The Ottoman Empire: a Historical Encyclopedia [2 Volumes]

by Kia, Mehrdad;

  During his tenure at al-Azhar he tried to introduce significant reforms into the curriculum of the ancient and prestigious university. His efforts were opposed by the conservative ulema, who viewed Abduh’s reforms as a direct threat to their interpretation of Islamic law. Abduh’s advocacy of legal and educational reforms and his support for cooperation with British authorities gained him not only the support of Lord Cromer, the British Resident in Egypt, but also the opposition of Abbas Hilmi, the ruling khedive, and Mustafa Kāmil the leader of the nationalist movement. Abduh died on July 11, 1905, near Alexandria.

  In addition to the articles he wrote for al-Urwat al-wuthqa in Paris, Abduh composed a treatise on monotheism or the oneness of god (tawhid), titled Risalat at-tawhid. In this work Abduh argued that Islam was superior to Christianity because it was compatible with rational and scientific thought, and it had always remained open and receptive to change and progress. Throughout his career as a scholar, author, and jurist, Abduh rejected blind obedience and acceptance of traditional beliefs, practices, and doctrines. He advocated the creation of a new and reformed educational system, which included the study of modern sciences. He also called for a return to the original teachings of Islam as a means of reviving the true spirit of a religion that stood for progress and civilization. For Abduh, the teachings of Islam demonstrated the harmony of divine revelation with reason.

  See also: Rebels: Afghani, Jamal al-Din; Sultans: Abdülhamid II

  Further Reading

  Browne, Edward G. The Persian Revolution. London: Frank Cass, 1966.

  Hourani, Albert. Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age: 1798–1939. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1983.

  Keddie, Nikki R. An Islamic response to Imperialism: Political and Religious Writings of Sayyid Jamal ad-Din “al-Afghani”. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1983.

  Kedourie, Elie. Afghani and ‘Abduh: An Essay on Religious Unbelief and Political Activism in Modern Islam. London: Routledge, 1966.

  Kerr, Malcolm H. Islamic Reform: The Political and Legal Theories of Muhammad Abduh and Rashid Rida. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1966.

  Masters, Bruce. “Abduh, Muhammad.” In Encyclopedia of the Ottoman Empire, edited by Gábor Ágoston and Bruce Masters, 4–5. New York: Facts On File, 2009.

  Sedgwick, Mark. Muhammad Abduh. Makers of the Muslim World. London: Oneworld Publications, 2009.

  Afghani (Assadabadi), Jamal al-Din (1838/1839–1897)

  Iranian-born orator, journalist, author, and political activist, who advocated a reformation in Islam, as well as Pan-Islamism or the unity of all Muslims against European colonial aggression. He is generally regarded as one of the most influential Muslim intellectuals of the 19th century.

  Afghani was born in the village of Assadabad near Hamadan in western Iran in 1838 or 1839. Little is known about his childhood. He was educated first at home under the guidance and supervision of his father, Sayyid Safdar. His early education included the traditional Islamic sciences, including Arabic and Persian grammar, philology, and rhetoric, as well as logic, philosophy, and mathematics (Browne: 4–5). Later in life Afghani claimed that at the age of 18, he had visited India, where he had studied “European sciences” (Browne: 5). It was in India that he first encountered British colonial rule.

  The Iranian-born thinker and revolutionary intellectual, Jamal al-Din Afghani, was a tireless advocate of Islamic unity (Pan-Islamism). Afghani believed that regardless of ethnic, linguistic, cultural, and sectarian differences, Muslims had no other choice but to unify against the common threat posed by European colonial encroachment. (Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images)

  In 1857 Afghani performed the hajj, the pilgrimage to the holy city of Mecca. From Mecca he traveled to Afghanistan, where he spent the next 12 years of his life. In Afghanistan he first entered the service of the reigning amir (emir), Dost Mohammad Khan. After the death of Dost Mohammad Khan, civil war ensued among his sons. Afghani attached himself to Amir A’zam Khan, one of the pretenders to the throne who was fighting Shir Ali Khan. Shir Ali Khan, who received considerable financial support from the British, managed to defeat A’zam Khan. A’zam Khan fled to Iran, where he died a short time later. The victory of Shir Ali Khan over his brothers and his rise to power as the new ruler of Afghanistan forced Afghani to leave Afghanistan for India in 1869. Throughout his life Afghani concealed his Iranian and Shia identity, claiming that he was a Sunni Muslim from Afghanistan. He was well aware that if his true identity were revealed he would have little impact on his Sunni Indian, Arab, or Turkish audiences, who suspected the Shia Iranians of holding heretical views on Islam.

