Road to Dignity: Socio Economic Rehabilitation of Valmikis

This work deals with the thought of a major Muslim intellectual of the 19th century Jamal al-Din al-Afghani (1838-1897), better known in the West as the author of Pan-Islamism. In the current debate on the phenomenon called Islamic resurgence, Afghani figures prominently as one who sowed the seeds of Islamic modernism and who, for the first time, made Asian peoples, particularly the Muslim West Asia, aware of the threat of Western imperialism. Iqbal considered him the only modern intellectual who could reconstruct religious thought in Islam. Afghani's extensive travels in almost all West Asian countries, India, Europe, England and Russia gave him a deep insight into the real maladies Muslim societies were suffering from and the imperialistic designs of Western powers. He was feared by the Muslim rulers of his times because of his anti-despotism campaign and by Britain for his anti-imperialistic movement for unity of Muslim states to meet the Western political threat. Through his strong advocacy for learning modern sciences he paved the way for intellectual awakening among the Muslims. His unconventional religiosity and radical political views made him a controversial figure among the Muslims as well as in the West. Afghani, even today, enjoys an important place in the field of religious and political modernisation of Muslim societies.

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