The Life and Thought of Seyyed Jamal-ed-Din Assadabadi

معرفی کتاب

Seyyed Jamal -ed-Din Assadabadi, entitled al-Afghani, is considered to be the founding father of the Islamic revival movement. Although there is no agreement on the place in which he was born, his style of life shows that he was a cosmopolitan of the great Islamic Ummah, living throughout the Islamic territory. Seyyed Jamal is especially famous for his endeavours in the so-called Islamic “awakening” movement, the effort followed by other Islamic activists throughout the 19th and 20th century for whom he was the divining leader.

What motivated Seyyed Jamal to contemplate the dramatic situation the Muslims encountered was the backwardness of the Muslim world in comparison to the development western countries had been experiencing at that time. In Seyyed Jamal’s thought there were two eminent factors which caused that catastrophic situation: internal tyranny and western imperialism; while what had plagued Muslims was their forgetfulness of the Islamic thought expressed in the Holy Quran.

Thus, he focused his efforts on restoring Islamic law to its original status in society, while also considering the rewarding elements of western modernity. His adventurous life was devoted to making Muslim governors aware of the potentialities for development and social flourishing innate in the Holy Quran.

Despite a lack of success in his attempt to convince Islamic leaders to follow the Quranic teachings, Seyyed Jamal’s heritage inspired many Islamic movements against imperialism and dictatorship in the Islamic world in the 20th century; this attempt has not yet ceased.

The present volume is intended to be a brief introduction to Seyyed Jamal’s life and thought. Presenting theoretical debates on Seyyed Jamal’s ideas in the first part, it is followed with a short historical report of his political activities in almost all the great states in the Islamic world. Having expanded its activities beyond Iran and into the international intellectual sphere, the Institute for Social and Cultural Studies (ISCS) is honored to publish this volume which may be helpful to scholars and students to have an original account of Seyyed Jamal’s life and ideas.