Sayed Jamaluddin Afghani

Sayed Jamaluddin al-Afghani was born in 1838 in Asadabad, Kunar province. A charismatic intellectual and orator of fiery brilliance, he dedicated his globe-trotting life to awakening the Islamic world from colonial subjugation, living and organizing in India, Cairo, Tehran, Paris, London, and Istanbul.

In Paris in 1884, alongside his disciple Muhammad Abduh, Afghani founded the revolutionary journal Al-Urwah al-Wuthqa (The Firmest Bond), advocating the synthesis of Islamic principles with modern science and democratic constitutionalism to resist Western imperialism. In Iran, his fatwa against the British tobacco monopoly launched the 1891 Tobacco Protest. In 1944, his remains were repatriated from Istanbul to Kabul University, where a grand mausoleum honors his memory.