Encyclopedia of Islam

Afghani, Jamal al-Din al-

---

in Istanbul under the distrustful surveillance of 

the sultan. Al-Afghani’s influence was seminal 

to the development of Muslim nationalism and 

Islamic modernism and to the lives of men such as 

Muhammad Abduh, m

Uhammad

  r

ashid

  r

ida

 (d. 

1935),  m

Uhammad

  i

qbal

 (d. 1938), and m

Uham

-

mad

  a

li

 J

innah

 (d. 1948), who would carry the 

Islamic reform movement forward in the 20th 

century.

See also  c

onstitUtional

  r

evolUtion

; 

pan

-

i

slamism

; 

reneWal

 

and

 

reForm

 

movements

; 

s

alaFism

.

Michelle Zimney

Further reading: Albert Hourani, Arabic Thought in the 

Liberal Age, 1798–1939 (London: Oxford University 

Press, 1970); Nikki R Keddie, An Islamic Response to 

Imperialism: Political and Religious Writings of Sayyid 

Jamal al-Din “al-Afghani” (Berkeley: University of Cali-

fornia Press, 1983).

Afghanistan

Afghanistan is a mountainous landlocked coun-

try with an area of 647,500 sq. km. (comparable 

in size to the state of Texas) and an estimated 

population of 32.7 million in 2008. It is situated 

on the frontier between the Middle East, Central 

Asia, and South Asia, with i

ran

 on its western 

border and p

akistan

 on its eastern and southern 

borders. A large majority of its people are Sunni 

Muslim (80 percent), but there are also Shii Mus-

lims (19 percent) and followers of other religions 

(1 percent). Religious life consists of a mixture of 

folk religion, s

UFism

, and formal Islamic doctrine 

and practice. Ethnic and tribal loyalties are often 

stronger than religious and national ones. The 

major ethnic groups are Pashtun (42 percent, also 

called Afghans), Tajik (27 percent), Hazara (9 

percent), and Uzbek (9 percent). Pushtu and Dari 

(the Afghani Persian dialect) are Afghanistan’s 

official languages, but there are more than 30 lan-

guages and dialects spoken there, most of which 

belong to the Indo-European and Turkic language 

families. Its major cities are Kabul (the capital), 

Qandahar, and Herat, but most of the population 

still lives in the countryside.

Because of its location, the Afghanistan region 

has been a crossroads for peoples, merchandise, 

and empires for centuries. The Arab Muslim 

armies that arrived in the seventh century were 

following the routes used previously by Persian 

and Greek invaders, but none of these empires, 

or the nearly 20 empires and dynasties that came 

later, found Afghanistan easy to conquer and 

control. The Afghan peoples, though internally 

divided, tend to unite in fierce opposition to out-

siders. Islamic rule was not secure there until the 

late 10th century, when it became the seat of the 

Ghaznavid dynasty (977–1163), which also gov-

erned eastern Iran and launched a series of raids 

into northern i

ndia

. Afghanistan then succumbed 

to invasions by Turks and Mongols during the 

13th and 14th centuries. The country’s strategic 

location continued to make it a focal point of 

conflict between Muslim rulers in Iran and India 

from the 15th to 18th centuries and a target for 

the imperial ambitions of Russia and Great Brit-

ain in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Despite 

its turbulent history, medieval Afghanistan saw 

moments of significant religious and cultural 

achievement, reflected in its role in the exten-

sion of Islamicate architectural forms to India 

and sponsorship of Firdowsi’s Persian epic, the 

Shahnama (ca. 980), and the scientific writings 

of a

bU

 r

ayhan

 

al

-b

irUni

 (973–1048). In addition 

to being the base from which Muslims invaded 

northern India, Afghanistan was the birthplace 

of several important Sufi masters, including i

bra

-

him

 

ibn

  a

dham

 (d. 778) and J

alal

 

al

-d

in

  r

Umi

(1207–73), and it witnessed the emergence of two 

of the most important Sufi orders: the c

hishti

 s

UFi

o

rder

 and the n

aqshbandi

 s

UFi

 o

rder

.

Afghanistan became a modern independent 

country in 1919 and evolved into a constitu-

tional monarchy under the influence of the Soviet 

Union. After fighting off an armed Soviet invasion