Narrative
Баёноти сайёҳи ҳиндӣ
Not translated into English
Abdurauf Fitrat · 1912
Synopsis
An Indian traveller passing through Bukhara recounts what he sees there and compares it with the customs of Europe: superstitions, traditional medicine, schools and institutions left to decay. He sorts the society of the emirate into three classes, the ulama, the princes and the people, and holds each responsible for the country's decline, denouncing the stagnation of learning and the corruption of power. The narrative, partly in dialogue, also serves as a guide to the old city, with its schools, its libraries and its markets.
Context
Written in Persian during the Istanbul years, the book appeared there around 1912, and the orientalist A. N. Kondratiev produced a Russian translation of it as early as 1913, published in Samarkand. It follows closely another dialogue, also published in Istanbul, between a Bukharan master and a European. Fitrat wrote almost exclusively in Persian until 1917, before moving to Turki, then returning to Tajik in the twenties.
Who it is for
For those interested in pre-revolutionary Bukhara and in the Muslim reformists of Central Asia.
Prizes and reception
Mavluda Rakhmonova sees in it an unofficial programme of the national awakening movement, which changed the outlook of an entire generation of young people.
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