part one

MEMOIRS: National Existence and Cultural Struggles of Turkistan
and other Moslem Eastern Turks
by
Professor Zeki Velidi Togan


This translation by HB Paksoy is from
Zeki Velidi Togan, Hatiralar: Turkistan ve Diger Musluman Dogu Turkleri 'nin Milli Varlik ve Kultur Mucadeleleri (Istanbul, 1969)

Copyright  HB Paksoy 2011









TRANSLATOR'S NOTE

This work needs to be read as a manual of governance in practice.    It does not venture heavily into theory, as it concentrates on how large-scale applications of governance are conducted.    In addition, the author was one of those practitioners who interacted and bargained with Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky and the rest of the Soviet and Bolshevik luminaries of his own time for Baskurdistan and Turkistan.    It can be read profitably in the context of anti-colonialism, Sub-altern studies, Russian and Soviet studies.   He presents the issues on world-wide bases.


Ahmet Zeki Velidi Togan (1890-1970) provides the details of his pursuits and environment in his own words.   As he points out, in his own preface, he was not content to solely depend on his memory or even notes, making use of secondary sources and collective recollections of his colleagues, especially to verify the political events.   However, in rendering his words into English, the following provisions were borne in mind:


1.   Gnosis: Togan was well read and in depth.    At one point he delves into his own use of the term “Moslem.”    Two of the arguments he presents are worth noting here:
Now, we are learning the German organizations which are close to the same aims, with Azimbek.   Here, the task of keeping together socialism with nationalism in the same organization is split into two.   One is National Socialists; but their primary aim is animosity toward the Jews.   The National Socialists are placing the German race and paganism against Catholicism, and following the path for a full dictatorship.   In our case, in order to honor the Tajiks, in many cases, it will be necessary to use the term Moslem instead of Turk, and Turkistanis.   That means, the race issue will not be valid with us.   The second route is the path of the Christian Socialists.   We may possibly learn some from them.

and

I believed that, conscious people could convene and find a mutual religion.    I wondered if the ancestral Shamanism of the Turks could become a national religion for us.    I thought that, possibly, as it is a natural religion, it had better facets than the religion of the books.


2.   Language: Togan was fluent in a number of diverse languages (German, Arabic, Russian, Persian, French, and English etc.) and a myriad of Central Asian Turk dialects as there are no such distinctions as "Turkic" and "Turkish," which were artificially introduced into English and Russian.   He not only used these languages and dialects for scholarly purposes, but also for discourse under a wide variety of conditions.   Consequently, one can easily discern from his expressions that, while recalling an event, Togan has the tendency of remembering the proceedings in the "original," the particular language or dialect in which the transaction took place.   For example, if his respondent was a Kazak, he thinks in Kazak dialect, the flavor of which invariably seeps into his writing, recording the incident.    He also uses vocabulary from those languages that can have more than one meaning in English.    As an additional result, the spellings of geographic as well as personal names can vary, even on the same page.


3.   Style: Togan came into contact with innumerable personages, speaking in all manner of languages, in as many locations.   Thus, Togan's expressions have a tendency to flow from one language and dialect to the next.   This is true even in a single sentence, which are often longish, if he is relaying a group discussion or meeting comprising mixed sources.   Invariably, this fact also influences his grammar.   Although utmost care has been taken to preserve Togan's own style, grammar and punctuation, and even though some of his statements may sound unusual, it became necessary, at certain points, to insert clarifications between angular brackets.   The round brackets were used by Togan himself.


4.   Orthography: Names of many localities Togan references cannot be easily found in other sources.   Hence Togan's work is an invaluable primary catalog.   Therefore, it became necessary to preserve his orthography.   A few exceptions were made, especially in rendering well known place names, such as Bukhara, Samarkand, Egypt; though, for the most part, I kept Togan’s spellings.


Togan was a product of unusual circumstances.   He has been quite active over a prolonged period, and his own account in this volume covers what he calls his life’s first portion.   He himself, as he noted, wished to put down the rest as a second volume, but wondered if he would have the time or the chance.    It would have been as fascinating as the first.    One would naturally wish to see a complete biography of Togan, to better understand his times, struggle and the politics of his world.    An independent understanding of the Russian Nationalities politics on the part of the reader would help comprehend the contents of this work better.


I began this translation during early 1980s.    The project was delayed due to legalities of all types; later on, due to health reasons.    Perhaps some day I can write an article on all the proceedings.    I would like to express my sincere thanks to Z.V. Togan’s offspring for finally cutting through the jungle and allowing all of us to see the sunlight.


I should note that I did not include the originals of the poetry Togan cited in various alphabets.    That is partially due to the limitations of software.   I discovered, a common platform across the net does not yet exist to represent all the alphabetical variations.   A trial caused some reading apparatus fits by displaying combinations of symbols instead of the words containing the diacritics.

The poet Ahmet Hasim [1884-1933] is said to be a connesur of viewing the world through a tulle curtain.   Togan, however, is a hard-headed realist.   But, there is a fine line between remaining totally focused on the words of the author as opposed to producing a readable text.   Therefore the aim was to keep the sheer curtains away from Togan’s text, even if some of the expressions Togan utilizes may sound peculiar in English.   As a demonstration, I offer the following, to indicate what I avoided:

Uses of cultural phrases: the case of 'Heavy Headed'
Certain Turkish terms cannot be translated into English in a word or two.   One of those is what the translator below rendered as, 'Heavy Headed.'   The phrase certainly has nothing to do with skeletal weight.   It is the dream of every mother to have an offspring possessing one such 'head'; a source of intense pride and joy to those who already have.  'Serious,' 'earnest,' 'grim,' 'solemn,' 'level-headed,' 'somber' are some of the words that begin to capture the meaning.   But, the sense is definitely extended well beyond; all public figures are expected to be 'Heavy Headed,' and successful ones are.   The acccompanying demeanor is indeed intensely charismatic, and a positive extension of the term.
The 'story' below is a 21st century creation.   It was originally composed (anonymously; perhaps by several collaborators) in English by stringing together old, similar cultural-context Turkish phrases in 'direct' English translation, in a minimal plot to hold those together.   Intended only for purposes of humorous laughter, directed at the Bilingual Community, as the original Turkish phrases are clearly 'visible' to those who can enjoy both languages.   The 'translation' ignores the extant equivalent phrases, and uses the second and even third meanings to be found in a respectable dictionary; but not all are obvious at first glance.   Just show the following tale to your bilingual neighbor.   As soon as the laughter dies down, which may take a while, you may get the explanations you seek.
Nonetheless, a few of the terms deserve some treatment here, which are listed immediately following the story.   Now, let us enjoy this modern story, deliberately built upon the gilded stilts of yesteryear:
“H. was a very heavy headed boy.   His father was a middle stationed man.   To make his son read in good schools he did everything coming from his hand. He took everything to eye.   His mother was a house woman.   Every job used to come from her hand.   In making food there was no one on top of her.   The taste of the observations she made you eat your fingers.   This woman made her hair a brush for her son.   When H. became sick, she cried her two eyes two fountains.   When H. finished lycee he wanted to be a tooth doctor, and he entered the university exams and won Tootherness School.   In the school he met J. H. was hit to J. in first look but J. was not hit to him in the first look.   However her blood boiled to him.   A few weeks later they cooked the job.   J's father was a money-father.   He turned the corner any years ago by making dreamy export.   But J. was not like her father.   She was a very low hearted girl.  Her father was wanting to make her marry to his soldierness friend's son A.    A. finished first school and didn't read later.   He became a rough uncle.   He started to turn dirty jobs when he was a crazy blooded man.   He was his mother's eye.   He said, "HIK" and he fell from his father's nose.   So three under, five up he was like his father.   When he saw J., he put eye to her.   His inside went.   His mouth got watered.   His eyes opened like a fortune stone.   To be able to see J., H.'s inside was eating his inside.   Finally, together they went to a park.   When they were wrinkling in the park, A. saw them.   First he pulled a deep inside.   And then his eyes turned.   He couldn't control himself.   He wanted to send them to the "village with wood", but he collected himself.   He decided to leave them head to head.   At that moment the devil poked him.   He fit to the devil, pulled his gun and fired.   However, a man passing stayed under lead rain and poor man went to who hit.   He planted the horseshoes.   Then the mirrorless' came.   They took all of them under eye.   J’s inside was blood crying.   The man died eye seeing seeing.   And so, this job finished in the blackarm.”#
Some of the less than obvious phrases (their original Turkish) and simple explanations are below:
H. was hit to J=(H., J. ye vuruldu) H was smitten by J
money-father=(para babası) wealthy man
low hearted=(alçak gönüllü) modest
observations=(gözleme) a pastry dish, fried on a flat steel sheet
making dreamy export=(hayali ihracat) fraudulent commercial transaction; 'exporting shadows'
soldierness friend's=(askerlik arkadaşı) comrade in arms, veterans of the same service or campaign
rough uncle=(kabadayı) hooligan (historical term, dating back several centuries)
pulled a deep inside=(içini çekti) sighed deeply
His inside went=(iç'i gitti) his heart leaped out
he fell from his father's nose=(babasının burnundan düştü) a chip off the old block
three under, five up=(üç aşağı-beş yukarı) approximately
opened like a fortune stone=(faltaşı gibi açıldı) eyes were as big as saucers
his eyes turned=(gözü döndü) temporary insanity
wrinkling in the park=(kırıştırıyorlardı) courting
He said, "HIK" and he fell from his father's nose=(HIK deyip babasının burnundan düşmüş) a chip of the old block.
to send them to the "village with wood"=(Tahtalıköye göndermek) to send to the cemetery, as the coffıns are made of wood.
leave them head to head=(baş-başa birakmak) tet-a-tet, to leave them alone
fit to the devil=(şeytan'a uydu) heeded the devil's bidding
stayed under lead rain=(kurşun yağmuru altında kaldı) subjected to a hail of bullets
went to who hit=(kim vurdu'ya gitti) killed by persons unknown
planted the horseshoes=(nallari dikti) kicked the bucket
mirrorless' came=(aynasızlar geldi) cops arrived
took all of them under eye=(hepsini gözaltına aldılar) took all into custody
died eye seeing seeing=(göz göre-göre gitti) died for nothing, before everyone
job finished in the blackarm=(bu iş karakolda son buldu) this affair came to an end in the police station
In the Keloğlan stories, there are many similar cultural references as those encountered above.   One of the more prominent is the tekerleme.   The most well known tekerleme I have encountered is as follows (my translation):
Once there was, once there was not;/ in the times past, when the sifter was in the straw;/ when the flea was the town crier; and the camel, the barber;/ 'tıngır-mıngır' while I was gently rocking my father's cradle;/ there was this …..#

The original contained photographs at the very end.   Unfortunately, the copy I have being a photocopy (published in 1969), the quality of the duplicated images would have been less than desirable.



















PREFACE by A.Z.V. Togan—


The sources constituting the basis of these memoires were taken out, prior to our [Togan, along with other prominet leaders of the Turkistan National Liberation Movement] departure at the beginning of 1923 from Turkmenistan to Iran, via the Kabul Embassy of Bukhara and merchants travelling to Muhammedabad.   Quite a few valuable documents were taken out to Finland by my compatriot Osman Tokumbet the same year.   The notes and documents that had been recorded in a similie of cypher, and taken out via various means, were read and decoded in collaboration with my compatriots who had fallen prisoner to the Germans during 1943, who were aware of the events contained therein.   Additional voluminous updates of information were also obtained from them.   Those materials were brought to the Turkish Republic by the late Saffet Arikan, then the Ambassador to Berlin.   During 1957, extensive use has been made of the Russian newspaper colections at the "Hoover War Library," originally collected by F. A. Kerenskii, and by his permission, and with the aid of the library director, a Professor of Polish origin, W. S. Sworokowsky.   Use also has been made of the microfilms of the Turkistan newspapers, originals of which were collected with care by Mr. Richard Pierce of Berkeley University during his visit to Russia [Soviet Union].   I must here express my gratitude to these individuals.


To assure the correctness of the information provided herein, I have asked my friends who have participated in the inclosed events, such as Abdulkadir Inan, Kocaoglu Osman, Abdullah Taymas and the combatants Shirmehmet Bek and Kirghiz leader Parpi Haci, to read the manuscript.


