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The Sands of Oxus: Boyhood Reminiscences of Sadriddin Aini. By SADRIDDIN AINI; translated from the Tajik Persian with an Introduction by John R. Perry and Rachel Lehr. Bibliotheca Iranica: Literature Series no. 6. Costa Mesa, Calif: Mazda Publishers, 1998. ix, 277 pp. $24.95.
Sadr al-din 'Aini (1878-1954) is considered by many to be the "father of the modern Tajik language." He was born in the village of Soktareh near Bukhara, in what is now Uzbekistan but was then part of the Emirate of Bukhara, which had recently become a vassal state to the Russian Empire. From 1890 to 1906 he attended Islamic schools (madrasas) in Bukhara, but disillusioned with the shortcomings of traditional education he then joined the faculty of one of the recently founded usul-i jadid ("new method") schools. A member of the Young Bukharan intellectual movement, 'Aini went on to become one of Central Asia's leading educational reformers.
As Central Asia became formally absorbed into the Soviet Union during the early 1920s, 'Aini moved...