The Reformist Movement of Turkistan,(Jadidisim) By: Ezatullah Zaki Dehqanoglo

The Reformist Movement of Turkistan, By: Ezatullah Zaki Dehqanoglo

The Reformist Movement of Turkistan is an educational, religious, political and cultural movement, which began by the Muslims of Turkistan in the second half of the 19th century. Tatar reformist scholars such as Abdurrahim Otuzimeni, Abdunnasir Kursavi and ShahabeddinMarjani have stressed on the notion of religious reform, while Crimean Tatar Ismail Bey Gaspirali has put emphasize on the idea of educational reform. By opening the first reformist school in Bahchasaray, Crimea, in 1884, Gaspirali had initiated the first tangible step toward the educational reform.

Later on, by founding “Tarjuman” newspaper, Gapirali attempted to spread his reformist ideas to the countries outside of Russia. For that purpose, he sent students to Turkistan for education, and then he himself travelled to Bukhara where he visited the king of Bukhara. In that visit, he gave information to the King about the new and modern schools and he even subscribed the King to Tarjuman newspaper.

Gaspirali’s journeys to Turkistan played a crucial role in spreading the reformist ideas and influencing the local scholars in the region. During his journey to Turkistan, Gaspirali met with Mahmud Khoja Behbudi who was already familiar with the notion of reformism through Tarjuman. Behbudi was deeply influenced by the modernist thoughts of Ismail Bey Gaspirali, andin 1903, by opening the first modern school in Samarkand; he became one of the pioneers of the Turkistanian Reformism.

While continuing to his educational activities, Behbudi contacted numarious scholars of Samarkand, Bukhara, and Tashkent in order to spread his educational reform to the whole Turkistan. Meanwhile, he established a close connection with Munawwar Qari of Tashkent who was already a follower of Tarjuman and opened the first modern school in Tashkent, in 1901. The two influential figures of Turkistanian modernisms, Mahmud Khoja Behbudi and Munawwar Qari, not only just opened schools, but they also wrote books and articles to be read in those schools. In addition, they published academic journal and newspaper, established printing press and incorporation, founded associations and charitable institutions in order to educate the Turkistanian students and send them abroad, and even they declared the independence of Turkistan.

As it is understood, the Turkistanian reformism, which began its activities with educational reform at the beginning, took a political shape; however, after a while, their activities had been stopped by the Soviets in 1938. All the reformers were declared as the traitors within the Soviet countries till 1980s, yet when Uzbekistan became an independent state, they had been acquitted by the government and even were declared as the “Heroes of Independence.”