The first draft of this work was written in Berlin during 1924, but due to the unavailability of a suitable publisher, publication was delayed.   Finally, a compatriot of mine, who had saved capital as a high school student, provided for the eventual printing of this volume, desiring to aid the national publications.   He wishes to remain anonymous.   Author and poet Orhan Saik Gokyay undertook the task of revising the original manuscript which had been written under the influence of Eastern Turk dialects, in order to render it readable in modern Turkish.   I offer my sincere thanks to both.


A few photographs, though referenced in the text, were unavailable at the time of the printing.   I offer my apologies for their omission.  

18 February 1967 (Istanbul).  


I dedicate these memoires to my beloved wife Nazmiye Ungar Togan who aided me in their compilation.




















I.   MY YOUTH


Our Family—
At the beginning of my life, as I shall chronicle in this book, it could not have been foreseen that I was going to lead a great political movement of the Urals and Central Asia during this century and a liberation struggle of mass scale among the Turks; and that I was also going to attain international prominence as a person conducting research in the field of Oriental studies.


The entirely medieval simplicity of the lives of the Baskurt and Tatars, comprising some agriculture and forestry, in the southern portions of the Ural Mountains, in a village flanked by the mountaineous forest as well as the steppe, could have left me a modest and docile peasant like my relatives living today in Soviet kolhozes.


Despite that, the character of our life, seemingly very modest in this setting of elevations and yaylas [summer pastures], especially its historical manifestations which I have listened to in my childhood, was drawn from living memories and their reflections, possessed of a nature that could drive its members to adventures, to make plans for the present, the future and the benefit of Turk and Islamic world.   Keeping all this in mind, it could be said that my life may be regarded as a logical result of historical memories living within the people.   Except, in order to shed some light on the circumstances, it is necessary to relay some details to my readers which may appear utterly uninteresting at first sight.


The kernel of our village was constituted by perhaps a count of 30 or 40 emigre households of Tatar and Muslim Chuvash, Soqli, Qayli and Ungut Boy, [‘boy’ = extended family, groups of families acknowledging one leader] the majority of which was settled in the middle of the last century.


In order to understand these tribes better, it must be added that Baskurts differ from other Turks by the manner they substitute "Z" and Ch" for "dh" and "S," and comprise four groups:


1.   Mountain Baskurts (Burcen, Usergen, Tamyan);


2.   Yalan (Plateau Steppe) Baskurts (comprised of Yurmati, Kudey, Geyne, Irekti, Yeney, Tanip).


It is possible to determine that these two groups were living in the Urals at the time of Jesus.   Mountain Baskurts use "S" for "H," majority of the Yalan Baskurts use "Th.”   But, those of the latter, living in the West and the Northwest have largely become Tatars.


3.   The third group consists of portions that have arrived in various centuries and joined the Baskurts: Qipchak, Qangli, Suvun, Uran, Qayli, Qatay, Baylar (i.e.   Bayat), Kerey (Kerait), Churas, Nogai, Qirghiz, and Merkit.   Those of them who have settled among the Mountain Baskurts speak proper Baskurt, and the majority of those who have gone towards the West are under the influence of the Tatar dialect.   These three groups have been in the Baskurt army during the last centuries and have paid a different tax to the Russians.


4.   The fourth group came from the West to Baskurt lands, from the region of Bulgar and Kazan, after those districts have been occupied by the Russians, they are refugee Tatars (or, Tipter, meaning "Defterlu" in Ottoman), Buler (Bulgar), Misher and Muslim Chuvash tribes.   Russians called these refugees, who came from the area of the Kazan Khanate, "Bashkiri Pripushchenniki, and “meaning” those Baskurts accepted into the body


The first three groups out of the aforementioned four are semi nomadic, in possession of large lands and yaylas and have maintained their tribal organizations.   The fourth group had been farmers since early times, having lost their tribal organizations, historical dastans [ornate oral histories] and traditions.


I am a member of the Sokli Kay of the third group.   Although I am considered an historian for the past 55 years, I know the least about the history of my own people.   It is said that the Sokli Kay and Unggut tribes, constituting the foundations of our village, were residing on a branch of the Yigen, which in turn is a tributary of Ak Edil River, composed of 12 dispersed homesteads, settled on two hills belonging to Kuzen and Baki, and around a well of Yakub, since the 1800s.   During the 18th century wars they had suffered many casualties, land remained vacant.   Later, our village suddenly grew, when the tsarist government brought a crowded group of Western Baskurts called "Minzele Misheri" and settled them on the lands confiscated from us, as a separate subdivision.   The villages on the branches of the Yigen River, Ermit, Utek and Togay were very small Baskurt settlements at the end of the 18th century.


It is written in Selim Umidbaev's book, "Yadigar," that the Utek and Tukun villages belonged to the "Kichi Tabin" tribe.   Since the name of the "Erbit" was spelled as "Ermit," it follows that at one time they must have been included among the ranks of the Western Siberian "Tumen.”   But I do not know to which tribe they belonged.   Their lands were confiscated as well, and given to refugees driven away from Western Bashkurdistan.   The confiscation of their lands caused them to rebel against Russia under the leadership of "Kusuk Sultan," "Murad Sultan," and "Sultan Cerey.”


It is said that our ancestors were living under the administration of "Kusuk Sultan," whom they highly revered, in Erqaragay at the Tobol basin, and Irendik and Chubarkol of Eastern Ural.    During the heat of the summer, they migrated to the mountains named Ak Biyik.   Under the leadership of Kusuk Sultan, they had gone to Kemelik, Kuban and fought against the Russians.   Neighboring "Katay" Baskurts were our allies, but "Arlar," from other neighboring villages did not accept this sultan.   These "Arlar" would not intermarry with us.   Since "Kusuk" also meant "little dog," the people of Arlar would say: "Your sultan became 'it Kusuk,'" ridiculing us.   In return, we would say: "Ar, who had swallowed snakes.”   Our other relatives had lived in the Eastern Ural villages of "Kusi," "Ismail," and "Nogay" as well as the "Mukas" village of Yurmati Ulus.



Earlier, Kusi and Nogay villages were located towards the east of our village, in a region called "Kusi Yurtu" along the Yigen River.   Those of our ancestors who joined them later moved on to the Irendik region of Ural, but mine stayed where they were.   However, they continued to intermarry.   There is a River called "Bitire" on the Eastern side of the Ak Biyik yaylak.   The road leading to the town of Timec crosses it several times.   Perhaps 150 years ago, two bridal processions had met on their respective journeys, one going to "Kusi," the other arriving from Kusi, coming to us.   The bride going away from us was crying; weary of seeing the crossings called "turkun," which were constant reminders to her that she was getting further and further away from her mother's home, complaining with: "you keep telling me that the end is in sight, what an endless end is this?"  The other bride, arriving from Kusi, to express her desire that she did not wish to see the crossings come to and end, for she did not have a notion of what awaited her at the "Yigen" River basin, was repeating with running tears: "If the crossings came to an end, and my heart caught fire, could the waters of Yigen extinguish the flames?"


I had many times visited the Kusi and Nogay villages at Irindik after I turned fourteen, and stayed with old "friends" and "elder sisters," and had taken down "Muradim" (Edige) [fixing them on paper] which we also knew, adding it to our versions.   One of my first works of scholarly research was the papers I published in 1911 in connection with this dastan.


During spring, our horse herds, as they grew accustomed to from the times of our ancestors would go to the Ak Biyik yayla without any supervision.   During the aforementioned visits, I had learned that the inhabitants of Kusi also had the tradition of taking their horse herds to Ak Biyik during hot summer days as well, and even had related songs keeping those memories alive.   In those songs, the general theme was as follows: "God gave us a mountain such as Ak Biyik, so that we could erect our white goat skin tents.   Wild colts playfully and voluntarily rushed into the rope stables, as if saying 'tie us, no need to use the catching ropes.'" This means the climate of this place was very cool even during the hottest days, so the colts liked to be in the rope stables.


This yayla is perhaps one hundred kilometers from us.   Our ancestors lived in yaylak and wintering quarters far away from each other, and died in batllefields equally distant.   The tombs of some are known.   About one it was said that "he died in Kuban.”   It is the Northern Caucasian city.   About another ancestor, it was said that he had gone to Mansil in "Tumen" and became a martyr in a battle fighting against the Russians and the Kalmaks on the Eastern side of the Urals, in a lake region called Chubar Kol.   The elders, such as my grand uncle Veli Molla and Gusam Aga of Uggut, knew the old dastans very well.   These dastans were in verse, narrations about the Golden Horde (Edige, Cirence, Isaoglu Emet, etc.).   One of our ancestors, named "Allah Berdi," remembered as an individual who knew these dastans extremely well, was buried at a high yayla called Karli Bulek some three kilometers from our village.   He was known as "Allaberdi [God-given] Nogay" and his burial place was called "Allaberdi Olugu [Where Allaberdi is buried].”   Since it was reported that there were quite a few tall individuals among our ancestors, my father exhumed this Allaberdi's remains and determined that he was indeed tall, and discovered pieces of a sword in the burial as well.


Along with Allaberdi, a contemporary Nogay Bey is also remembered, named Burnak, and a yaylak was associated with him, along the Nigush River, near Ak Biyik.   When other Nogay Beys [leaders, rulers] migrated to the Kuban basin, it is said that along with this Burnak, Allaberdi had stayed here.   In addition, there was "Nogay Ogullari," members of the ulema [scholars], who were said to be of Nogay Mirza lineage, in the city of Sterlitamak.   One of their ancestors was said to be buried in this "Allaberdi Olugu.”   They were my father's and my uncles' teachers.   They used to visit us as guests, and despite being of the ulema, they were addicted to alcohol.   My fifth generation ancestor Ishtogan (from whom my last name is derived) of the "Kuzen Ogullari" had died at Kemelik, very far from us, fighting the Russians.   Around our village, there are places called "Russian died," "Russians broken.”   While ploughing, pieces of weapons used to be discovered at those locations.


Though all of the foregoing constitutes only the oral traditions concerning the history of my lineage, nonetheless they influenced my development.   This stresses the point that my ancestors, in contrast to the Baskurts of our neighbors, have descended from martial, nomadic, and much travelled stock.   Our homeland, termed "tubek," was actually "Yigen Boyu" region, but the Ak Biyik yaylaks and Irendik district of Eastern Baskurdistan became the homeland of my ancestors.   They have travelled throughout this zone, participated in all political events deliniated by Mansil in Western Siberia, Erkaragay in Tobol, Kemelik in Western Baskurdistan, Kuban River in Northern Caucasia; in the retinues of Khans, Beys, "Mirzas," fighting against not only the Russians, but also the Kalmaks.   The small Kalmak village neighboring ours had arrived at the time when our ancestors were fighting against the Buddhist Kalmaks.   However, the identities of those individuals regarded as belonging to the leadership, such as Kusuk Sultan, and among our direct ancestors, Burnak Biy [Bey], Allaberdi and Kuzen Biy were unknown.


It was after I grew up, learned Russian, started working at the archives of the "Land Boundaries Commission" in Ufa during 1912, followed the Russian publications pertaining to Western Siberian history, acquired information on Baskurt genealogy that I discovered "Kusuk Sultan" to be the grandson, living during the 17th century, of the famous Kucum Han of Western Siberia and also the son of Ablay Sultan; that Burnak and Allaberdi Beys were Nogay Beys who had lived during the 16th century; that our ancestors were in the retinue of Kusuk Sultan, and under his leadership, as well as his brothers Abaga and Qansuvar Sultans have fought against the Russias in Western Siberia, around Astrakhan and Kuban, and since these princes were deriving their sustenances from scattered lands they controlled, they were widely dispersed.


The Turkish language ferman given to a Baskurt Bey by Kucuk Sultan in 1663 was published in the "Historical Materials" by the Baskurdistan Academy of Sciences during 1943.   The participation of our ancestors in the campaign of this prince was also recorded in a geneology owned by Hidayet Sufi residing in the Askar village.   The genealogy of the Burnak and Allaberdi Beys, along with the geneologies of their descendants, the “Nogay Yurmati,” living today in a village close to ours, was among those published by the Baskurdistan Academy of Sciences during 1960.   It is recorded in the Russian sources that during his fight against the Russians, Küçük Sultan had 6400 Nogay troops, and those Baskurts in his retinue stating: "We are fighting to establish an independent state, similar to the one formed by Kucuk Han.”