  From India Afghani traveled to Cairo. During his short stay in the Egyptian capital, Afghani visited the al-Azhar University and delivered several lectures to small groups of teachers and students. After 40 days in Cairo Afghani went to Istanbul, where he was received by the grand vizier, Āli Pasha. Āli Pasha was one of the principal architects of the governmental reforms known as Tanzimat (reorganization) (Browne: 6). Six months after he had arrived in the Ottoman capital, Afghani was invited to join the Ottoman Academy (Anjuman-i Dānish). He also was invited by the director of Darülfünun (the House of Practical Sciences/the university) to present a lecture to a large audience of students and teachers. Afghani used this occasion to make a presentation on philosophy and prophecy. In his lecture Afghani described prophecy as a craft. The presentation caused controversy. The ulema of Istanbul, led by the șeyhülislam, Hassan Fehmi Efendi, denounced Afghani and demanded the dismissal of the director of Darülfünun, Tahsin Efendi. The commotion caused by Afghani’s presentation forced the Ottoman authorities to expel Afghani from Istanbul.

  Afghani returned to Cairo in March 1871. He lived and taught in Cairo from 1871 to 1879. Through his lectures on mysticism, Islamic history, philosophy, and jurisprudence, Afghani attracted a large following among young Egyptians hungry for new ideas. During his stay in Cairo Afghani met Muhammad Abduh, who emerged many years later as one of the most influential leaders of the modernist movement in Islam and became Afghani’s most faithful and influential disciple and collaborator. Afghani’s lectures alarmed the British officials in Egypt, who convinced the Egyptian authorities to expel him from the country.

  Once again the nomadic intellectual was forced to move and choose a different country as his new home. In September 1879 Afghani departed from Egypt for India and took up residence in Hyderabad. In 1882, before the commencement of armed conflict in Egypt between the British and the nationalist movement led by Urabi Pasha, the Indian government detained Afghani and held him in custody until Urabi Pasha and his supporters were defeated. After he was released from detention, Afghani was allowed to leave India for England. He visited London for a few days before leaving for France, where he lived for the next three years (Browne: 8).

  In Paris Afghani was joined by his Egyptian disciple, Sheikh Muhammad Abduh. During their stay in Paris Afghani and Abduh published a newspaper called al-Urwat ul-Wuthqa (The unbroken chain), which also carried the French title Le Lien Indissoluble (Browne: 9). While in Paris Afghani engaged the French intellectual Ernst Renan in a debate about the compatibility of Islam with science, arguing that in sharp contrast to Judaism and Christianity, which were hostile to scientific thought, Islam was a religion that was compatible with rationalism, scientific thinking, and progress. In 1885 Afghani traveled to London. During his stay in England he spoke to a number of British politicians.

  In 1885 and again in 1889, Afghani visited Russia. In 1886, after receiving an invitation from the Iranian monarch, Nasser al-Din Shah Qajar (r. 1848–1896), he traveled to Tehran. During this visit he met the shah and his prime minister, as well as a number of Iranian princes and notables, including the shah’s oldest son, Zill al-Sultan, who served his father as the governor of Isfahan. In 1889 Afghani returned to Iran, where he gave sermons advocating reform and Islamic unity in the face of European aggression and expansionism. His l
ectures aroused the anger and suspicion of Nasser al-Din Shah and his officials. When his request to leave Iran was denied by the Iranian authorities, Afghani sought refuge in the shrine of Abdul Azim in the southern part of Tehran. From there, his criticism of the Iranian monarchy assumed a harsher tone as he began to focus his attacks on the shah himself. When his popularity spread and his supporters grew in number, the Iranian government decided to deport Afghani, in 1890. The deportation order was carried out in the most humiliating fashion. In violation of the sanctity of the sanctuary where he had sought refuge, Afghani was dragged out of the shrine and in the middle of a cold winter escorted to the Ottoman-Iranian frontier. Afghani and his Iranian disciples never forgave the shah for the humiliation and indignity the revolutionary orator had suffered.

