Abdal Rauf Fitrat

Abstract

The need to adapt Islam to modem times became urgent in the nineteenth century as the Muslim world in general realised its weakness and backwardness in relation to the militarily and technologically powerful West. Some representatives of the Muslim intelligentsia began actively advocating reform in religious and other practices and structures (educational, political, cultural and social) to make Islam more relevant to the demands of contemporary society. This approach may be termed 'reformist'. It was a complex process, one which required not just a superficial daptation of practices but a fundamental alteration of the religious system of values in order to bring Islam into line with the changing circumstances of a new age. Muslim reformist movements in Asia and Africa have been the focus of much scholarly attention. Analogous developments in Central Asia have, however, been largely neglected. So far as western scholars are concerned this was largely because until very recently much of the relevant material was inaccessible. Soviet scholars, meanwhile, were inhibited by ideological constraints: religious reformism was scarcely a popular topic. There has, however, been an upsurge of interest in the subject since the countries of Central Asia became independent in 1991.In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries the Jadid (,reformist') movement began to affect the Emirate of Bukhara, a nominally independent protectorate of Russia. The movement is named after one of its principal demands: a 'new method' of instruction in schools, usul-i jadid in Arabic. The intellectuals who subscribed to this reformist attitude wanted to reform the educational system so that it could revive Islamic values and equip society with modem knowledge and skills, and thereby enable it to catch up with western progress. However, as time went on the wider agenda of the movement became more important: political and administrative reforms were demanded, though still from a wholeheartedly Muslim perspective.