"Sultan Murad," son of this "Kucuk Sultan," was among the leaders of the uprisings, had travelled to Crimea and later to Istanbul, met the Ottoma Sultan; had been taken prisoner during the fighting in Daghestan and executed.   "Sultan Gerey" was the nephew of "Kucuk Sultan," had assumed the names of "Kara Sakal" and "Suna" while he was hiding from the Russians.   It is not known when our great ancestor "Kuzen Qart," who gave his name to our village, had lived.   However, the mountain next to our village is also named after him.   Two of the grandsons of this Kuzen, Aydaq and Curaq, along with 42 other Beys of the Yurmati Urug of Teltim oymak, had sold land belonging to them during 1757 to the Tatars of Said (Kargali), who were situated along the headwaters of the Isterli River.   Photographs of the Turkish and Russian language texts of the contract were published in the Materials Pertaining to the History of Baskurdistan during 1956 by the Baskurdistan Academy of Sciences.   Other documentation concerning land and familial lineages were present among my family papers.   The names of the "sultans" who led our grandfathers, "Sultan Murad," "Bahti Gerey," "Sultan Gerey," were among those most often given to children until recent times.


Our urug [extended family] is Soqli Qay; a branch of the Qay or Qayli, to which belong also the Senekli Qay, Yurektav Qay, Tavli Qay that were near us.   According to tradition, before arriving in its present location, this urug was resident in the Irendik region of Eastern Urals.   Large groups of Qay (Qayli) tribe are found in Western Baskurdistan.   It can be determined that the "Yalan Qatay" and "Orman Qatay" tribes, which are close to us, on the banks of the Iset River, had constituted military groups during the time of the Khans, from the existence in history of "Katay Kalesi" (Katayskii Ostrog) and "Kay Kalesi" (Kay Gorod) from the beginning of the 17th century.   The other urug in our village is Unggut, and this tribe was also prominent with the designation of "Ak Tatar" during the time of Cengiz Khan.   I surmise Qay, Qatay tribes joined the Baskurts at the time of the Karahitays, and Tabin and Ungguts, at the time of the Mongols.   Since the Katay tribe was one of the mainstays of the descendents of Shiban, of Cengizids, after their occupation of Maveraunnehr they were called "Katay Hans.”   This was related by Herberstein, the German ambassador of the 16th century.   My father knew little of the Baskurts to the West of our village, as all his relations were with the Eastern Baskurts.   This is the result of their fighting, on the same side, against the Russians during the time of Küçüm Han and his sons.   My father caused me to become engaged to the daughter of Haci Mehmet Yaksimbet oglu of the Tungevur Baskurts, living on the banks of Yayik River, when I was still fourteen years of age.



CULTURAL TIES OF MY FAMILY

From a cultural standpoint, it will be observed that no person of prominence in learning or other fields had emerged from my family.   Despite that, Soqli Qay had played a role within the enlightened circles of our country.   The house of Velid Bay, my great ancestor, was a central place of meeting during the first half of the 19th century, where public banquets were also given; Baskurt Canton Presidents, Russian Generals and Governors were received among the guests.   It was said that an old "Kimiz ayagi" [on which the kimiz container was placed] and a very old torn carpet in our house were presented to our sixth ancestor by a Bey as a momento.


Military memories of our ancestors—
It was said that the majority of our family friends were from among those who had served in the old Baskurt army alonside our fathers: prominently, Karmisogullari from the Makar village, six kilometers from our village, and Kackinbayogullari from the Alagoyan village.   Kackinbayoglu Semseddin Molla and my great uncle Veli Molla had served together as non commissioned officers.   A very old man, Omer Haci of the Karmisogullari was the Canton President.   Contemporary members of this family, as teachers and officers, had served in our national movement, in the front ranks of our army.   It is said that a Yusuf Karamisev had reached the officer rank of major.   Our people had always liked to listen to the songs dedicated to him, and the melodies on the ney [flute].   My friend, the late Dr. Tagan, and Professor Jansky had published those scores in the scholarly journals of the Vienna Academy of Sciences.


Some members of these families also learned Russian, due to their military service.   Veli Molla was one of them.   Prior to his military service, Veli Molla had studied in a medrese.   Veli Molla was posted to Sirderya, and my father to Daghestan.   Both made time to learn good Arabic and Persian.   Veli Molla had produced works in Arabic and Persian, but, since I was very young, I only learned from him in Turkish, the historical national dastans Edige, Cirence, and Isaoglu Emet.   While my father was serving in Gunib of the Caucasus, where Seyh   Samil's headquarters were located, he had met the scholarly secretary of that Seyh   named Dibr al Indi, and had corresponded with him, and his brother, in Arabic, until the 1905 revolution.   There must have been other good reasons for my uncle and my father to learn Arabic, but I could not determine those.   However, it was reported by a Daghestani Omer Akay, who would visit my great ancestor Velid to teach Arabic to his sons among whom was Veli Molla.  After completing his military service, my father had stayed on in the Caucasus for another year studying Arabic.


No attachment among the Baskurts to Russian culture is discernible among those who had served in the Baskurt army until 1860 [when it was disbanded], nor among those educated in Russian military schools who served only in Russian military units.   Major Yusuf and other officers wore official Russian military uniforms while on home leave, but had never shown favor to Russian music, songs and were never attracted to Russian dances and games.   In the home of the Karmisogullari, there was no Western or Russian furniture, the house and gardens were entirely in the Turkistan style of the Syr Darya.


Some Baskurt historians' writings, published during the Soviet period, suggest such an attachment is at the behest of today's Russians.   Otherwise, though the technical superiority of the Russians was acknowledged, from the moral culture perspective, it was generally and absolutely believed that, like other Muslims, Baskurts were superior.   Those Russians who entered our midst such as ironmongers, grocers, etc. would quickly learn our language, often their children would come under the influence of Islam, and sometimes, contrary to prevailing Russian laws, they would become Muslims.   In addition to those Russians who had considered the Baskurt life original, and wrote about it, Polish (origin) General Siyalkowski, the military governor of Orenburg, while a guest of Major Yusuf in the Makar village, had expressed his fascination with the originality of the Baskurt life, and expressed his great admiration for Baskurt music.   He recommended that Baskurts preserve their traditions.


The presumption that their ancestors also held the West in adoration is also prevalent among the educated of the Turkish Republic.   The wish of some of the educated Turks to regard Fatih Sultan Mehmed as a lover of the European, especially Italian renaissance, is contrary to history.   Fatih was a proper representative of the Islamic civilization of which he was a member.   As he looked down on the European civilization, was proud of his own, so did the 18th and 19th century enlightened Baskurts, who were willingly or otherwise in contact with the Russians.   They knew their national culture, which is in origin Central Asian, and were proud of it.


Mollas of the Bukhara Khiva type—
The group our family got on best with were the mollas.   Among the more prominent ones were Nogayogullari Serefuddin and Kemal from Sterlitamak, Abselam and his son Bekbulat Molla of Sayran village, Sultan Gerey of Yumagoca village, Allam of Kunsak village, Nimetullah and and Zeynullah of Isterlitas, Seydioglu Abdullah of Mollakay village of the East of the Urals, and a prominent one with the name of Zeynullah Isan of Troysk.   These individuals knew Arabic and Persian, possessing theological knowledge, belonging to the Naksibendi tarika of Bukhara, were heads of their medreses.    They were book reading personalities.   Neither my father, nor Veli Molla maintained any appreciable contact with those who were unenlightened and fanatical.   The most scholarly of those Seyhs were Zeynullah of Troysk and Mollakay Abdullah.   Abdullah had studied in Bukhara, was an authority in theological sciences, a master in writing Arabic and Persian poetry and belonged to the "Muceddid-i Halidi" branch of the Indian Naksibendis.   Their medreses were established in the model of Bukhara, especially of the Khorezm type.   These were not fanatic men, for example, like those Kiskar and Tunter mollas of the Kazan area or many of the "Ishans" of the Baskurt il [lands].   All were astute individuals, cognizant of politics.


Arif Sayrani and Hizir Molla—
Among those, Sterlitamak Nogayogullari had the most influence on our family.   They considered themselves descendants of the Nogay Oybakti Mirza, maintained contacts with the likes of Kursavi, Mercani of Kazan, and Cardakli Hekim of Western Siberia and with Bukhara.   It is said that they also held political views.   My uncle Veli Molla and my father had studied in their medrese.   In their milieu, some men of thought had matured; they valued sciences and branches of knowledge such as mathematics and history.   One of the distinguished personages studying in the Nogayoglu medrese was the aforementioned Bekbulat Molla's brother Arif Sayrani, from the neighboring village of Sayran.   This individual, while studying at the Nogayogullari medrese, along with Nizameddin of the Katay urug, from the Kuruc village, had been inspired by Al Tarikat al muhtla, written by Mercani of Kazan, inculcating the "modern" understanding of Islam at the time.   As a result he became interested in mathematics and philosophy, went to Bukhara during the first half of the last century in order to expand his knowledge in those areas.   Upon observing that these types of knowledge had degenerated at that locale, he wrote a letter in Arabic expressing his deep grief, and sent it to his uncle or father, appended to a copy of the book Akaid Nesefi.   My father had that letter published, through the great Tatar scholar Rizaeddin Fahreddin and historian Murad Remzi.   Arif describes the ulema of Bukhara with "the turbans on their heads are high as the mountains, their claims wide as the oceans, but they are ignorant and insignificant.”   Another one of his letters in Arabic has been published in a book by the historian Sihabeddin Mercani of Kazan.   This individual [Arif], accompanied by his fiery friend Nizameddin, left Bukhara for Herat and Kabul, to undertake scholarly activities, and from there went to Bagdad via Iran.   He was disillusioned once again and both perished in poverty during 1856 under conditions suggesting suicide.   The adventurous lives of these two individuals, seeking true knowledge and reform in social life, their disappointment upon observing the demise of intellectual life in such Islamic centers as Bukhara, Herat, Rayy and Bagdad constituted a significant tragedy at the time.

Among the members of the Yurmati urug, interest in the positive aspects of Islamic civilization was not confined to Arif Sayrani.   In fact, an Imam by the name of Hizir, living in the village of "Buce," four kilometers from ours, knew geometry quite well.   My father had arranged for me to study geometry with him.   This person used to determine the kibla of the mosques using the "Rub i mucayeb" (Astronomical Quadrant) method of the mathematician Ulug Bey, grandson of Timur.   This was medieval knowledge and had diminishing relation to the developing mathematics available in contemporary Turkiye or Russia.   This Imam, it was said, had also determined the peak heights of Ulkum and Alatav mountains, which were the highest in our vicinity, with his simple instruments.   Hizir Molla lived out the last years of his life as the Imam of Bacik village, was pleased with my learning Russian and expressed his desire for me to be an engineer.   After his death, I, too, determined the kiblas of some newly constructed mosques, using his method.  

During my youth, the influence of Khiva on the national life of the Southern Ural Baskurts was continuing and manifested itself in many respects.   For example, a gift of an outfit called "Khiva Capani" would be made at the wedding ceremonies.   When I was in Khiva Khorezm during the winter of 1920, I was astonished to observe that the style and embroidery of the unlined blond furs worn during winter were the same as the ones we would wear.   The haircuts and beard trims were also alike.   In short: the milieu to which my father belonged was under complete influence of Bukhara and Khorezm, and perhaps abandoned the seminomadic life style during the 19th century, or perhaps not entirely.   The visible center of this cultural milieu was the Sayran village, seven kilometers to our South, and the Makar village, a similar distance to the North East; that is to say, villages of Arif Sayrani and Major Yusuf.   Though the Russians had studied, with imperialist aims, vast areas that lay between China and Tibet, down to the village level, they had entirely neglected the Ural environs.   The Geographical Society they had established in Orenburg had only studied Ziyancura town, from among Baskurdistan cultural centers, and had published some studies on it, but that type of research had not spread in our direction.   The existence of towns such as "Sayran," "Selci," "Yapanci," "Sart Hasan," that had reared some distinguished personae; and their possession of historical inscriptions, point to the populations' having been detached from the Western Turkistan towns, known to be historical civilization centers, of "Sayran," "Selci," "Yafenc," and settled in our territory.


