THE REFORM MOVEMENTS 267declaring the tobacco concession un-Islamic. Well, that finally
snapped the shah's patience. He sent troops to roust Jamaluddin
out of his house and escort him to the border. Thus, in 1891, Ja-
maluddin the Afghan returned to ...- Istanbul, where the Ottoman emperor Sultan Hamid gave him a
house and a stipend. The Sultan thought Jamaluddin's pan-Islamist
ideas would somehow pay political dividends to him. Jamaluddin
went on teaching, writing, and giving speeches. Intellectuals and
activists came to visit him from every corner of the Muslim world.
The great reformer told them that ijtihad, "free thinking," was a
primary principle of Islam: but freethinking, he said, had to pro-
ceed from first principles rooted in Qur'an and hadith. Every
Muslim had the right to his or her own interpretation of the
scriptures and revelations, but Muslims as a community had to
school themselves in those first principles embedded in the reve-
lations. The great error of Muslims, the reason for their weakness,
said Jamaluddin, was that they had turned their backs on Western
science while embracing Western education and social mores.
They should have done exactly the opposite: they should have
embraced western science but closed their gates to Western social
mores and educational systems.
In 1895, unfortunately, an Iranian student assassinated King Nasirud-
din. The Iranian government immediately blamed Jamaluddin for it and
demanded that he be extradited to Iran for punishment. Sultan Hamid re-
fused the demand but he put the great reformer under house arrest. Later
that year, Jamaluddin contracted cancer of the mouth and requested that
he be allowed to travel to Vienna for medical treatment but the sultan
turned him down. Instead, he sent his personal physician over to treat
him. The court physician treated Jamaluddin's cancer by removing his
lower jaw. Jamaluddin-i-Afghan died that year and was buried in Asia
Minor. Later his body was transported to Afghanistan for reburial. Wher-
ever he had started out, he certainly ended up in Afghanistan: his grave is
situated at the heart of the campus of Kabul University.
It's interesting to remember that Sayyid Jamaluddin Afghan had no of-
ficial leadership title or position. He didn't run a country. He didn't have