Latest / The Story of Uzbekistan: Silk Road Kingdoms and Soviet Legacy — Fexingo History / Jadids vs Qadims: The Battle for Uzbekistan's Soul
Transcript
- Lucas: So, we've talked a lot about the big structural forces — the Russian conquest, the cotton economy, the Soviet takeover. But one of the most fascinating internal battles in Uzbekistan's history was a cultural war fought between two groups of Muslims: the Jadids and the Qadims. Luna: Jadids and Qadims — I've heard those terms before, but what do they actually mean? Lucas: Right. 'Jadid' comes from the Arabic word for 'new' — they were the reformers. And 'Qadim' means 'old' — the traditionalists. This wasn't just a religious debate; it was about how to face a changing world under Russian rule. And it started with education. Lucas: By the late 1800s, the traditional Muslim schools in Turkestan — the maktabs and madrasas — were mostly teaching rote memorization of the Quran, basic reading and writing in Arabic script, and not much else. No geography, no history, no science. A Jadid intellectual named Mahmudhoja Behbudiy saw this as a disaster. Luna: Behbudiy — he came up a few times in earlier episodes. What did he actually propose? Lucas: He championed what he called 'usul-i jadid' — the new method. In practice, that meant classrooms with benches and blackboards, teaching subjects like arithmetic, history, and native language — Chagatai Turkic, not just Arabic — alongside religious instruction. He even traveled to the Ottoman Empire and Egypt to see how other Muslims were modernizing. Lucas: Behbudiy founded a newspaper called 'Samarkand' in 1913, and he wrote passionately about the need for girls' education, for learning Russian to deal with the colonial administration, and for a unified Turkic identity. He was basically saying: if we don't reform, we'll be left behind, or worse, assimilated by the Russians. Luna: So what did the Qadims think of all this? Lucas: In cities like Kokand and Tashkent, the conflict got physical. There were riots outside Jadid schools. Some Qadim preachers issued fatwas declaring that Jadid teachers were infidels. And in at least one case, a Jadid teacher was murdered by a mob in Kokand in 1914. Luna: Wait, murdered? That's intense. Was this just a local feud or a broader movement? Lucas: It was a broad social fracture. The Jadids were mostly from the merchant class and younger, educated men who had traveled. The Qadims were anchored in the traditional religious establishment. And the Russian authorities watched from above — they didn't really care about the cultural battle, as long as nobody threatened colonial order. In fact, the Russians sometimes played both sides, using the Qadims to suppress Jadid nationalism, then using Jadid ideas of progress to justify their own civilizing mission. Lucas: By 1917, after the Russian Revolution, the Jadids saw an opening. They formed political organizations like Shura-yi Islam — the Council of Islam — in Tashkent, pushing for autonomy and modern education. But the Bolsheviks, once they consolidated power, had no use for either Jadids or Qadims. Luna: So both sides lost in the end? Lucas: Exactly. The Soviet regime saw Jadidism as bourgeois nationalism and Qadimism as feudal obscurantism. Many Jadid leaders, including Behbudiy, were executed or exiled. By the 1930s, the battle was over — but the question of how to reconcile tradition and modernity in Uzbekistan never really went away. It's still alive today. Luna: That's a really human way to look at it — not just a clash of ideas, but a clash between people who genuinely cared about their community's future. Lucas: Absolutely. The Jadids were not Western stooges. They were devout Muslims who wanted to save their society from stagnation. And the Qadims weren't just stubborn reactionaries — they feared losing their identity. It's a debate that echoes in every colonized society: how much do you adapt to survive, and how much do you resist to stay true to yourself? Luna: That's a perfect place to leave it. Thanks, Lucas. Lucas: Thanks for listening. If you want to read more, check out Adeeb Khalid's 'The Politics of Muslim Cultural Reform' — it's the definitive book on the Jadids.