Influences of the Kazan School—
When my father married Ummulhayat (my mother), the daughter of Satlikoglu Kafi of the Utek village, where a mixture of Baskurt and Tipter were living, he entered into a somewhat different world maintaining contacts with Kazan, instead of Bukhara and Khiva.   Valuable scholars had emerged from Utek since earlier times, one of them, Kockaroglu Emirhan, who had died in 1826, had studied in Daghestan, Istanbul, Egypt and Hijaz.   He and his son Ahmetcan, a foremost theologian who settled as an Imam somewhere in the vicinity of Kazan on his way back from the pilgrimage, had introduced some modernism into Islamic theology.   Our relative from my mother's side, Oteguloglu Abcelil Hazret (died in 1859), who had a medrese at the Utek village, had studied at Khiva Yeni Urgenc; my maternal grandfather, Satlikoglu Kafi (died 1900) had lived in Bukhara and Khiva.   Reportedly, both learned good Persian.   The Persian culture, present in our village earlier, had developed further with my mother's arrival.   While my father was teaching me Arabic, my mother was teaching me Persian.


On the other hand, Emirhan and his son Ahmetcan, both of whom settled in Kazan environs as Imams, were inviting their relatives to Kazan for study.   The "Kazan sympathizers," who had emerged in our area, in competition to those of Bukhara and Khiva, rose from this Utek village.   Their principal representative was my maternal uncle Satlikoglu Habibneccar, who admitted me into his medrese when I reached the age of eleven.   Mercani of Kazan was known under the name "Sihab Hazret" in our parts.   His independent views pertaining to Islamic precepts were received well even among "Bukhara type Mollas.”   But, his historical works were held in utter distain due to their containing passages belittling Kazaks and Baskurts.   Consequently, even Habibneccar was viewed as a "lackey of Sihab Molla.”   Mercani had misunderstood a point made by the Arab traveller Ibn Fadlan explaining a shamanic fetish called "tos," and wrote that there was a "phallus" cult among the Baskurts.   Because of that, Mollakay Abdullah Hazret, who knew Arabic very well, burned Mercani's book Mustefad al axbar in a fire, in my father's presence.   Outside of these three circles, several other individuals had contributed to my maturation.   One of them was Mollagul Divana.


Mollagul Divana—
My mother regarded Persian not merely as a language, but also as the vehicle inculcating mystical thoughts of the 13th century Persian Sufi writer Attar and the 18th century Sufi Allahyar of Bukhara, who wrote in Turkish and in Persian.   In this respect, she was under the influence of a dervish named Mollagul Divana he was fifty years of age when I was very young who used to visit us often.   This dervish of the Sengim Kipcak urug had lived in and around "Turkistan" (the city of "Yesi" in Syr Darya) and belonged to the Yesevi tarika, which was not well known among us.   His zikrs consisted of reciting aloud religious verses all the while rocking back and forth and bouncing about.   Though my father belonged to the Naksibendi tarika, reciting their zikrs silently in their mouths, he liked the zikrs of others called "cahri" and would remind Mollagul of the Sufi codes in Arabic at the end of a namaz, causing Mollagul to take notice, jumping and responding with "yahu.”


I understood that these jumps and gyrations, throwing the head back and forth, resembling a dance, were called "erre" in Persian, meaning "bicki zikri", and in Turkish, "capkin.”   My mother greatly enjoyed these zikrs, which Mollagul would perform at the end of namaz at our home, when not going to the mosque to do so.   My mother would memorize the Turkish and Persian verses recited by this dervish, write down some and have me memorize them as well.   These were all religious, moralistic poems.   The poetry he used to relate from the great Turkish Sufi of the 12th century was emotive.


For example: "If I were to ask about the path from those who arrived at the truth/ Would it be wrong to place my head on their knees and rub my face?/ If I were to climb the peaks of tall mountains to become an ascetic/ Melding with the clouds, causing endless rains to fall/ Would it be wrong for me to resuscitate drying trees and grow lush gardens?/ If I were to touch the clouds as a Sunkar bird/ Descend down to become a hunter and stalk rapacious beasts/ Joining sparrows, repeat God's name ninety one times/ Would it be wrong to fly about along with the nightingales?”


I could never forget the time when Mollagul was visiting us during a bayram [religious holiday].   He (or, my father) apparently had previously related a story to the population, concerning the prophet.   In any case, everybody knew of it.   The contents of the story was as follows: During a bayram, the prophet noticed a destitude orphan, who, watching the children of the rich riding on luxuriously ornamented camels, was crying: "I wish I, too, had a camel.”   In order to please the child, the prophet pretended to be a camel, placing the orphan on his sholders, moved about the crowd, jumping.   When Abubakr intervened, stating that this was unbecoming of him, the prophet responded with "in that case, the child should purchase the camel under him and release it.”     Abubakr, handing six walnuts to the child, had him free the prophet.   Mollagul, singing the versified story in lyrical form, placed me on his back, moved about among the congregation that had gathered next to the mosque.   My father caused me to free Mollagul by giving me six walnuts.   Commencing to recite the following poem in Turkish to me, attributed to Sems Tebrizi, my father repeated it exuberantly perhaps ten times in a row; all this being done as if it were a short theatrical act: "That child did not know the identity of the man under him, being a mere child; otherwise, he would not have sold it even if presented with the world entire and the universe.”


The proceedings made me cry too, because Mollagul had acted the part of the prophet, and my father, that of Abubakr.


Mollagul would sing, in lyrical form, some of the religious verses and used to play the flute, known as "kuray.”     He would thus bring alive the Islamic traditions before the adults and the children.   According to him, the famous Sufi Sems Tebrizi, who recited Persian poems, also recited them in Turkish, was a fiery dervish, and caused the Muslims to be overwhelmed with joy through his verses and dances.


Mollagul passed away during the Russo-Japanese war.   When I visited home, accompanied by a detachment of troops during revolutionary times in 1918, I discovered a notebook belonging to Mollagul preserved in our house.   After his death, my father and mother appended to it additional Turkish and Persian poems they had heard from him earlier.   My father would recite those poems along with Mollagul.   Often, my father would recite them when he was alone.   Those poems were so fluid, so lively that they would effortlessly place themselves into a person's memory.   There were times when Mollagul would behave strangely.   For example, sometimes he would steal something from my father.   My father would say "let him.”   But once he stole a silver pocket watch which came from Mekka as a present.   My father caught and beat him.   Despite the fact that he had a huge body, he cried, saying "I did not take it Molla, I admired it as a possession of a friend" and recited a Persian poem with the content "gold becomes more beatiful as the jeweler pounds it.”    Truly, Mollagul was not a thief, but would walk away with the properties of those individuals he considered to be his true friends.


When he came to visit us during the summer months, he would stay in the summer dormitory of the medrese adjoining our house, called "alacik.”   The summer kitchen was there, too.   All of us children would sleep there as well.   Upon Mollagul's arrival, my mother had a goat skinned and prepared it to be boiled in the cauldron.   Mollagul, stating "and this is Mahmay's," offered a leg of it to our dog by that name.   My mother was angered and crowned Mollagul with the ladle.   Mollagul immediately recited a Persian poem suitable for the occasion, and addressing his wife, who was perhaps one hundred and fifty kilometers away, shouted "Rehile, Ustabike is beating me.”     "Ustabike" means "Ustad bike," schoolmistress.   My mother did not forget the poem he recited during this incident, and entered it into Mollagul's notebook; meaning: "The aroma drew me inside (into the kitchen), and caused the ladle to be placed on my head.”    This was not a poem he composed at that instant, but one of the thousands of poems he carried in his memory, selecting the appropriate one as needed.


It is said that he even used the suras of the Koran in such masterly manner.   I tried to use them as he did.   Mollagul liked me very much, and had me memorize Turkish and Persian poems of morality in my childhood.   For instance "if you greet the guests forthright, God will bestow upon you countless blessings;" and "son, do not offend people with your tongue, so as not to weary God.”   Also, "God, who can provide the fish to feed the birds flying in the sky, may also grant powers of state to his smallest servant.”     But, he did not provide an interpretation of this last one, and indicated I would understand in adulthood.   I did not insist.   Though my father sometimes flogged him, he also used to say that Mollagul may be an evliya [saint].   When I presided over the Baskurt government in 1918, my father reminded me of Mollagul's poem, asking "do you now comprehend the meaning?"


When I related those poems to Ahund Yusuf Talibzade of Azarbaijan (in 1922), who knew Persian literature very well, he explained that those were all from 12th 13th century poets Attar and Celaledddin Rumi.   It became apparent that Mollagul also knew history.   For example, he used to remember a poem concerning Seljuk rulers Sencer and Karahan Arslan Hakan's often visiting Seyh   Ahmet Yesevi, who had spread a "Turk mysticism,” centered around Syr Darya; they knocked on Yesevi's door, kissing the earth on his threshold as well as his feet.   I used to consider that an invention.   Apparently that, too, was quoted from Rumi's works.   Though I never took the poems Mollagul taught me during my childhood seriously, I discovered they had all had been relayed from grand personae.


My teacher Zeki Halife and I would consider Mollagul's behavior, such as addressing his wife afar, back at home, when beaten with a ladle on the head by my mother, a fraud and regarded him a thief.   My father, on the other hand, supposed him learned and even a member of the “erenler [those who had reached God],” admonished me to earn his “alkis,” meaning praise, and avoids his "kargis," imprecations.   On my part, I would transport him to see his friends in the neighboring villages, using our horses and carriages.   In any event Mollagul aided my understanding in a considerable way, by helping me learn Persian and Chaghatay literature, how Yesevism and Islam spread among the masses and became their property.   He categorically shunned those who were ceremonious and lacking cordiality.   He also severely criticized my father for taking an officious approach of religion.   For instance, he did not find it expedient that my father would rouse me for the morning namaz.   He would say "he is still a child; he has not yet acquired a taste for namaz, why do you compel him?"


Another anecdote: As long as I remember myself, on the wall of our guest house, which we called "Agoy," there was a sizeable poster hanging.   Along its borders it contained Sufi poetry taken from Yesevi, Attar and from other mystical poets.   In its middle, as I recall, the heads of three dervises were drawn.   The blue colored tears running from their eyes were depicted as forming Rivers, leading to a lake, finally engulfing the village.   Supposedly, these dervises were clamoring with "ah'un min al isq," meaning "oh, this love," Allah, Allah.   Addressing Mollagul, I queried: "Uncle, what is this? God is not visible, it is not known where he is, and how can one fall in love with him.   Is Allah a "Leyla" so that a "Mecnun" can fall in love with him? It is absurd that their tears are forming Rivers.   How can that be?" Because of my question, my father slapped and reprimanded me, calling me a swine.   Mollagul immediately intervened with: Molla, what are you doing? The child does not possess the ability to understand mysticism, can mysticism be acquired forcibly?   God created him thus, though he may become "sagacious," but not a "Sufi.”   If anything, he may become a "starshina," but not a "Seyh  " or "murid.”     In Russian, "starshina" refers to the rank of governor of a township, or, in the army, to the rank of "major.”     My father would not object to his interferences of this nature, instead, accept them.   This was to my benefit.   Mollagul did not at all like the mollas, known in Islam as "ulema i rusum," of the formal type.   He would not go anywhere near my maternal uncle Habibneccar because of his overly formal approach to being a molla, or the zealous Kessaf Molla of our village, who was of the Bukhara type.   When he died, I was only fourteen years of age, and had not appreciated his worth.   I began understanding him somewhat, after he passed away, from the poetry he had me memorize and through my mother and father.   I also began to understand the inner thoughts of my mother and father only from the entries they made in Mollagul's notebook, which was in their hands during 1918.


My Learning Russian—
While I was still six, seven years of age, I began learning Russian along with Arabic and Persian.   My learning these three languages at such an early age caused me to save quite a bit of time later in life, and allowed me to concentrate on other topics instead of struggling to acquire them after I grew up.   Why did I start learning Russian this early?   There is a reason.   While my father was serving in the army, he had suffered tremendously, and resolved that, if he were to have a son, to have him learn Russian before anything else.