  From Iran Afghani traveled to London. While in London he delivered several lectures denouncing the shah as a brutal tyrant. He also collaborated with Mirza Malkam Khan, the Iranian-Armenian publisher of the Persian language newspaper Qānun (The law). Malkam was the former Iranian ambassador to London, who had been transformed into an antigovernment dissident after he was dismissed from his post by the shah and his prime minister, Mirza Ali Asghar Khan Amin al-Sultan.

  In 1892 Afghani was invited by the Ottoman sultan Abdülhamid II (r. 1876–1909) to visit Istanbul. Abdülhamid intended to use Pan-Islamism, or the unity of all Muslims under one religious and spiritual leader, as a means of enhancing his power and prestige among the Muslims of the world, particularly those who lived under Russian, British, and French colonial rule. Pan-Islamism also could counter the Russian promotion of Pan-Slavism (the unity of Slavic people under the leadership of Russia), while at the same time reminding the Russians, the British, and the French that their Muslim subjects viewed the Ottoman sultan as their religious and spiritual leader.

  After his arrival in Istanbul Afghani joined a group of Iranian dissidents who advocated Pan-Islamism (Islamic unity) under the leadership of Abdülhamid II as the caliph, or the religious and spiritual head of the world’s Muslim community. Members of this group sent letters to the leaders of the Shia community, including the Shia ulema residing in southern Iraq, demanding that they set aside their doctrinal conflict with the main line Sunnis and throw their support behind the Ottoman sultan. The activities of this group caused serious tension between the Ottoman and Iranian governments. The Iranian monarch Nasser al-Din Shah viewed Afghani and his Iranian collaborators as subversives who were plotting to destabilize the Qajar monarchy in Iran.

  In January 1895 Mirza Reza Kermani, an Iranian petty merchant who had been jailed and tortured in Iran for his antigovernment activities, arrived in Istanbul. Mirza Reza was a disciple of Afghani who had protested the mistreatment of the fiery orator by Iranian authorities in 1890. During his imprisonment, Kermani lost his family and business. A broken man, Mirza Reza left Iran after he was released from prison. When he arrived in Istanbul, Afghani arranged for his hospitalization, which helped the Iranian dissident recover from the injuries he had sustained during his imprisonment in Iran. According to Mirza Reza’s confessions to his Iranian interrogator, it was in a meeting with Afghani after his release from the hospital that the two men discussed the assassination of Nasser al-Din Shah, the ruler of Iran. Shortly after this meeting, Mirza Reza returned to Iran, and a short time later, on May 1, 1896, he assassinated Nasser al-Din Shah as the Iranian monarch visited the shrine of Shah Abdol Azim in the southern part of Tehran.

  The assassination of Nasser al-Din Shah caused a major diplomatic crisis between the Ottoman Empire and Iran. Iranian authorities demanded the extradition of Afghani and his Iranian colleagues. In response, the Ottoman government handed three Iranian dissidents who had collaborated with Afghani to Iranian authorities. The Iranian crown prince, Mohammad Ali Mirza, who served as the governor of Azerbaijan, ordered the execution of the Iranian dissidents. Ironically, the three individuals, the author and journalist Mirza Aqa Khan Kermani; Kermani’s friend and colleague, Sheikh Ahmad Ruhi; and their friend, Mirza Hassan Khabir al-Molk, had not played any role in planning and carrying out the murder of Nasser al-Din Shah. The Ottoman government refused, however, to hand Afghani over to Iranian authorities. In March 1897 the Ottomans informed the Iranian government that Afghani had died from a cancer that had spread from his jaw to the rest of his body. A number of Iranian historians have maintained that Afghani did not die from an aggressive cancer, but rather was murdered on the orders of the Ottoman sultan, who feared the outspoken critic and fiery revolutionary. There is no evidence to validate this theory.

  Afghani’s body was buried in Istanbul. In 1944 Turkish authorities, assuming mistakenly that Afghani had been born in Afghanistan, transferred what they claimed to be Afghani’s remains to the Afghan government. After the transfer of the body to Kabul, the Afghan government erected a mausoleum in honor of the Iranian intellectual, agitator, and activist, whose true identity and career remained a mystery for decades after his death.

