The Politics of Muslim Cultural Reform

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The Politics of Muslim Cultural Reform 
Preferred Citation: Khalid, Adeeb. The Politics of Muslim Cultural Reform:
Jadidism in Central Asia. Berkeley: University of California Press, c1998
1998. http://ark.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/ft8g5008rv/
The Politics of Muslim Cultural Reform 
Jadidism in Central Asia 
Adeeb Khalid 
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS 
Berkeley · Los Angeles · Oxford 
© 1999 The Regents of the University of California 
for my parents 
Preferred Citation: Khalid, Adeeb. The Politics of Muslim Cultural Reform:
Jadidism in Central Asia. Berkeley: University of California Press, c1998
1998. http://ark.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/ft8g5008rv/
for my parents 
Preface 
Whether it is in the obsession with multiculturalism in American academe or in
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facile visions of an impending, perhaps inevitable "clash of civilizations" in
the mainstream public, it is culture that defines the essence of difference in
the post-Cold War world. The Muslim world occupies a special place in this
cultural geography, more closely identified with culture than any other part of
the world. The cultural determinism implicit in such thinking can exist only by
leaving unasked the question of the origins of culture. Although a substantial
scholarly literature has argued at some length (but perhaps not very
successfully, if one were to judge from how little its insights seem to
illuminate mainstream debate), cultures are not immutable givens but themselves
subject to change and flux. This applies to Muslim culture as much as to any
other, although given the place Islam and Muslims occupy in the imagination of
the "West," we are left constantly to reaffirm this basic fact. I have tried in
this book to argue this basic point: that Islam, and Muslim culture, and the
sense of being Muslim are far from immutable characteristics; rather, they
change and evolve and do so through debate and the struggles of different groups
in Muslim society.
The advent of new means of communication and new forms of sociability from the
nineteenth century on introduced new ways in which debates over culture could
take place, while the political and military imperatives represented by the rise
of European power lent a special intensity to these debates. Modern historians
have paid too little attention
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to what Muslims were debating in these new media. A few studies of major figures
and their thought have provided us an overview of the trajectory of intellectual
history of the period, but the emphasis in such studies remains either
explicitly religious or explicitly political. The sea change that the Muslim
intellectuals' view of the world, and of their place in it, underwent in the
half-century before the Great War has never been evoked. Yet this change
underlay the new directions in intellectual and political history that have
appeared in the Muslim world in the twentieth century.
The foregoing applies with even greater force to Central Asia, an area largely
forgotten by the outside world. When I began graduate work over a decade ago, I
usually had to explain to inquisitive friends where Central Asia was. Then came
perestroika, the demise of the Soviet Union, and the "emergence of Central
Asia." These events have heightened interest in the region in a way that would
have been inconceivable just a decade earlier. But while the amount of
publishing on the region has increased manifold, the new literature is dominated
by matters of geopolitics and prognostications about the future of the new
countries, with remarkably little attention paid to topics of cultural or
historical import, even as the literature of prognostication freely makes
explanatory use of both culture and history.
This neglect stems from certain fundamental institutional factors: the passing
of the old order in Russia in 1917 coincided, broadly, with a massive
redefinition of the Muslim world in Western academe. The Muslim world came to be
reconfigured in an Arab-centered manner, in which the Turks occupied only a
marginal place. No fate was worse than that of Central Asia, which was consigned
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to oblivion by scholars of Muslim societies and left to the tender mercies of
émigré scholars and experts on Soviet nationalities studies. (Mainstream Soviet
studies, notoriously Moscow-centered in any case, saw little more than
incomprehensible oriental exotica in Central Asia.) Much of the slim literature
that was produced on Central Asia outside the Soviet Union during the Soviet
period was marked by a heavy emphasis on politics and what might be called
"national martyrology." A sensitivity to the Muslim cultural background of
pre-Soviet Central Asia and the consequences of its transformation in the
postrevolutionary period was seldom evident, for it was often beyond the
competence of nationalities scholars and anathema to émigré nationalists. The
result was a general absence of a comparative framework for thinking about
Central Asian history.