He used to recall the event as follows: In Islam, when "nocturnal emmission" (pollution, ejaculating semen during a dream) takes place, it is customary to wash the body in "ritual total ablution.”     One night, my father experienced that event in the army.   But, he is caught by the officer of the watch during the "ritual ablution.”     Upon the request of the military doctor, my father's company commander ordered my father imprisoned and condemned him to be prostrated under sandbags for hours as punishment.   As my father moaned under the weight of the sandbags, the Daghestani Beys, called "Samhal," in their thick uniforms, serving in the Russian army, happened to be by.   Samhal inquired from the young Russian officer the cause.   Commander recounted the event.   Samhal asked the commander whether he could take my father to his own unit to serve out the punishment.   But my father, not knowing Russian, addressed the Samhal in Arabic, which pleased the latter immeasurably.   After the punishment period, as the Samhal returned my father, told the Russian commander: "he is a worthy youth, promote him to sergeant.”   But, since my father could not speak Russian, he suffered immeasurably as a sergeant, and received beatings often.


At that juncture, my father resolved that, if he could return home, get married and father a son, to have him learn Russian before all else.   In our village, there was no school teaching Russian.   There was one in the neighboring Makar village, but he did not wish to send me there.   Instead, he charged Abdurrahman Menglibayev, a Tatar student in his medrese, a graduate of the "Russian City School" (Middle School), to tutor me privately in Russian.   Two years later, another "Russian City School" graduate, Sahibek Ozbekov, son of a close friend of my father came to the medrese.   When Abdurrahman left, Sahibek tutored me in Russian.   When I reached the age of eleven, Sahibek prepared me, by tutoring me in other subjects as well, to sit for the primary school exams during the summer.   I went to the school in Makar a few times during the summer.   During spring, I sat for the exams there.   The schoolteacher, Miftah Karamisev, gave me a diploma indicating I had passed.   He also added that in four years, with private tutoring, I had learned better Russian than his own students, and recommended that I be sent to the Russian city school in Sterlitamak.   I also insisted.   However, my father and my mother were strictly against it.   Instead, I was taken to my maternal uncle's medrese in Utek, during the fall (1902).   That bigoted Kessam Molla's fabricating gossip: "Molla Aga is sending his son to the Russian school" prevented my going to Sterlitamak.



My Education in Utek (1902 - 1908)—
Though this village was fourteen kilometers from ours, my maternal uncle's circle was quite dissimilar to ours.   I usually stayed in my uncle's house, in its richly stocked library section.


All five sons of my maternal grandfather were Imams, so were his three daughters' husbands, who were his pupils.   His eldest son, my uncle Habibneccar, was taken to Kazan by the aforementioned son of the wealthy trader Kockaroglu Emirhan, became a student of one of the greatest minds, masters, philosophers of the time, the renowned historian Sehabeddin Mercani; and later became his famous assistant.   Habibneccar published, in Turkish, his book pertaining to Islamic history, Miftah ut Tavarih, meaning "Key to Histories," as well as Arabic commentaries to the well known medrese textbooks on Islamic metaphysics and philosophy.   The Arabic footnotes he produced were written while the latter books were being typeset, as a means of correcting them, also appending biographies of their authors, in Arabic.   Hamid Sengari, a friend of my uncle's, wrote many such footnotes.   Also, the "Qalyubi" anecdotes, which my uncle translated from Arabic literature, were also published.


Habibneccar was also informed about politics.   He had read the Tercuman newspaper, published by the educated Crimean Muslim Turk Ismail Gasprinskii, from the beginning, meaning since 1883.   In Sufism, he was a disciple of the progressive Seyh   of the time, Zeynullah of the Tungatar Urug.   Habibneccar also would obtain the latest publications from Turkiye, and read them.   He, like my father, occupied himself with the Arabic language as well as the philosophical and moralistic works in that language.


But, there were points where their life views diverged from each other.   My uncle had learned of the spherical nature of earth's constitution from the translation of Flamarion.   He knew astronomy and mathematics in its contemporary form.   On the other hand, my father considered these topics from the perspective of 12th century Islamic thinker al Ghazali, whom he regarded to be the only teacher in such matters.   He believed in the spherical nature of earth, that the moon is smaller than the earth and closer to earth than the other heavenly bodies, which the sun is larger than the earth and further away, knew of the solar and lunar eclipses.   But he did not believe in the fact that earth rotated around its axis, because Gazali, under the influence of Ptolemy, stressed the heliocentric theory of the universe.   My father, in his sermons, enthusiastically related from Gazali's Ihya ul ulum al din, meaning "Resuscitation of religious knowledge," but would also read certain portions of the same work in bed, to fall asleep.   I would ask my father: “How is it that one work can create such excitement and induce drowsiness?”   He would answer with: “Son, this book contains sections to affect both.”     Later on, upon reading the French scholar G. Bosquet's analysis of the said volume, I found a similar opinion and realized the essentially correct prognosis of my father.


I knew of Ghazali's date of death, expressed in reiterative figures (A.H.  505; A.D.   1111), since I was perhaps ten years old.   My father wished to die at the age of sixty three, as did Ghazali and our prophet.   But, his wish was not granted.   When he died in the hands of the Bolsheviks, after having been subjected to prolonged tortures, he was well past eighty.   My father regularly received Gaspirali's newspaper as well, reading only the important news, would not necessarily understand the articles pertaining to the contemporary intellectual currents, would believe in the advertisements.   For example, he would regard long haired Anna Chilag, appearing in a hair tonic promotion, as real.   Hence, my father's circle, though distant from fanaticism, was conservative.   Habibneccar's milieu, on the other hand, was enlightened and progressive.   These aspects bound me more to my maternal uncle than to my father.


My Father's Personality—
Though my fathers’ environment appeared comparatively undistinguished, in many respects I preferred it to my uncle's.   My maternal uncle and my father were friends, but their characters and the life views they held were truly different.   Habibneccar in Kazan, along with two other "assistants" of Mercani, Abbas and Sadri, indulged in excesses and all were involved in scandals.   About them, a satirical poem was written:

"Neccar, Abbas and Sadri/ though it is said that they are students/ they are distinguished in merrymaking/ their eyes on the girls.    Abbas went to Istanbul, but did not refrain from immoderation, and satires caught up with him.   Neccar, whose reputation followed him to Istanbul due to those satires, became an Imam in his village, and later, Seyh.   But his life was a mystery to me.   Even though I lived in his household, I used to think "I wonder if he still drinks?"  My father, on the other hand, was a simple and completely sincere man, held no secret from me.   My uncle was overly pompous toward his students, while my father, though an authoritarian, treated his students and sons as a friend and a real father.   If he noticed a fault, he would definitely mete out punishment, but often turned a blind eye toward the offenses.   He had never imbibed intoxicants in his life.   The namaz was compulsory in the family, but he knew that when he was away we did not perform it, and would not pursue the issue.


He was extraordinarily disciplined.   He would rule with an iron hand when we were involved in the family herd management activities.   He would place a cushion called "kopcik" on his saddle, but not allow anyting soft to be placed on ours, requiring us to sit only on the leather saddle cover, even if we were to be riding fifty kilometers.


Our cover at night, at home or in the field, was a wool capote called "sekmen" (cekmen).   During summer though the herds had shepherds, he would make us, his sons, responsible for any cow or sheep that was left behind, got lost or became ill.   We had no less than five horses at home.   At night, he would send us to "Qunalga," meaning to take them for grazing where the grass was best.   We would stake with a lengthy rope those horses which had a tendency to run away.   We would get up at night to change the places of those stakes.   During morning prayers, we would bring the horses home.   If we were to be still asleep by dawn, my father would most definitely slap our faces.


He was faithful to old customs and traditions in the highest possible degree.   He was always in conflict with his lieutenant, Imam Kessaf Molla, for customs not found among Miser, Tipter and Tatars.   Reportedly this person, behind my father's back, would say "molla prefers zakon to sheria.”   Having studied in Bukhara, what Kessaf Molla referred to as "zakon," meaning Russian official laws, were in actuality Baskurt traditions not necessarily in step with sheria.   This manifested itself in inheritance matters, custom of "inci" (insi), and the "honey" drink.


"Inci" (insu) means division of property of all types equally, based on the principle of parity among men women of a family, without regard to gender, and branding of all animals accordingly.   "Inci" is a fundamental law governing the family affairs, such as the slaughtering of animals for religious sacrificial occasions or for banquets, zekat and inheritance.   Reportedly, our village was famous for keeping "bees," producing "honey" and for partaking freely of "bitter honey.”     A relative of ours, Ehil Molla, an aged Imam, was in the habit of drinking and leading the congregation in that state.   It is said that Kessaf Molla would object: "the namaz cannot be performed under his leadership.”     In return, my father would only say: "if anyone is in doubt, let them repay their debt at home," and not contravene the aged molla because of this bitter honey matter.   My mother, too, would surreptitiously produce this bitter honey for her own consumption.   Though my father would see the "kurege," the wood container where bitter honey was fermented, he turned a blind eye.   He would even hand my mother the honey water generated from washing the "ekmekli" portion of the honey from the hives, through which process candle wax is extracted, with the request that she "pour it out.”   My mother would not, instead storing it in her "kurege.”   This would turn into the most potent kind.   And my father would act as if he was not aware.   Kessaf Molla would hear of this, and about my father, whom he greatly revered, would say: "In Molla Aga's house, there is no shortage of unlawful honey.”   Kessaf Molla insisted on compliance to sheria to the letter.   He had followers among the Tipter and Misers.   They, too, would gossip about my father.


Since my father held the primacy of old traditions in the village life, there would be conflicts.   According to my father, the main occupation of the village was to raise animals and provide pastures.   His agriculture was confined to the "corn" he would plant, as much as could be carried in the skirt of his gown called "bismet" or "yilen," and the area where it was planted.   The seeds of his annual planting would not exceed two or three skirtfulls.   The planted field would be surrounded by a fence called "kerte," as done by everybody else.   But when the Misers arrived, it is said, they had encircled the village with a fence, in Russian style, and called it "Ukalsa" (okolitsa) in Russian.   The pasture was removed, all having been converted to planting fields.   Then, conflict broke out between those keeping animals and the planters.   My father regarded as natural the raids of the animals on the fields, returning from yayla in the fall.   Miser, Tatar and Russians stood against him.


During summer, Misers and Russians were renting the winter pens of our animals, to plant potatos there.   Our people would not eat those, regarding them grown in filth.   Misers also planted vegetables, like the Russians, and surrounded them with hedges.   Our neighbor, Siddik Miser, once beat me, stating I stole a cucumber and accused my father of raising his son as a thief.   A row broke out: my father did not recognize the right to punish humans for taking cucumbers or chickpeas.   My father, faithful to all ancient nomadic traditions and customs, viewed life where "one custom made place for another according to necessity.”     Meaning, in adapting to changes in life, the central reference point was custom, and not sheria.   From this standpoint, he was much more amenable to progress not only with respect to Kessaf Molla, but also to my maternal uncle Habibneccar.


Years passed, he used the winter pens of our animals to grow potatos, having us eat large potatos.   He even grew cabbage, had his relatives get used to potatos.   In adapting to life, also planting fruit trees in the garden, he surpassed the Miser and Kessaf Molla who did not have any.   When I was older, I persuaded him to increase our planting field by five-ten hectares.   Earlier, would harvest grass with a scythe, but as the sickle caused us back-ache; we would employ Tatars or the Russians as day laborers to do that job.   In time, my siblings got used to the sickle as well as the machine.


Earlier, we would feed our animals in open pens (kerte), even during the winter.   In time, we had "ahur," "saray," meaning barns, constructed like those of the Miser.   The Baskurt village school next to our house, comprising two rooms, took the form of an excellent medrese similar to those found in a Tatar township.   In other words, my father speedily adapted the medieval life of my youth to contemporary times.   In ten years, by the time I left our village at the age of eighteen to study in far off places, radical changes not seen for the past few centuries had taken place in our lives.   The factor facilititating this change was my father's ability to keep "religious" matters separate from affairs of "life," and sheria away from the business of "life," subjecting "life" to custom.


My Father's Medrese—
My father's medrese comprised four buildings.   He would have one hundred fifty to perhaps two hundred students.   The majority of these students were dag Baskurts, and children arriving from distant locations.   They would study for four months, returning to their villages before the snows melted.   Fermenting honey secretly, without letting my father know, they would hold drinking parties.   They would also organize regular wrestling and dancing events during Thursday evenings.   There was a very tight disciple among them.   The news of bitter honey parties would not reach my father's ears, and I would not at all report them.   The head, called "kadi" would be elected during fall, as soon as the medrese session began.   He would be seated on white felt and raised high by four individuals, while other students would pinch, sometimes even needle him here and there with an awl, causing him to cry.   But, later he would get his own back.   This was the "Han," meaning rulership, tradition of the old Turks.   We have later learned that the election of "kadi" in medreses was entirely a Khorazm tradition.


