Jadidism | Research & Encyclopedia Articles

About 3 pages (984 words)

Jadid Summary

Jadidism

The term "Jadidism" denotes a range of modernist movements that flourished among the Muslims of the Russian empire between 1880 and 1920. Beginning as a movement of religious reform, Jadidism quickly acquired broad cultural, social, and ultimately political dimensions. The movement's name came from its advocacy of the usul-i jadid ("the new method"), new phonetic approach to teaching the Arabic alphabet, an indication of the centrality of educational reform to Jadidism. Historians refer to the proponents of Jadidism as Jadids, although the Jadids did not usually use this term themselves.

The late nineteenth century saw the rise of modernist movements throughout the Muslim world. While they existed in markedly different political contexts, these movements shared a concern over their societies' political and economic decline relative to Europe and a belief in the compatibility of Islam and modernity.

Jadidism originated in the intellectual ferment created in Tatar society by rapid economic change occurring in the mid-nineteenth century, including the emergence of a Tatar mercantile bourgeoisie with extensive trading networks in Russia, Siberia, and Central Asia. Religious scholars such as Abdunnasir al-Kursavi (1776–1812) and Shihabeddin al-Marjani (1818–1889) questioned the authority of traditional Islamic theology and argued for creative reinterpretation of Islam. But the efforts of the Crimean Tatar noble Ismail Bey Gaspirali (1851–1914) gave shape to Jadidism as a cultural movement. In 1883 Gaspirali received permission to publish the newspaper Terjuman (Interpreter) in his native Bakhchisaray. Terjuman became the standard bearer of Jadidism throughout the Russian empire and beyond, influencing cultural debates in the Ottoman empire as well. In 1884 Gaspirali opened the first "new method" elementary school, in which children were taught the Arabic alphabet using the new phonetic method of instruction. These schools quickly became the flagship of Jadid reform. The emphasis on enlightenment also gave rise to a boom in publishing among the Tatars, as Jadid authors wrote and translated (from Russian, French, Ottoman Turkish, and Arabic) thousands of books on various subjects.

At the turn of the twentieth century a Jadid movement emerged in Central Asia, where different social and political contexts imparted a distinct hue. The ulama (religious scholars) retained much greater influence in Central Asia, while the new mercantile class was much weaker. The market for publishing was also much smaller, and Central Asian Jadids were more strongly rooted in Islamic education. Nevertheless, they faced opposition from their own society as well as from a Russian state always suspicious of unofficial initiatives.

Jadidism's rhetoric of cultural reform was directed at Muslim society itself. The basic themes were enlightenment, progress, and "awakening" the nation to take its place in the modern, "civilized" world, which meant sovereign states possessing military and economic might. Given the lack of political sovereignty, however, it was up to society to lift itself up through education and disciplined effort. Jadid rhetoric was usually sharply critical of the present state of Muslim society, which the Jadids contrasted unfavorably to their own glorious past and the present of the "civilized" countries of Europe.

The single most important term in the Jadid lexicon was taraqqi, meaning progress. For the Jadids progress and civilization were accessible to all societies solely through disciplined effort and enlightenment. Nothing in Islam prevented Muslims from joining the modern world; indeed, Islam enjoined disciplined effort and enlightenment on Muslims. Only a modern person equipped with knowledge "according to the needs of the age" could be a good Muslim.

The new method of teaching the alphabet marked a shift in the understanding of the purposes of literacy and, ultimately, of knowledge. Literacy for the Jadids was a functional skill with no sacral connotations. The Jadids claimed that the true meaning of Islam could be acquired through a critical reading of the scriptures without recourse to the tradition of interpretation represented by the ulama. This claim had radical repercussions for the authority of the ulama, and for Islam itself.

Jadidism would have been impossible without the advent of print. Print allowed the new intellectuals to assert their claims to interpretation to a broad audience and thus to undermine the monopoly of the ulama over cultural debate. At the same time, newspapers and translations into Turkic or Arabic of European works made available to the Jadids new ways of thinking about the world and their place in it, so that when they looked at their own society they did so with new eyes.

The object of Jadid reform was the millat, the Muslim community, which quickly acquired national and ethnic overtones and led to the rise of nationalism and political radicalism. While Gaspirali was revered as the father of Jadidism, by the time of his death younger Jadids had grown wary of his political caution and were attracted to more radical political stances. The Russian revolution of 1917 radicalized Jadidism even further, and many Jadids came to espouse both nationalist and socialist agendas as the most efficient path to enlightenment and progress.

Jadidism provides a good argument for questioning the dichotomy between Islam and modernity, since it represented both. It was rooted in a long Islamic tradition of reform, but it also shared a post-Enlightenment understanding of the world and used such aspects of modernity as the press and schooling. New economic and social forces produced alternative understandings of the world and consequently new national and religious identities.