This book has been a prolonged attempt at righting the balance. It pro- 
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ceeds from a recognition of the fact that the experience of Central Asians under
colonialism was hardly unique in the Muslim world. The debates that this book
examines were parallel to those capturing the attention of Muslim intellectuals
the world over. Indeed, the Muslim elites of Central Asia in the tsarist period
were part of a much broader, cosmopolitan community of the world's Muslims. One
of my aims in writing this book is to reclaim Central Asia for the study of
Muslim societies, for only by understanding this context may we understand the
cultural politics in pre-Soviet Central Asia, and only by understanding
pre-Soviet Central Asia may we understand Soviet Central Asia. And conversely,
only by understanding how Central Asian Muslims debated issues common to their
age may we acquire a comprehensive picture of the myriad forms modernity has
taken in the Muslim world. This is more than an exercise in "academic" history,
for it allows us challenge facile explanations of the contemporary world in
terms of an inevitable "clash of civilizations" and to remember that the more
intransigent visions of the utter incompatibility of Islam and modernity that
capture the headlines today are but one of the many answers Muslim intellectuals
have produced to the most crucial questions of the previous century.
Attention to debates within Central Asian society also permits a more nuanced
view of Russian imperialism. The demise of the Soviet Union has created
considerable interest in the imperial dimension of Russian history, which has
already resulted in the publication of a number of works of commendable
sensitivity. Yet, much of this work remains in the domain of Russian colonial
history, i.e., the history of how imperial officials made sense (or tried to
make sense) of the borderland; of empire. As long as scholars look solely (or
largely) at imperial debates over policy in the borderlands, natives will remain
natives, as mysterious to the historian of today as they were to the
administrator of yore.
But for all the attention to these broader dimensions, I have tried throughout
to keep Central Asia itself at the focus of my inquiry (a courtesy not usually
extended to it), for ultimately this book is an attempt to comprehend the making
of modern Central Asia. I have not mentioned Soviet historiography earlier. It
had its achievements, but shedding light on the cultural transformations of the
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tsarist period was not one of them. As far as the Jadids were concerned, Soviet
historiography obfuscated far more than it revealed. Many names (Behbudi,
Cholpan, Fitrat) were simply written out of the history books, while others
(Hamza, Awlani, Qadiri) were given highly tendentious biographies. Many of the
most basic outlines of modern Central Asian history have to be delineated anew.
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This has been a major goal in writing this book, as has been the sense that the
tumultuous history of Soviet Central Asia may only be understood against the
background of the tsarist period. For Central Asia might have been largely
forgotten by the world of scholarship after 1917, but it experienced all the
excesses of the twentieth century: revolution, "development," genocide,
ecological disaster, social engineering, and virulent nationalism. There are
many stories to be told here; this book is perhaps a first step.
I have been with this project longer than I care to remember and in the process
have accumulated many debts of gratitude to people and institutions. An earlier
version of this book was completed as a dissertation under Kemal Karpat at the
University of Wisconsin-Madison. In Madison, Michael Chamberlain introduced me
to the works of Pierre Bourdieu, while his own work on medieval Damascus
provided an elegant example of how historians appropriate the work of social
thinkers. David McDonald kept me honest about the Russian dimension of my work.
Many thanks to Uli Schamiloglu for friendship, advice, and those microfilms.
Since then, I have benefited greatly from the advice and insights of a number of
colleagues. Ed Lazzerini has for years been a font of searching questions; he
has also generously shared copies of scarce materials with me. Hisao Komatsu
also provided me copies of invaluable and impossible to find works fundamental
to my work. Marianne Kamp shared her excellent judgment with me on several parts
of the manuscript; she also gave permission to quote from her unpublished work.