Though the official director of the medrese was my father, the actual administration was in the hands of this elected "kadi.”     Not allowing the internal matters to reach the medrese owner, called the "muderris," was considered a talent of the "kadi.”     My father's skill was in appearing as if he had not heard of those events.   In this manner, the medrese life was the mirror of our community, and its history.   In it, there was not the trace of the new pedagogical system called "usul i cedid.”     Except, my father had designated an assistant of his, named "Zeki Halfe," with the task of teaching mathematics and geography to those interested.   He also had students who could teach Russian.   But my father categorically refused the proposal by the Russian government to open a Russian elementary school next to the medrese.   And even I had opened a "village library" in this medrese.


The jurist Baskurt Sultanov, sent to us as the government district commissar (zemski nachalnik), was the son of Ufa mufti Sultanov.   He, like the Tatar girl Zeyneb Abdurrahmanova, who was sent as the government doctor, had studied at the St. Petersburg University.   Both would visit us often, discussing politics and educational matters.   Perhaps these two had also influenced my father's evolution into a reformer from that of a medieval village Imam.   In my father's medrese, I studied Arabic and religious lessons with him, learned Persian from Zeki Halfe and Kessaf Molla, Russian and mathematics from Sahibek.   But, one occupation that pleased me most was my participation, as a standard fixture, in wrestling competitions, though allowed to the students only during Thursday evenings, were organized among our household nightly.   I did not neglect the "honey parties" either.   Folk stories would be recited until the lights were put out for sleep, and I enjoyed them very much.


Once Again, From My Mother—
Because, when I was imprisoned at Orenburg in 1918 by the soviets, and in the Turkish Republic by Ismet Pasa during 1944, deprived of all reading material, I realized the importance of my mother's influence on me, and later while reading the poems I had learned from her and also Yesevi's inward supplication prayer piece called "Seb i Yelda.”   During the events of 1944, memories of my father were long forgotten, but my mother's image was next to me like the angel called "hafaza feriste.”   Sometimes, as I did back at home, I felt as if I was inhaling her fragrance.   Her charm was in her poetry, full of ethical suggestions.   I am of the opinion that my mother had not committed the smallest sin in her life and that she was infinitely honest with me.   The Persian and Turkish poems she taught me were not confined to moralistic pieces; among them there were literary and aesthetic ones.   When I later read Navai's works in their entirety, I realized that those "gazel" my mother had me memorize were select ones.   I do not know who taught those to my mother.   Because, the portions of his "Divan" we had did not contain them.   Furthermore, the moralistic poems and stories she taught me were in the nature of a "chrestomathy," an anthology, and the majority of them were in my mother's memory.   Those were mainly pieces taken and compiled from Attar, Celaleddin Rumi, Navai, Yesevi, and Sufi Allahyar.


During the beginning of 1957, I was in Pakistan as a guest Lahore University.   There, at the home of my friend Muhammed Baqir, the Professor of Persian literature, I was astonished to discover that the army commander of Haydarabad Nizam, a Bukhara Ozbek by origin, had his son read the same books and poems my mother personally had me read, realizing how widespread this educational program was among the 19th century Turks.


I surmise that my mother did not know the authors of those Persian poems.   I found out, only later, that they were select pieces, and that the pronunciations I had learned were correct.   The contemporary Iranian ruler, Muhammed Riza Shah, during the two audiences I had with him, asked where I had learned Persian.   When I responded with "from my mother," he said "I wonder if your mother was Iranian?"   Because, he had noticed that my pronunciation was different than that of Bukharan Tajik.   Like my father's Arabic, my mother's Persian was of the literary type, perhaps grafted onto the Kuzenogullari and Satlikogullari by the Daghestani masters since the 18th century.   She had also taught me namaz "niyet," the formal resolve to perform namaz in Persian.   I remained forever indebted to my mother for lovingly teaching me Persian, which allowed me to learn Middle and Near Eastern life quite closely, and giving me the chance to make many very good friends there.


My mother knew absolutely nothing of politics.   She did not look at the arriving newspapers.   Except stating that the name of God may be in them, she would not permit them to be left under foot, or anything to be wrapped in them.   She was very religious.   She would never neglect the namaz and, like my father, would rise before dawn.   Delighting in poetry, my mother's speech was very correct.   She spoke corroborating her every sentence with a proverb or with the insertion of aphorisms.


A Poem of My Mother's and Freud—
My mother knew how to write, and while teaching her students prayers, she would write them.   But, she would not write letters.   However, when my father was angry with me during 1908, when I was in Kazan, she wrote one or two letters.   Nevertheless, there were poems she wrote to my father.   These were kept scattered in my father's books.   Every now and then, the property "inci" would cause a fuss.   My mother was very sensitive towards the animals she had brought from what we caled "turkun," the bride's father's house.   When one of those animals was sold, without securing her complete acquiescense, she took offence to my father.   Then, my father wished to marry a second woman, or, it is said, at least threatened to do so.   Consequently, my mother wrote the following poem:

"You said there is no other sweetheart to love/ you had not loved anyone else, have you changed/ you are the one who had tasted my ruby red lips, and the one who broke my seal/ Are you a stranger, what is the meaning of this jest?”


Possibly, the last two lines were quoted from another poet, but my mother had used them very fittingly.   With its completely clear meaning, this poem had remained in my memory.   However, until I grew up, I had not paid attention to its reference to the sexual relations between husband and wife.   In general, whether or not there were sexual relations between our mother and father would not even enter the minds or imagination of us children.   Whereas they would have us read the religious instructions regulating sexual relations, sometimes they would have some of the cows mated in our presence, to prevent them becoming barren, or we would observe the birthing sheep that had been brought into the warmth of the household, during the winter, for the purpose.   To us, these were normal and natural affairs.   Due to that, we had memorized our mother's poem as a beautiful piece.   There were times, perhaps, when my sister Sare and I recited this and similar ones.   But, according to the Viennese philosopher Dr. Freud, this is not simply the case.


While I was studying in Vienna, during 1935, I had rented a room on Berggasse No. 9, to be near the History of Art Seminar of Professor Strezegovski.   I knew that there was an institute on the floor below me, but I was not aware that this was Freud's Psychoanalysis Institute.   One day, the landlady said: "The residents below you are complaining of your very hard steps at night.   Could you wear slippers?"   I agreed, but kept forgetting and the request was being repeated.   One evening, the landlady said: "The Professor is asking for you.”   This person introduced himself as Professor Freud, said there were sensitive instruments in his institute, and, because of that, repeatedly requested that I wear slippers in my room if possible.   I had never seen Freud.   Except, a Syrian Armenian student, said to be working under this Freud, had given me the books by the person in question.   I had read some of them, but had not liked his philosophy at all.   I responded to Freud with "I am a person who had arrived from the steppes of Central Asia.   I wonder if I could have my feet comply with this stipulation.”


Freud invited me to his room.   There, I told Freud that his writings pertaining to a girl of six seven years of age lusting after her father was inapplicable to the Baskurts and Kazaks, translating my mother's above poem.   I stated that I had grasped the sexual allusion of "breaking my seal" in this poem only after reading Dr. Freud's pamphlets.


I conversed with him several more times after that.   I had analyzed the Arab traveller Ibn Fadlan's writings on the old Oghuz that their understanding of sexual relations was entirely different from other Muslims and the Arabs and had compared those writings to Herodotus' records pertaining to sexual relations among Scythians.   During our second conversation, I relayed all this to Dr.   Freud.   I even said to him: “With your conversion of psychoanalysis into your ‘philosophy,’ which is an important and interesting branch of knowledge, you are providing material to the perverts who unabashedly write about watching their naked sisters through keyholes.”   He was not at all angered by my words.   He wished very much to continue our talks, but as I had moved from Austria to Germany, there were no further opportunities.


The Training My Maternal Uncle Habibneccar Provided—
My maternal uncle's medrese comprised seven buildings.   He had over three hundred students.   Many of them, quite different from my father's, studied six seven months of the year.   There were even students who continued their education during the summer.   On my part, I would arrive late to this medrese and leave early, returning to our village.   For there were duties to be performed in our village to which I had grown accustomed (for example, toward spring, taking the animals to our forest houses, called "otar," and staying with them), which were not a part of Utek's routine; or, perhaps not undertaken during the medrese session.   My father, too, was requiring me to return early, to look after the animals.   Accordingly, I would be home by mid March.   Thus, my medrese education would last for four months at most.   Nevertheless, I would continue my lessons with my father, to remedy those interrupted due to my leaving early.


At Utek medrese I would learn Arabic language and literature.   Though my father was quite Professoricient in Arabic, he knew nothing of Arabic literature.   My uncle would personally tutor me in those, because I would mostly stay in his house.   Since, at the time he had no children, he would treat me with care, as his own.   He would also tutor other students at his home, separately.   He placed specific importance on the knowledge of "beyan u bedi," meaning Arabic rhetoric, and the biographies of famed scholars and personae.   In that context, I read the book entitled Muvattal until I left his school.   From biographies he had me read portions, from Arabic translations, of Ibn Hallikan, Taskopruluzade, Abdulhay al Luknevi of India; and the Resahat, written and published by Murad Remzi, again, a friend of my father's, which is about the Sufi biographies of Central Asia.   I very much liked to read those biographies and enjoyed comparing this Resahat to its Persian original, found in my uncle's library.


My uncle would tell me that I could learn fikh and kelam on my own, completely exempting me from those lessons which he taught in his medrese.   And I personally avoided them.   The reason for this was in the Turkish book I used to take from my uncle's desktop and read.   This was a book published by the Turkish political activist and scholar Mehmed Arif Bey, entitled Bin bir hadis.   In this book, while commenting on the Prophet's hadis "O Lord, I take refuge in you from useless knowledge/skills and those unacceptable actions and worship," Mehmed Arif Bey had regarded those branches of scholasticism, such as kelam and mantik, as unnecessary knowledge that had become the curse of Islamic nations.   That hadith had a very sharp influence on me.   On the other hand, I placed importance on reading history books in Arabic, and enjoyed it very much.


Also, Sahibek Ozbek, who had been studying in my father's medrese, had moved to my uncle's.   I continued to learn Russian from him.   This friend later became an officer in the Baskurt army, did not accept the truce we were observing with the Soviets during 1919, with my permission went to Ukraine, served in the Wrangel army.   Subsequently I heard that he was wounded in Crimea, went to Istanbul, and died there.


My uncle was pleased that the Russians were losing the Russo-Japanese war, which commenced in 1904, began daily sending a horse courier to Sterlitamak, to collect the telegraphic bulletins.   He used to have me read those.   This caused my Russian to further improve and provided a reason for my taking an interest in political affairs.   In Utek there was a tailor named Toktamisoglu Gerey.   He was a person who studied and had a good command of Russian and was well read.   My uncle suggested that I further my Russian with him.   I studied with this person, reading Pushkin's Pugachev Rebellion and the poems he wrote describing our Prophet, imitating the Koran.   I rendered those into Chaghatay Turkish, which we used at the time as the literary language.   My uncle would carefully read those translations.   While comparing the Russian poet's translation of the "Vadduha" sura with its original, he had said "though he did not translate verbatim, also added a few things, he understood its meaning better than many of our commentators.”   Later, my uncle had me translate Pushkin's writings concerning his own family history, The Arab of Peter the Great and said: this Son of an Arab certainly likes the Koran.”


I had earlier mentioned that, when in Utek continuing with my studies, I mostly stayed in my maternal uncle's house.   He had numerous flocks, sheep folds and stables.   I enjoyed feeding fodder to the horse herds even during winter.   In our region, the harvested grass contained dried berries in abundance.   I relished picking and eating those berries from among the dry grass, watching the animals.   I liked the animals.   If I was not present in class, reportedly my uncle would say: “he is most likely to be in the kerte (meaning stables), fetch him.”


