ADEEB KHALID, The Politics of Muslim Cultural Reform. Jadidism in Central Asia, Comparative Studies on Muslim Societies (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of California Press, 1998). Pp. 353.

Abstract

This book focuses on the cultural dimensions of the Central Asian form of an Islamic modernist movement, Jadidism, which arose among several groups of Muslims of the Russian Empire in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Politics was not an option for the Jadidists until the final years of the czarist monarchy and the early revolutionary period, so the author relegates that aspect of the movement to the later chapters. To the extent that involvement in politics in Russia became possible, Central Asian Jadidists sought to participate, not to pursue either isolationism or separatism. According to the author, Russian officials were the ones who mistakenly assumed that Jadidism posed a separatist threat; subsequent generations of scholars misperceived the movement through the lens of those fears. The author argues that culture is a significant dimension of the movement in its own right. It mattered in Central Asia both in the rivalry between the Jadidists and traditionalists for leadership of the region's Muslims and as a way for educated Muslims to preserve their distinctiveness within the Russian Empire.