Andjuman (association, society)

Andjuman is a Persian word, already common in Firdawsi's Shahnama, meaning meeting, assembly or army. ¹

In modern times it first named confessional associations, then, at the beginning of the twentieth century with the parliamentary regime, political groups. The best known was the Andjuman-i Milli, the national club of Tabriz, founded on 1 Ramadan 1324 (17 December 1906) by constitutionalist leaders; similar clubs spread through the main provincial towns. Later Persians in Istanbul and Bombay, and in India, formed andjumans too. Today it names mainly learned and professional societies, such as the Andjuman-i Adabi-i Iran, which preceded the Farhangistan (Academy) founded in 1936, and the Andjuman-i Athar-i Milli, which since 1926 has edited old texts. ¹

In Turkish the word is pronounced endjumen. The Endjumen-i Danish, the first modern academy of letters and sciences in the Middle East, was created in Istanbul in 1851 on the model of the French Academy, with Ahmed Cevdet Pasha among its leaders; it was inaugurated by Mustafa Reshid Pasha on 18 July 1851 and faded out in 1862. After 1908 the Ottoman Historical Society (Tarih-i Osmani Endjumeni, founded 1911) appeared. The term also named committees for inspection and education, and the first Western-style club, the Endjumen-i Ulfet (1870). ²

The Andjuman-i Taraqqi-i Urdu, founded in 1913 within the Mohammadan Educational Conference, with Thomas Arnold and Shibli Nu'mani as first president and secretary, aimed to defend Urdu against Hindi and to develop it; it moved to Awrangabad, then Delhi and Karachi, and ran an Urdu college. The Andjuman-i Himayat-i Islam of Lahore, founded in 1884 under Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan's inspiration, ran schools, a college, a women's college and a dispensary in the Punjab. ³