Dale Eickelman has given encouragement for several years and by inviting me to a
National Endowment for the Humanities seminar on "Imagining Societies: The
Middle East and Central Asia" at Dartmouth College, provided a captive audience
for earlier versions of this book. John Perry invited me to a workshop on
"Language, Literature, and Empire" at the University of Chicago in 1994, which
produced valuable insights. Colleagues at the history department at Carleton
College provided excellent comments on Chapter 2. Elyor Karimov allowed me to
make copies of rare materials in his personal collection. Conversations with
Vincent Fourniau, Garay Menicucci, Scott Seregny, and Gregg Starrett helped in
various ways to clarify the argument. In Tashkent, Abdujabbar Abduvahitov, Akram
Habibullaev, Saodat Kholmatova, and Saur Yaqupov provided inestimable friendship
and support.
The research for the dissertation on which the book is based was 
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funded by various agencies at the University of Wisconsin. Since then, the
National Endowment for the Humanities has figured large in my professional life.
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A Summer Stipend in 1994 allowed me to return to Tashkent for archival research,
and a Fellowship for College Teachers allowed me a precious break from teaching
in 1996, during which I wrote the bulk of the manuscript for this book. My leave
coincided with some of the darkest hours that the endowment has endured, which
heightened my appreciation for the work that it does for the humanities in this
country. This book would have taken a lot longer without its support.
I also gratefully acknowledge support from Carleton College. A faculty
development endowment grant in 1994 contributed to the trip to the archives in
1994, and more recently the college provided generous support for the
preparation of illustrations and maps for publication.
Little of the research for this study could have been accomplished without the
assistance of library and archive personnel on three continents. The staff at
Memorial Library of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the (then) Lenin State
Library in Moscow, its annex in Khimki, and the Central State Archives of the
Republic of Uzbekistan in Tashkent deserve special gratitude. The Central State
Archives of Cinematic, Audio, and Photographic Documents of the Republic of
Uzbekistan provided the photograph reproduced here.
But my greatest debts are of a personal nature. Cheryl Duncan humored me
throughout the many years it has taken me to finish this project. In the
process, she has read more drafts of this work than seemed humanly possible. Her
love and encouragement, as well as her editorial skills and historical insights,
were my constant companions. Haroun arrived in this world unduly ahead of the
manuscript and thereby delayed it considerably; the joy he brought with him,
however, makes it all worthwhile.
Finally, my family has been my greatest source of inspiration. My brother Najeeb
made it all possible in the beginning. My parents, Nazakat and Khalid Latif,
always taught me to expect the utmost of myself. My father's library, especially
his own book on the Muslims of the Soviet Union, first got me interested in
Central Asia. When that interest led me in the unexpected direction of becoming
a historian, my parents supported me in every way possible. It is to them that I
dedicate this book.
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Technical Note 
Transliteration 
There does not exist a universally accepted system for transliterating Central
Asian Turkic into the Latin script. During this century, it has been written in
five different alphabets in three scripts. I have resisted the temptation to
transliterate all Uzbek according to modern Cyrillic-script spelling, given that
even modern Uzbek publishers do not follow this practice. Instead, I have
transliterated the names of individuals active before 1920 and the titles of
their works directly from the Arabic script in which they wrote, using the
six-vowel system (a, a, e, i, o , and u ) and disregarding vowel harmony. For
modern Uzbek written in the Cyrillic script, I have used the system adopted in
Uzbekistan in 1995, with the exception of rendering o' as o, k as kh , and g' as
gh . The two systems are thus rendered harmonious, except that the vowels
transliterated from the Arabic script as a and o appear as o and o,
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respectively, when transliterated from the Cyrillic. I have followed the same
logic in transliterating Tajik from the Cyrillic script, whereas "Tajik" in the
Arabic script has been transliterated as Persian. Ottoman Turkish has been
rendered in modern Turkish orthography on the basis of the 1968 Redhouse Türkçe
Ingilizçe Sözlük , and Tatar citations are vocalized using Tatar vowels and
vowel harmony.