I also busied myself with mathematics, and reading the books my uncle had ordered from Istanbul.   While I was still sixteen-eighteen years of I age, I read and summarized works by Ernst Renan, Dr. W. R. Draper, and the German Schopenhauer on religion and knowledge, as well as those published in Istanbul, those pertaining to religion and Islamic social problems; in Arabic the works of Egyptian Muhammed Abdu and that of Ferid Vecdi and their likes.   Reading the studies of Renan and Draper had more closely interested me than the refutations written against them.   I acquired a desire to read their complete originals.   The influence of the Turkish press caused in me an inclination to smoke.   My uncle's second wife discovered the butt of the first cigarette I ever smoked, and handed it to my uncle.   On account of that, my uncle beat me.   Nontheless, I occasionally smoked.


How I Was Spending My Summers—
During spring, I used to return to our village from the medrese for the sake of our animals.   This was because the fodder prepared in summer would be depleted by March.   In the forest we would cut the branches of a tree called "yila," bring back and feed those to the animals.   We would take the animals out for grazing, at spots where the snows had melted.   We, ourselves, would gather the wild potatoes, called "sarana," and other certain roots, found where the snows had cleared, cooking and eating them.   I preferred remaining alone with nature and animals to the medrese.


I would attend on horseback, in turn, the farmers' festivals called "Saban Toyu" of the Tatar villages, during the first half of April; and traditional festivities of the Baskurt villages called "yiyin," towards the end of May.   At times I would enter the races with our horses, observe the wrestling competitions, and even personally participate in the youth matches.   We would be occupied with the affairs of the honey bees beginning at the end of April.   Containing over one hundred hives, our bee garden, called "Umartalik," was in Qarli Bulek, four kilometers away at our old yayla and burial site.   There was also located the "Alacik," the yayla house, as well as the "izma," the building used to store the hives during winter.


We also had hives placed among the branches of large trees, and these and the "suluq," the hives carved into pine tree trunks, were meant to attract new swarms.   Those [suluqs] were completely scattered over an area of one hundred kilometers in length.   In April, there was the task of cleaning and placing beeswax in those "suluq," some of which were inherited from our grandfathers, to prepare them for occupation by wild swarms.   I undertook those tasks with my nephew Nur Muhammed and my friend Ibrahim Kackinbay.   Ibrahim's family had as many suluq as we had.


Simultaneously, our horse herds (generally comprising four unbroken herds) would already be at the yayla.   After our lands and pastures were confiscated by the Russian government and added to their treasury, our people had to abandon the yayla life; this occurred a long time ago.   We still had "Han Yeylevi" next to our village houses, and the "Alacik" at the yayla of the "Qarli Bolek" mountain.   On the other hand, our animals had not at all abandoned the yayla life.   They would leave, without needing any permission or such from us, to Mesim and Ak Biyik yayla at the beginning of every April.   They would stay there until fall.   Those yayla were the property of the "Alagoyan," that is, belonging to the village of the aforementioned Ibrahim Kackinbay.


The agriculture and life of the Misers in our village was more regulated compared to ours.   They planted plenty of cereals, grew vegetables, and kept their animals in the village year round in sheds called "abzar," sold their crops, made a good living.   The agriculture of our two urugs, as I had explained, would consist of two "skirtfulls" of corn, our animals would spend the winter in open pens, known as "kerte," a loan word from old Iranian languages, and not come to the village but spend the summer in the yayla.   Consequently, we would not devote much time to agriculture or for constructing animal pens.   While our family's horse herds were at the mountains during the summer, I would be their herdsman.   I did not at all like the crop growing business.   To me, it was a pleasure to reap fodder grass for the animals, but grain harvest (using a sickle), requiring excessive bending, was a torture.   I could not do it.


All our business was in the forest.   The forest "Aygir olgen," once belonging to our urug that had been confiscated from us by the Treasury, was thirty five kilometers from us.   Every year the Treasury would allocate to us a portion of that forest to cut some wood from that location, and we would take that load to the market and sell it.   Also, we would have linden tree barks unravel in running water, separating its fibers called "Salabas" and market it.   When all that was completed, until fodder grass reaping time, I would go after the horse herds to "Ak Biyik" yayla, take care of them, feed them salt, drink the kimiz prepared by the womenfolk, visit others to drink kimiz, participate in the games held at the yayla.


In June when the sheep slaughtering time, called "Teke zamani," arrived, my father, and sometimes my mother, too, would join me.   We would stay with the families taking care of our animals.   The most delightful time of the season was spent performing the task called "Bilemqarav" in beekeeping.   This comprised inspecting, on running horseback, the "suluq" hives carved in the upper parts of the thick pine tree trunks, to determine whether "free swarms" had occupied them, or, observing how well the reconnaissance parties leaving the wild bee colonies accepted those hives.   However, each of those "trees" belonging to us was located on a mountain or in a Riverbed, and despite riding on best of horses, it was only possible to see ten fifteen of them in one day.   I used to perform this "Bilemqarav," taking approximately fifteen days every year, with my friend Ibrahim Kackinbay.


Ibrahim Kackinbay—
Ibrahim, two years my senior, was the son of "Alagoyan Basi" village Imam Semseddin Kackinbay.   Semseddin, whose height was close to two meters, had served alongside with my paternal uncle Veli Molla, who also was very tall, in the Baskurt cavalry Regiment and participated in the Syr Darya campaign of the Russian army against Khokand, under the command of the aforementioned Major Yusuf.   Like Veli Molla, Semseddin also knew Arabic, Persian and Russian well.   Both were thoroughly cognizant of Chaghatay literature, especially with the writings of Ahmet Yesevi, Navai, Sufi Allahyar and their likes.   Among Burcan Baskurts, the Seyh   Seyyidoglu Abdullah and this Semseddin Kackinbay were very cultured individuals.   Both had spent time in the Syr Darya region.   They had brought the culture of that area to Baskurdistan, like our neighbors Major Yusuf Karamis of Maqar village and Bekbulat Molla of Sayram village.   They also were in possession of Arabic and Persian manuscripts.   Among Semseddin Molla's books, there was one containing the versified story of two youths, named Mihr and Musteri, who were very close friends.   Molla would liken me and his son Ibrahim to this Mihr and Musteri, reading some poems from that book.   During 1958, in Washington D. C., I saw an excellent copy of that work, adorned with illuminations, at the Freer Museum.


Semseddin was having his son Ibrahim educated at my father's medrese.   Like me, Ibrahim had learned Arabic, Persian, along with Russian, and knew the last one better than I.   Compared to our family, the Persian and Bukhara culture had a stronger influence on his.   Ibrahim was extraordinarily handsome.   He was a very intelligent youth with a thin and elegant body.   Our clothes, long silk sashes, called "belbav," heeled boots; breastbands, buckles, kuskun, stirrups, girths of our saddles; our saddles themselves, with their "pommels" and "backs" decorated with inlaid silver by itinerant Daghestani jewelers; our belts and even our whips, were identical.   Ibrahim's mother had those made for us, and had woven our sashes with her hands.


I would spend time with Ibrahim during the winter, upon my return from Utek, and during the summer, in the months of May, June and September, when I used to stay with them.   After his father's death, his mother had Ibrahim married, stating she was left all alone.   Thereafter, he always regretted not having been able to continue with his studies, and that he was compelled to tend to family wealth, which was considerable.   His horse herds were held in high esteem.   They were called Sulgen variety.   Ostensibly, according to myth, their mares were impregnated by stallions emerging from the cave and lake found near the village of Sulgen.   Ibrahim had presented me, as a gift, with one of his best running horses and a mare.   After the arrival of this mare, we felt proud that "noble species" had entered our wild horse herd.


Though Ibrahim interrupted his formal education, he maintained his love of reading.   He truly read widely.   Among his favorites he enjoyed reading in Russian, Lermontov; in Persian, Attar and Allahyar; in Turkish, Navai and "Muhammediye.”   Very cordial letters were exchanged between us.   These letters used to arrive in longish thin rolls, in the style I later observed in Bukhara.   Often these letters were embellished with popular poetry or quotations from old literature.   I recall one instance.   Despite the falling snow, two of our herds did not return to the village or the stables.   I wrote to him, requesting his help to pursue the missing herds from his direction, while we would be searching from ours.   In his response, rather than plainly stating "of course I shall," he wrote a piece in the following manner:

"A human should regard his friend a sultan, and himself a slave/ His friend a spirit, and himself a body/ If the friend were to ask for his bork fur cap, one must be prepared to present his head/ And if asked for his life, be ready to give it up.”    In fact, he searched the mountains for several days with his servants, some eighty kilometers from us, finding our herds, escorted them all the way to our village.


Summer life of the Baskurts may appear lazy, but when it comes to tending to the animals, forestry, beekeeping and military matters, no trace of laxity can be found.   Ibrahim was a prime example.   They had roamed the mountains for days, running on horseback for perhaps two hundred kilometers.   Ibrahim's father had him memorize many portions from the works of Navai; Yazicioglu's Muhammediye and the divan of Kemal Ummi from Ottoman literature; Attar and the divan of Hafiz from Persian; and the verse hikemiyet section of the Nuzhet ul Arvah named book, which was very popular at the time of Timur.   I had not read that last work.   Later, during 1913, upon arrival in Bukhara, I sought it out and repeatedly reading it, recalled Ibrahim.   Afterwards I saw copies of these works containing miniatures.   Semseddin Molla owned a few manuscripts in Persian, but there was not enough time to determine what they were or what happened to them.


Ibrahim and I would recite versified sections from classical Chaghatay literature during kimiz parties, and when we would become intoxicated, switch to popular songs.   My friend Ibrahim played innumerable airs on the Baskurt flute called "Quray.”   His voice was, to the highest degree, high pitched and clear.   Since he enjoyed hearing the echoes of the melodies he sang, he would ascend up Takya Susak Mountains, facing other ranges, sing and play the flute.   There, when at the Yaruv and Karaagac yayla, the Kackinbay urug would play a game requiring the participants to pick up a whip from the ground, on running horseback.   Those who could not pick up the whip would themselves be struck severely with a whip; the individual running away, to avoid being whipped, would throw a whip to his pursuer.   If the pursuer could not catch the thrown whip in mid-air, then he would be whipped.   Ali Shir Navai relates a similar horse pursuit game in which he himself played during his youth with a Rumi (meaning, Anatolian) Turk named Sari Tula:

"If I and Sariq Tula would get underway together/ Without noticing mountain, plain, plateau, occupied place or desert/ Freeing my arm from a torn shepherd's cloak/ Let him run away, I giving chase; he pursuing me, I getting away.”


Ibrahim would always recite these poems.   There was also the tradition of young man and girls chasing each other on horseback.   Reportedly, in the generations before us, those young men who could not get away would be whipped by the girl; and, in return, if the girl could not get away, the young man had the right to kiss the girl.   A girl named Urqiye, a relative of Ibrahim was a participant in those games.   His wife "Ak Gelin" would be in the gallery.   In our village, in my youth, our elder sisters Muhiye and Kulsum were no less accomplished riders than their male counterparts.   But, influenced by the Tatar settlers in village, who themselves constituted a community overly affected by the Islamic culture, a little reservation entered amongst us with respect to women.   On the other hand, those traditions were still alive here and there among the Burcen.   When I would catch up up with Urqiye, she would behave as if she was addressing the horse underneath her, recite the song "Kara Yurga" taken from old dastans "It would neither have the rider lady kissed nor have her embraced.”    In this poem, the word "bikec," referencing "daughter of the Bey" was used in the same meaning as "mademoiselle.”   But, the Kackinbay would pronounce it as "Bikecni," instead of "bekesti" as it would be among the Baskurts.   Probably, the popular poetry they recited, called "quba yir" was under the influence of the Nogay dialect.   I only realized that later.   During those chases, I sometimes caught up with Urqiye, grabbing hold of her wrist, but would not kiss her; because, among our generation, it was not done.   The elders would laugh and say teasingly that they used to kiss, therefore so should I.   At times Urqiye would catch up and whip me.   Then, "Ak Gelin" whould shout "tear away the skin of this Tatar.”   Because, according to Tatars we were Baskurt; to the Burcen, Tatars.


Among the family of the Kackinbay, the best of kimiz was drunk during summer, and the honey wine was consumed in the fall, after moving to the Alagoyan tamagi kislak, known simply as "Idhma," where the Alagoyan River met Ak Edil River, and very lively dances was performed.   The namaz would never be abandoned, even when drunk.   It was not conceivable to find anyone not observing the fast during the Ramadan.   My love of dastans, national games and races were inculcated by my elder uncle Veli Molla and this Kackinbay.   Ibrahim's mother, who was as capable as a man, and Ibrahim’s wife were literate, being the daughters of Mollas.


