The Millenarian-Eschatological strain very present in Islam was powerfully revived in the second half of the 19th century by the so-called Muslim "reformer," "progressive" and "modernizer," Jamal al-Din al Afghani, father of pan-Islamism and pan-Arabism, but most of all, reviver of the old Mahdist creed. He turned it into a workable, modern political ideology of a radical sort. As the British Islamologist H.A.R. Gibb wrote: “The heresy of Mahdism is its belief not only that the minds and wills of men can be dominated by force but that truth can be demonstrated by the edge of the sword.” Further: "Mahdism...