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Names and Dates 
Personal names took many forms in Central Asia in the period discussed here.
Some people used Russian-style surnames (e.g., Khojaev), whereas others adopted
Tatar-style last names (e.g., Behbudi, Awlani); yet others used pen names
(takhallus , e.g., Ayni), although most were simply known by their first name
(e.g., Hamza, Munawwar Qari). I have used the form of name most commonly used by
the person in question and have alphabetized the bibliography accordingly. When
the name of the same person might be transliterated differently in works
appearing in different languages, I have grouped all entries by the same author
together in the bibliography.
All common-era dates are given according to the Julian calendar, which was
twelve days behind the Gregorian calendar in the nineteenth century and thirteen
days behind in the twentieth. The Julian calendar was in use in the Russian
empire until February 1918; dates after February 1918 are in the Gregorian
calendar, and the calendar is specified in cases where confusion might arise.
Dates for periodicals published in the Ottoman empire are also given in the
Julian calendar, which was the basis of the Ottoman fiscal calendar until 1917.
I have used double dating only when the common-era year could not be determined
with certainty for a publication dated in a hijri calendar.
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Abbreviations 
GARFGosudarstvennyi arkhiv Rossiiskoi Federatsii 
IOLRIndia Office Library and Records 
OSEOzbek sovet entsiklopediyast 
SFSada-yi Farghana 
STSada-yi Turkistan 
TsGARUzTsentral'nyi Gosudarstvennyi arkhiv Respubliki Uzbekistan 
TWGTurkistan wilayatining gazeti 
UTUlugh Turkistan 
ZhMNPZhurnal Ministerstva Narodnogo Prosveshcheniia 
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Map 1. 
Central Asia, mid-nineteenth century.
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Map 2. 
Russian Central Asia.
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Introduction 
At present, we Turkestanis are not sufficiently acquainted with religious and
worldly knowledge. Our old maktabs and madrasas are in ruins, reminiscent of
the nesting places of owls. Our madrasas, far from teaching worldly sciences,
don't even teach tafsir and hadith, [which are] the basis of all religious
knowledge. We do not have any teachers' training colleges to train teachers,
or any workshops to teach skills. We do not have any merchants with modern
business skills. There are no organized schools for the elementary education
of our children. . .. If this . . . continues, soon even our present existence
will be destroyed. 
Haji Muin b. Shukrullah, 1916
In combining intimations of mortal danger faced by Central Asian society with a
profound faith in the power of education to provide the solution, this speech
from one of the first pieces of modern Central Asian theater neatly exemplifies
the reformist project of the first generation of modern Central Asian
intellectuals, the "Jadids." The unease about the present lay in a sense that
traditions of the past were not only incapable of meeting new needs but were
also failing to transmit the values of the past. A thoroughgoing reform of
culture and society was needed if Central Asians were to survive the
unprecedented challenges of the modern world. Although the Jadids saw themselves
as reformers of their society, their enthusiastic embrace of modernity led them
to radically new conceptions of society. Their attempts at rescuing tradition
redefined it, and their attempts to return to a "pure" Islam brought new
understandings of Islam and of what it meant to be a Muslim. The Jadids were
successful in garnering considerable support for their project, but their call
for reform also evoked vigorous opposition from established elites (the qadimchi
) in their society. It was through the debate over the meaning of Central Asian
culture that Central Asians came to imagine the modern world and their place in
it. This book tells the story of this debate.