  See also: Rebels: Abduh, Muhammad; Sultans: Abdülhamid II

  Further Reading

  Browne, Edward G. The Persian Revolution. London: Frank Cass, 1966.

  Hourani, Albert. Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age: 1798–1939. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1983.

  Keddie, Nikki R. An Islamic Response to Imperialism: Political and Religious Writings of Sayyid Jamal ad-Din “al-Afghani”. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1983.

  Keddie, Nikki R. Sayyid Jamal ad-Din al-Afghani. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1968.

  Kedourie, Elie. Afghani and ‘Abduh: An Essay on Religious Unbelief and Political Activism in Modern Islam. London: Routledge, 1966.

  Kia, Mehrdad. “Pan-Islamism in Nineteenth-Century Iran.” Middle Eastern Studies 32, no. 1 (January 1996): 30–52.

  Sedgwick, Mark. Muhammad Abduh. Makers of the Muslim World. London: Oneworld Publications, 2009.

  Ahmed Riza (1859–1930)

  A leader of the Young Turk movement and the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), which staged a revolution against the autocratic rule of the Ottoman sultan Abdülhamid II (r. 1876–1909) in 1908. Ahmed Riza was a proponent of positivism and Turkish nationalism.

  Ahmed Riza was born in Istanbul in 1859. He attended school in the Ottoman capital before leaving for France to study agricultural sciences. During his stay in France Ahmed Riza became a proponent of positivism as articulated by the French philosopher Auguste Comte. He also developed a strong opposition to colonialism and a firm belief in the power of education to transform Ottoman society. After returning home he worked for a time as an education administrator in Bursa. In 1889 Ahmed Riza resigned from his governmental post and went to Paris, where he soon emerged as one of the leaders of the Young Turk movement. In 1895 Ahmed Riza published the newspaper Meșveret (Meshveret) (Consultation). In his writings Ahmed Riza expressed a strong opposition to Prince Sabaheddin and his supporters, who had called for European intervention as a means of democratizing the Ottoman political system. Ahmed Riza also believed that instead of being viewed strictly as a religion, Islam had to be utilized as an ideological means of generating and strengthening a new sense of national identity and pride. Ahmed Riza dismissed revolutionary and violent transformation and emphasized the need for slow and measured political, social, economic, and educational change.

  As one of the most influential leaders of the Committee of Union and Progress in exile, Ahmed Riza emerged as the president of the Chamber of Deputies after the victory of the Young Turk revolution in 1908. (Garnett, Lucy Mary Jane. Turkey of the Ottomans, 1915)

  After the victory of the Young Turks’ revolution in 1908, Ahmed Riza was elected speaker of the newly established Chamber of Deputies, the lower house of the Ottoman Parliament. He soon found himself in opposition to the authoritarian tendencies of the Committee of Union and Progress and was expelled from the CUP’s central committee. In 1912 he was elected the president of the Senate, the upper house of the Ottoman Parliamen
t.

  During the war of independence Ahmed Riza maintained a close relationship with Mustafa Kemal and the nationalist movement. He traveled to Europe to publicize the Turkish nationalist cause. After the establishment of the Republic of Turkey, Ahmed Riza retired from public life. He died in Istanbul in 1930.

  See also: Rebels: Young Turks

  Further Reading

  Ahmad, Feroz. The Young Turks: The Committee of Union and Progress in Turkish Politics. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969.

  Hanioglu, M. Şükrü. Preparation for a Revolution: The Young Turks, 1902–1908. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001.

  Hanioglu, M. Şükrü. The Young Turks in Opposition. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995.

  Hanioglu, Şükrü. A Brief History of the Late Ottoman Empire. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2010.

  Ramsaur, Ernest. The Young Turks: Prelude to the Revolution of 1908. New York: Russell & Russell, 1957.

  Shaw, Stanford J. History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey. 2 vols. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1976.

  Somel, Selçuk Akşin. Historical Dictionary of the Ottoman Empire. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2003.

  Zürcher, Erik-Jan. Turkey: A Modern History. London: I. B. Tauris, 2004.