This talk tries to understand the intriguing politics of the 19th century activist, teacher and journalist Jamaluddin Afghani who died in 1897. He was born in the late 1830s in the Hamadan region of Western Iran and yet called himself Afghani as if to underline his cosmopolitan belonging everywhere. His ceaseless travels or 'peregrinations' took him to Afghanistan, India, Iran, Egypt, France, Great Britain and Russia. He spent the most consolidated period of his time in Cairo where he is reported to have held a teaching position,  preferring to hold forth in late night discussions in Cairo cafes surrounded by admiring students. His journalistic efforts created the Arabic journal al-urwa-al-wuthhqa that came out during his Paris sojourn where he also debated the French scholar Ernest Renan. He attempted an alliance with the Russians to undermine the power of the British Empire. A man of contradictions, learning, wit and some degree of Machiavellian deception Afghani did not live to see the 20th century, yet he did 'see' it coming.

Dr Amir Ali has taught at the Centre for Political Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi since 2007. Earlier he taught at the Department of Political Science, Jamia Millia Islamia, for three years from 2004 to 2007. He was Agatha Harrison Memorial Visiting Fellow at St. Antony's College Oxford between the years 2012 and 2014. He has written two books South Asian Islam and British Multiculturalism (Routledge, 2016) and Brexit and Liberal Democracy: Populism, Sovereignty and the Nation-State (Routledge, 2022). He teaches courses in political theory and his areas of research are multiculturalism, groups rights and British politics. He has published in journals such as the Economic and Political Weekly (EPW), Ethnic and Racial Studies and the Journal of Human Values. In addition to academic writing he has engaged in a regular writing of political commentary that has appeared in diverse publications and platforms such as the Economic and Political Weekly, Outlook, The Hindu, The Telegraph and Al Jazeera. These political commentaries have proliferated and become more anguished as the state of the world has declined and a world order comes crashing down on all sides.

All are welcome!