MAHMUDXOʻJA BEHBUDIY

Mahmudkhoja Behbudi (1875-1919) was the founder of the revolutionary movement in Turkestan. He was politics and public figure, as well as, Mufti, playwright, publicist, and publisher.

Mahmudkhoja Behbudi was born on January 19, 1875 in Yomina neighborhood of Samarkand city. He was a descendant of Ahmad Yassavi. During the reign of Amir Shahmurad, his ancestors were invited to Bukhara and spent the winter in Samarkand. His father Sultankhoja Behbudi worked as an imam-khatib in the neighborhood mosque, and was also a qari. His ancestors from his mother’s side came here from Urganch. After studying in the madrasas of Samarkand and Bukhara, Mahmudkhoja began his labor activity under the guidance of his uncle Muhammad Sidsiq, who was a judge in Chashmaiob province. He worked as a Mirza and a judge, then he was a mufti in Jomboy.

1. Behbudi got married in 1893 and had 4 sons and 1 daughter. He had 10 desiatinas of land in Kabut volost. Behbudi was a self-satisfied and wealthy man.

Behbudi visited Hijaz, Egypt, and the Ottoman Turkish Sultanate during his pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina (1899-1900). In 1914, he went on Haj for the second time. He stayed in Odessa, Istanbul, Jerusalem, Sham, and other cities and sent his travel memories to the editors of the “Oyina” magazine, which he founded in Samarkand. These trips strongly influenced Behbudi’s outlook.

Mahmudkhoja Behbudi founded the Jadidism movement that arose in the Turkestan region at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century. He led the opening of the first new method (jadid) schools in Samarkand, wrote various textbooks for these schools. He wrote the first Uzbek drama “Padarkush” in 1911. He staged it for the first time in Samarkand on January 25, 1914. In 1913, Behbudi published the newspaper “Samarkand” in Uzbek and Tajik languages in Samarkand, founded the magazine “Oyina” in Uzbek.

Behbudi consistently fought for the benefit of Muslims and Turkic peoples living in the Russian Empire. He participated in the Congress of Russian Muslims which was held in 1906 in Nizhny Novgorod. After the February revolution, he became one of the leaders of the autonomy movement that started in Turkestan. In 1917, he actively participated in all the congresses of All-Turkistan Muslims. He defended the interests of modern progressives.

In 1917, together with Fitrat and others, he founded the Hurriyat newspaper in Samarkand. He emphasized that independence can only be achieved by taking arms in the context of “Haq olinur, berilmas” (“Hurriyat” newspaper, July 13, 1917).

In November 1917, he took an active part in the extraordinary 4th Congress of Muslims of All-Turkistan held in the city of Kokand. At the Congress, he was elected a member of the Turkestan National Assembly, but was not included in the government. Behbudi wrote an article entitled “Autonomy of Turkistan” and published it in “Hurriyat" newspaper on December 19 and 22, 1917 [1].

In his article entitled “An open letter to our Kazakh relatives” (“Hurriyat” newspaper, January 26, 1918), he calls for unity among our Kazakh brothers who are in various disagreements. However, such sharp but fair objections of Behbudi were not taken into account during the revolutionary upheavals of 1917-1918.

Behbudi himself began to cooperate with the Soviet authorities from the spring of 1918. In 1918-1919, he worked as the people’s commissar of education of Samarkand city, worked in the committee to fight against famine. On March 25, 1919, Behbudi, who set out from Tashkent and Samarkand on the pretext of going on a pilgrimage for the third time, along with his accomplices Muhammadqul and Mardonqul, were captured in the territory of the Bukhara Emirate, that is, in Shahrisabz, and later secretly killed in the city of Karshi. The real killers of Behbudi (the emir of Bukhara or the leaders of the Soviet authorities in Turkestan) has not yet been clarified.

In 1997 and 1999, Behbudi’s one-volume book “Selected works” was published in Tashkent, and in 2018, two-volume book.

Abdulla Avloni, Mahmudkhoja Behbudi and Munavvar Qori Abdurashidkhanov were posthumously awarded the Order of Merit for their outstanding contribution to the creation of the national education and training system (September 30, 2020).

 

[1] See: Mahmudxoʻja Behbudiy. Tanlangan asarlar. Ikki jildlik. I jild. Soʻzboshi muallifi va nashrga tayyorlovchi: Sirojiddin Ahmad. - Toshkent: “Akademnashr”, 2018. - B. 493-497.