Goldziher on Afghani

Thanks to Dietrich Jung for bringing to my attention Ignaz Goldziher's recollections of Afghani, with whom he spent time during his four-month visit to Cairo as a young man in 1873/74. Goldziher described Afghani as "the most original figure among [his] friends" in Cairo. He joined Afghani frequently in the coffee house in Abdin Street where Afghani "presided every evening over a group of young Azhar students and taught them all sorts of free-thinking stuff (ihnen alles mögliche freisinnige Zeug vormachte)" (Tagebuch, Leiden: Brill 1978, p. 68).

Goldziher wrote that he met Afghani again in Paris in 1883, and should one day write more about this. but apart from an entry in the Encyclopedia of Islam, seems not to have done so.

Publication date

The worldwide edition of Mark Sedgwick's biography of Muhammad Abduh is to be published by Oneworld, Oxford, on November 18 2009.

A Middle East edition will be published at about the same time by the American University in Cairo Press, Cairo.

The differences between the two editions are minor. The main difference is that the AUC Press edition, which is not on sale outside the Middle East, is priced at a level that makes it more easily available to readers in Muhammad Abduh's own country.

The worldwide edition is available for $36 from Amazon.com and for £28.50 from Amazon.co.uk.

Make a post

Posts for this blog should be submitted as a comment here. The comment will then be emailed to the moderator, who will make any stylistic edits that are needed and then convert the comment into the post.