muslim supremacy.

• And indeed, the intellectual father of Islamic revivalism, al-Afghani, calls for the restoration of Islamic dominance and the return of Islam to what it has been deprived of by the West. "We have turned to imitate the European nations and thus ... to accept our subordination to their rule. In doing so we have given up the major character of Islam, which lies in rule (sulta) and dominance (ghalab). Instead we have become lazy peoples accommodating ourselves to the dominance of others.
  [source: Challenge of Fundamentalism, p. 28]

• The solution, for al-Afghani, is Muslim dominance over others, since "We have turned to imitate the European nations and thus ...In doing so we have given up the major character of Islam, which lies in rule (sulta) and dominance (ghalab). Instead we have become lazy peoples accommodating ourselves to the dominance of others."

• The editor of Afghani's works, the American Nikki Keddie, points out that many topical themes of the contemporary revival of political Islam go back to Afghani because of "his stress on Islam as a force to ward off the West and to strengthen Muslim peoples through unity.
  [source: Challenge of Fundamentalism, p. 92]

• By locating al-Afghani's lifetime against his historical backdrop, we can better understand the sense of urgency and concern of being "left behind" on the road to progress. al-Afghani's proposed solution to rescue Islam and the Caliphate from the threat of extinction is for Muslims to pursue a rational, scientific form of Islam.
• al-Afghani had a disdain for the ruling establishment's understanding of Islam, as he saw it under a state of collapse everywhere. His solution, interestingly enough, is for Muslims to embrace modernity, and not retreat into madrassas as an excuse for inaction.

• al-Afghani fondly quotes the Qur'an, sura 13:11 "Surely Allah changes not the condition of a people, until they change their own condition". al-Afghani makes a similar point when he states that religious reform alone will never make Egypt into an industrial nation that will rival European nations.