Jamāl al-Dīn al-Afghānī

Jamāl al-Dīn al-Afghānī spent the late 1800s moving through the Muslim world with a single obsession: unity against the West. Born in 1838 or 1839, he cared less about theological splits than about forging a Pan-Islamic front, especially in India under British rule. He became one of the founders of Islamic Modernism, a school that sought to reconcile tradition with the pressures of the age. His impatience with accommodation had consequences. When Shah Naser-al-Din made what Afghani saw as too many concessions to foreign powers, Afghani's follower Mirza Reza Kermani carried out the assassinatio…