Afghanistan

Officially The Islamic Republic of Afghanistan , is a Landlocked and Mountainous Country south-central Asia.It is Bordered by Pakistan in the south and east,Iran inthe west.the political History of modern Afghanistan begins in the 18th century with the rise of Pashtuns, whenthe hotaki dynasty rose to power at kandahar in 1709 followed by Ahmad Shah Durranis conquest in 1747.

afghanland.com - Sayed Jamaluddin Afghan known in Arab world as (Jamal al-Din al-afghani) is considered to be the founding father of Islamic modernism. He was born in 1838 in Kunar south of Kabul Afghanistan. At the age of eighteen, he traveled to India (1855/6) to continue his studies. During his stay in India until 1882, Sayed Jamaluddin became closely acquainted with the positivistic ideas of Sayed Ahmad Khan and wrote his famous The Truth about the Neichari Sect and an Explanation of the Necharis (Hakikat-i Madhhab-i Naychari wa Bayan-i Hal-i Naychariyan), first published in 1881 in Hyderabad, in rejection of S. A. Khan and his followers. The book was later translated by Muhammad ‘Abduh into Arabic and published as The Refutation of the Materialists (al-Radd ‘ala al-dahriyyin) in Beirut, 1886.

In 1870, he traveled to Egypt and Istanbul where he received a warm welcome from Ottoman officials and intellectuals who were instrumental in the creation of the Tanzimat reforms. Sayed Jamaluddin went to Egypt for the second time and stayed there for the next eight years (1871-9) during which time he began to spread his philosophical and political ideas through his classes and public lectures.

At the beginning of 1883, Sayed Jamaluddin spent a short time in London and then went to Paris. In Paris, Sayed Jamaluddin begun to publish his famous journal al-‘Urwat al-wuthqa’ (“The Firmest Robe” – a title taken from the Qur’an) with the close collaboration of his friend and student Muhammad ‘Abduh whom he had invited from Lebanon to Paris. Due to a number of difficulties, al-‘Urwah was discontinued in September 1884 after eighteen issues. Through his essays and especially his polemic against Ernest Renan, a French historian, philosopher and positivist, Sayed Jamaluddin established considerable fame for himself in the Parisian intellectual circles.

In 1886, he was invited by Shah Nasiruddin to Iran and offered the position of special adviser to the Shah, which he accepted. Sayed Jamaluddin, however, was critical of Shah’s policies on the question of political participation. This difference of opinion forced Sayed Jamaluddin to leave Iran for Russia (1886 to 1889). In 1889 on his way to Paris, Sayed Jamaluddin met Shah Nasiruddin in Munich and was offered the position of grand vizier. But Sayed Jamaluddin’s unabated criticisms of the rule and conduct of the Shah led to his eventual deportation from Iran in the winter of 1891. Sayed Jamaluddin was later implicated in the murder of Shah Nasiruddin in 1896.