Abstract

This paper explores the political activism of Amir Abdurrahman Khan and Jamaluddin Afghani which reflect some of the modalities of responses to European colonial domination of Muslim countries in the nineteenth century, though many aspects of the political forces of that period exist in the contemporary Muslim world.

The Amir’s major preoccupation was to devise a strategy to maintain Afghanistan’s independence and prevent encroachments of Russia and Britain into Afghanistan. Afghani’s main concern was to propagate Pan-Islamist thought and practice as a bulwark against colonial occupation and domination of Muslim lands. Afghani, more than the Amir, has been the subject of scholarship and of orientalist vilifications. This is described and analyzed in this paper.

Bio Pervaiz Nazir teaches international relations at POLIS . His main areas of research are politics of north/south relations; political and modernity; socio-economic development. He has authored two books, including ‘Local Development in the Global Economy (1991); his recent articles include ‘War on Terrorism in Pakistan and Afghanistan: Political and discursive contestations’ in Critical Studies on Terrorism, 2009; and ‘Islamic Political Thought’ and ‘Jihad’ in the International Encyclopedia of Political Science.