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Seyid Djemal-ed-Din el-Afghani was born early in the nineteenth century at Asadabad, near Hamadan, in Persia, albeit, as his name shows, he was of Afghan rather than Iranian descent, while his title "Seyid," meaning descendant of the Prophet, implies a strain of Arab blood.
Quoted from article by "X," "Le Pan-Islamisme et le Pan-Turquisme," Revue du Monde musulman, March, 1913. This authoritative article is, so the editor informs us, from the pen of an eminent Mohammedan "un homme d'étât musulman." For other activities of Djemal-ed-Din, see A. Servier, Le Nationalisme musulman, pp. 10-13.
A flood of mingled despair and rage swept the Moslem world from end to end. And, of course, the Pan-Islamic implication was obvious. This was precisely what Pan-Islam's agitators had been preaching for fifty years the Crusade of the West for Islam's destruction. What could be better confirmation of the warnings of Djemal-ed-Din? The results were soon seen.
"From all this, it is plain that the whole Moslem world must unite in a great defensive alliance, to preserve itself from destruction; and, to do this, it must acquire the technique of Western progress and learn the secrets of European power." Such, in brief, are the teachings of Djemal-ed-Din, propagated with eloquence and authority for many years.
Before long Abdul Hamid had built up an elaborate Pan-Islamic propaganda organization, working mainly by secretive, tortuous methods. Constantinople became the Mecca of all the fanatics and anti-Western agitators like Djemal-ed-Din.
Djemal-ed-Din was the first Mohammedan who fully grasped the impending peril of Western domination, and he devoted his life to warning the Islamic world of the danger and attempting to elaborate measures of defence. By European colonial authorities he was soon singled out as a dangerous agitator. The English, in particular, feared and persecuted him.
A French publicist recently admonished his fellow Europeans that "Islam does not recognize our colonial frontiers," and added warningly, "the great movement of Islamic union inaugurated by Djemal-ed-Din el-Afghani is going on."
The movement crystallizes about two foci: the new-type religious fraternities like the Sennussiya, and the propaganda of the group of thinkers headed by Djemal-ed-Din. Let us first consider the fraternities. Religious fraternities have existed in Islam for centuries.
The nascent movement was thus basically a "patriotic" protest against all those, both foreigners and native-born, who were endangering the country. This showed clearly in the motto adopted by the agitators the hitherto unheard-of slogan: "Egypt for the Egyptians!" Into this incipient ferment there was presently injected the dynamic personality of Djemal-ed-Din.
Let us now consider the second originating centre of modern Pan-Islamism the movement especially associated with the personality of Djemal-ed-Din.
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