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I seek the roots of this debate in Central Asia's experience of modernity, a
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global condition that brings with it new forms of organization of self and
society, new forms of intellectual production, and new ways of imagining the
world (and one's place within it). Modernity is not reducible to the inculcation
of culturally specific norms or traits; nor is it synonymous with economic
development. Rather, as an enormous body of interdisciplinary literature has
argued in recent years, the modern condition transforms tradition (indeed, it
makes it possible to conceive of tradition as tradition); it takes—and
produces—numerous cultural forms, and it inheres in (economic) underdevelopment
as much as in development. This conception of modernity therefore differs
substantially from that of classical modernization theory, which saw
modernization as a unilinear process that dissolved all opposition to it in its
conquest of traditional forms.
The Jadid formulation of the predicament of Central Asian society was as much a
result of the profound transformation of Central Asia in the fifty years of
imperial Russian rule as a response to it. When Russian forces abruptly
conquered the khanates of Central Asia between the 1860s and the 1880s, there
existed no theater, no printing press, and no benevolent societies. All of these
means of cultural production arose in the half-century of Russian rule. Between
the establishment of the governorate-general of Turkestan in 1867 and the
Russian revolutions of 1917, Central Asia became increasingly intertwined with
imperial (and hence global) economic networks; its social order was drastically
reshaped, with the extinction of old elites and the emergence of new ones. Its
political order was, of course, reconstituted. New groups, such as the Jadids,
adopted and appropriated new forms of communication and sociability in their
attempts to reform, creating, in the process, radically new understandings of
tradition, religion, and the world.
The Jadids of Central Asia were far from alone in the Muslim world in this
period in (re)evaluating their cultural heritage under the exigencies of
modernity. Jadidism, as this movement for cultural reform is usually called, had
much in common with similar modernist movements popular among intellectuals
throughout the Muslim world. The aim of such movements was nothing less than to
reconcile Islam with a modernity they very much admired. But whereas similar
modernist movements in India, the Ottoman lands, Iran, Egypt, and Algeria have
received extensive scholarly attention,[1] Jadidism, especially in its Central
Asian
[1] I have benefited from the following: Aziz Ahmad, Islamic Modernism in India
and Pakistan , 1857-1964 (London, 1967); David Lelyveld, Aligarh's First
Generation: Muslim Solidarity in British India (Princeton, 1978); Serif Mardin,
The Genesis of Young Ottoman Thought: A Study in the Modernization of Turkish
Political Ideas (Princeton, 1962); Niyazi Berkes, The Development of Secularism
in Turkey (Montreal, 1964); Albert Hourani, Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age ,
1798-1939 (London, 1962); Hisham Sharabi, Arab Intellectuals and the West: The
Formative Years , 1875-1914 (Baltimore, 1970); David D. Commins, Islamic Reform:
Politics and Society in Late Ottoman Syria (New York, 1990); Hamid Algar, Mirza
Malkum Khan: A Study in the History of Iranian Modernism (Berkeley, 1973);
Mangol Bayat, The First Iranian Revolution: Shi'sm and the Constitutional
Revolution of 1905-1909 (New York, 1991); Nikkie R. Keddie, ed. and trans., An
Islamic Response to Imperialism: Political and Religious Writings of Sayyid
Jamal ad-Din "al-Afghani (Berkeley, 1968); Keddie, Sayyid Jamal al-Din
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"al-Afghani": A Political Biography (Berkeley, 1972); Homa Pakdaman,
Djemal-ed-Din Assad Abadi dit Afghani (Paris, 1969); Malcolm H. Kerr, Islamic
Reform: The Political and Legal Theories of Muhammad 'Abduh and Rashid Rida
(Berkeley, 1966); Elie Kedouri, Afghani and 'Abduh: An Essay on Religious
Unbelief and Political Activism in Modern Islam (New York, 1966); Zaki Badawi,
The Reformers of Egypt —A Critique of Al-Afghani, 'Abduh and Ridha (London,
1976); Ali Merad, Le réformisme musulman en Algérie de 1925 à 1940: essai
d'histoire religieuse et sociale (Paris, 1972).
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form, remains virtually unknown. The volume of Western scholarship on tsarist
Central Asia is slim, and work on Jadidism in Central Asia forms only a small