Essay
Munozara
Not translated into English
Abdurauf Fitrat · 1911
Synopsis
A teacher at a madrasa in Bukhara, on his way to Mecca, meets a European in India, and the conversation turns to the new schools that the reformers are calling for. The teacher confidently defends the teaching of his city. The foreigner answers him point by point, with facts, and proves more learned than he is, even in the Islamic sciences. The debate thus sets tradition against novelty, the old madrasa against the school that people would like to open beside it.
Context
Written in Istanbul, where its author was studying thanks to a society founded by Bukharans, the text appeared there in Persian, the language he was then writing in; it is dated to 1909-1910 or to 1911. It ends with an epilogue that demands reforms from the emir. Hoji Muin, of Samarkand, produced a version in Turkestani Turkish, first in the governorate's gazette, then in volume form, with a preface by Behbudiy: it is this version that circulated in Central Asia. A Russian translation also appeared in Tashkent.
Who it is for
In Persian, with no French version. A sustained dialogue, close to a thesis narrative. It helps to know that the debate is an ancient genre of Persian letters, which the author applies to the questions of his time.
Prizes and reception
Read throughout Central Asia in its Turkish version, it is considered the first prose narrative of modern Persian literature in Transoxiana.
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