Afghani in Afghanistan

Abstract

After 27 years of a life which are almost completely without documentation, and which may have been deliberately obfuscated, one comes finally to a period where Jamal ad-Din al-Afghani's location and some of his activities can be continuously documented. Jamal ad-Din's personal notebooks put him first in Tehran for about six months beginning in December, 1865, then going for a brief stay in Mashhad, in Khorasan, and then to Afghanistan. He spends forty days in Herat beginning in October, 1866, then goes to Qandahar, and then via Ghazni to Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, where he is in close contact with the new Amir, A'zam Khan.' The partisans of the standard story might be tempted to heave a triumphal sigh-at last it seems we have some confirmation of Afghani's words. Despite the unexplained months in Iran we have, it seems, corroboration for Afghani's story of long years in Afghanistan, first in the service of Dust Muhammad Khan until he died in 1863, and then with one of the pretenders to the throne, A'zam Khan, whom he influenced in the direction of reform and modernization. (This story, which appears in almost every biography, is most easily available to English-speaking readers in Browne.la) Alas, however, it is not to be.