My Other Friends—
During my youth, my most intimate friends were my nephew Nur Muhammed of our village, Aziz, the son of an Imam from the neighboring Makar village; and, Emir Qaramis (Karamishev), son of the Russian primary schoolteacher Muftaeddin.   Nur Muhammed did not continue with his education.   He and I together would undertake forestry business, look after the cattle, and hunt.   When the winter set in, we would go hunting rabbits on skis.   Aziz, who also had authored some works, was a very intelligent and poetic young man, studying simultaneously in the medrese of the Troitsk Seyh and the Russian school.   He was studying in the medrese of the Troitsk Seyh   along with Mecid Gafuri, who had later become famous.   Both would go out to the Kazaks during the summer as teachers, returning in the fall, and stop to see Aziz on their way to their villages.   Though Aziz had a greater poetic talent than Mecid, he perhaps did not have a published work.   On the other hand, two small poetry collections of Mecid were published.   I met with this lame poet (probably during 1907), before he and Aziz had visited us [which they did] several times later on.   Both would recite their own poetry, my father and mother would greatly enjoy that.   At that time, Mecid had read his poems with the content "Baskurt used to live in independent communities along the banks of Idil and Dim Rivers, foreigners arrived and enslaved them," which was later published.


Mecid was my senior, probably by eight or nine years, and Aziz, I think, by five.   On the other hand, Emir was my junior by two years.   Despite that, he had facilty in poetry and recited the verses of Mecid and Aziz from memory.   Later on, Emir embarked on a Russian education and studied in a military school; and finally, among the military units which we had established in cooperation with him, he became the commander of the first cavalry regiment during the 1917 national movement, before commanding a division.


Members of the Karamisev family, to which Emir belonged, comprised educated individuals.   They held officer rank in the Baskurt army of the 18th 19th centuries, and occupied the post of "kanton (banner) chief," also serving with my maternal great uncles, as mentioned above, under the command and administration of Major Yusuf.   They had abandoned nomadic life, but their village civil affairs were regulated.   Their homes were whitewashed, surrounded with gardens, containing fruit trees, especially apple.   Major Yusuf had published, in Russian, works pertaining to the statistics of the Syr Darya village life and the social life of Kazaks.   Among the members of this family, the one closest to our family, and to that of Kackinbay, was one aged and wealthy individual named Omer Haci.   In the past, when Baskurdistan was autonomous, he had served as the chief of kanton, had seen Turkiye and Hejaz.   He was the closest friend of Zeynullah Isan of Troitsk.   One member of this Karamisev, named Ahmed, had gone to Germany many years with his mares and wife, to make kimiz for a member of the Emperor's family.   Consequently, he had learned some German.   He would speak to us about the beauty of Germany, show photographs, meaning he would conduct German propaganda.   But we best liked Karamisev's father, the Russian teacher Miftah.   Later, many of them had taken positions by my side, in the military and civil administration, during the Baskurdistan independence movement.   My other close friends were Bekbulat Hazret, Nuri Muezzin and Osman Haci Ilyasoglu families from the villages of Sayran and Arlar, to the south of us.   They had performed various duties during our national movement after 1917.   One such person was Abdullah Kanton Ilyasov, whose name shall be encountered again.


My Father's Troitsk Trips—
The imece (ume) [community work], my father would organize at the end of each July, to harvest grass of the pastures at Iraman, was a delightful affair.   The majority of the villages of our tribe's "Elciktemir" branch would attend, many animals would be slaughtered.   This had the character of our family festival.   When this was complete, my father would leave to see his friends and Seyh.   This trip would be terminated with his visit of Seyh Zeynullah in Troitsk, who was his pir [spiritual master].   On the way, there would be banquets, at their yaylaks [high patures], with his friends and sheyhs belonging to the urugs of Karagay, Kipchak, and Burcen.   There learned, religious, even political matters would be discussed.   On the way back, my father would stopover at the villages of Mehdi and Emin, there visiting with his friends among the Muslim Kazak tribes of Tungevir, Tungatar, Tamyan and Katay, who considered themselves to be descendants of the Chora Batir of the dastan fame.   This trip would last a month and a half.   I joined three such trips, which were repeated every year, mainly to look after the horse and the carriage.   Each trip had contributed positively to my intellectual development.   The 1904 trip coincided with the Russo-Japanese war, the 1905 with the Russian revolution, and the 1906 had taken place at the time of the Russian "Duma" struggles.   I did not at all like mysticism.   I despised those Seyhs I considered hypocrites, though I respected the individuals I regarded to be models of sincerity, ethics, virtuousness, including Mollakay Abdullah Hazret, Kulbakti Abdulhannan Hazret and my father's pir Zeynullah Hazret of Troitsk.


I was learning valuable lessons from the above mentioned three Seyhs.   For instance, during 1906, Zeynullah Isan had treated me very kindly.   Despite my young age, he asked me various questions, listening attentively to the answers I provided and favored me with words of an explanatory nature.   Possibly he was testing me.   One morning, during the tea gathering, he again asked me questions, and I answered them to the best of my knowledge.   Then, in front of everybody, saying: "Son, take this, you may buy something," presented me with a gold ten lira.   I purchased with this money, from the Tatar bookshop a book named "Hizmet," by Gazali on theological criticism, publications pertaining to Islamic social and philosophical matters printed in Egypt and Istanbul, books on astronomy and physics, Arabic translations of Tolstoy's Kreuserovo Sonato and some Russian novels, Mulkaleme i Franseviye in Turkish, to learn French; and also, from a Russian bookstore, Tolstoy's work "Years of Hunger," which chronicles the hunger reigning in our country in 1891, when I was born.


A few days later, the Seyh inquired how I spent my money.   I detailed what I had purchased one by one.   He approved, telling me that since I knew Russian, it would now be very good for me to learn French.   He was also pleased with my choice of books on astronomy and physics.   Especially when I told him of Tolstoy's book on the years of hunger, he told me that I had bought a good book.   It transpired that the Seyh had given me the money to try me.   During later assemblies, he again asked me which ones I had read and what they contained.   When I related that I had purchased Gazali's al Munqidh an al dalal, meaning "Prevention from taking the wrong paths," he said: "you cannot understand that yet.”   I responded: "I bought these types of books to read after I further improved my Arabic," upon which he patted me on the back and gave me more money.   Reportedly the Seyh had mentioned in other gatherings, that though I was only fifteen years of age I had acted with prudence in my selection of books.   When I heard that, I was certainly puffed up.   As he was held in very high esteem among our circles, his positive words had greatly encouraged me.   If it had not been for such encouragement, my life could have turned to directions other than scholarship.   As the poet Tokay of Kazan had pointed out "What has not happened to this humble servant, except my people had patted me on the head, giving me the desire to rise.”    If it had not been for the patting of this Seyh, I could have become an employee (prikazchik) in a commercial enterprise at the age of fifteen.


Our Contacts with the Kazaks and the Siberian (Tumen) Tatars—
These trips were providing us with contacts not only in the Middle and Eastern Baskurt domains, but even with the Kazaks.   This had great advantages later, during the organization of the 1917-1918 Baskurdistan National Movement.   The tsarist government, with the aim of inserting a Russian province between Baskurdistan and the Kazaks, vilolently seized millions of hectares of Kazak lands, driving away the Kazak Turks from there.   But in 1904 1905, they, especially the Kipchak tribe, were still living contiguous to the Baskurt lands and continuing to raise cattle.   Among them, we had visited two very wealthy families who were friends of my father, that of Nayza and Nurpey Haci, and had become their guests.   Reportedly this Nurpey Haci was of my father's age, and later two of them went to pilgrimage together.


They were closer to the aforementioned Er Karagay region, further to the East of Troitsk.   These Kipchak, during the 18th century rebellion, had protected the Baskurt refugees.   Nurpey Haci knew many dastans and was a great poet.   I had taken down many poems from him.   The Soviets mention an aged Kazak poet named Nurfeyz Bayganin, propagandizing on their behalf.   They even published some of his works.   Later I learned by chance that this Bayganin was our Nurpey Haci.   This person was very nationalistic and religious.   The most complete version of the great dastan "Koblandi" is the one he recited.   During these trips, I had met the sons of Musa Haci of Tipter Ahun village, Isa Ahun of the Tungatar Baskurts and Abdullatif Hazret of Saqmaqus village in Tamyan.   These were all educated individuals, and undertook important duties in government during the 1917 1918 national movement.   Musa, son of Murtaza of Tamyan became the Commander of our Second Division.


In 1907, my father and my maternal uncle Habibneccar together took the train to Troitsk, travelling via Ufa and Cheliabinsk.   I took them to the Devleken station, and saw the railroad for the first time at the age of fifteen.   In the dark, the lanterns of the train appeared in the distance, growing brighter.   Our horses were shying.   Especially when the intense noise of the locomotive was heard, it was no longer possible to hold back the horses; the carriage was slammed against a wall.   Only after we had left the houses behind, with the greatest difficulty, we were able to stop the horses.   Since my father and my maternal uncle were in the carriage, we had a very narrow escape.


This time, on the way back from Troitsk, my father went to Nimetullah Haci at the Siberian town of Mancil, and had brought back two political books of Yadrintsev, the discoverer of the old Turk monuments of Orkhon, entitled "Siberia as a Colony," and "Condition of non Russian Nationalities in Siberia.”   When my father indicated that his son (meaning, I) knew Russian, Nimetullah Haci had presented him with these two works.   This was a grand gift.   I was translating articles, those I could understand, from these two books, to my father and maternal uncle.   In these, the theories suggesting that the elements of non Russian nationalities are condemned to extinction were being refuted, defending their life and equal rights.   Both of these works had an enormous influence on my political maturation.   Reportedly, before my father, my great maternal uncle Veli Molla had also visited this Mancil village.   Apparently, our ancestors had contacts with the Tumen Tatars of Western Siberia.


Mysticism of My Father—
My father, as soon as he returned from his trip, said "Let us go to Fazkan.”   What we called Fazkan was one of the Kackinbay at the Alagoyanbasi village.   "Fazkan" possibly means Fazlullah or "Fazil Han.”   He had the temperament of a Sufi, and was an unconventional, generous, stouthearted man.   Reportedly, he used to say "If 'Ahmetsah' were to receive 'isanlik' (meaning, attain the rank of 'Seyh') from his Seyh, I will be his first disciple.”   Now, this year, Seyh   Zeynullah had given my father the rank of Seyh, as well as the written certificate.   But my father said "the present times are no longer the time of mysticism, those days are gone; when Isan (meaning Seyh) elevated me, I agreed, but I shall not accept anyone as 'disciple,' and will not allow anyone to address me as 'isan' but will accept Fazkan as a disciple because I had promised.”


Fazkan was a peasant with some wealth.   He was a student of Mollakay Hazret.   He knew Persian and some Arabic.   He was perhaps one hundred kilometers from us.   We arrived at his place; I approached my father to help him dismount from his horse.   There were sounds, even noises in the house but nobody came out.   Finally somebody appeared.   It was Fazkan himself, certainly drunk.   He kissed my father's stirrup.   He helped my father dismount, took him to the house;   inside of the house smelled of "bitter honey," in fact terribly so.   My father said "Swines, you drank.”   In reality, they were merrymaking that day.   Fazkan responded with: "When they heard of your arrival, the kurege (meaning, honey barrels) ran under urunduk (the sofa), and the guests out from the windows.”   A little later, we performed the afternoon namaz.    Fazkan cried much.   My father and Fazkan together recited aloud a verse of the Yesevis: "You appear to be a Sufi, but you are yet to become a Muslim" and a poem of Mollagul's, becoming exuberant.


The meaning of these latter verses, causing one to lose his wits, the origins of which go back to Sems Tebrizi Mevlana as I once mentioned above, was as follows: "A drunken man is saluting you; the soul of this man, whose heart you stole, is serving you from afar.   You know how to create out of nothing and to cause what exists not to be, listen to the greetings of this drunkard; he is a drunkard who has both of his hands caught in your trap.   You are the taste of every lip; altar of every sect, the moon in the sky is standing guard around your house every night.   (This beloved), at a glance, is giving you wings and you take flight; at another glance, it is the anchor of your ship, you are unable to move; one instant it is your morning, another, your evening.   He is causing you to shiver one instant, at another, causing you to laugh heartily; at one glance you are enchanted, at another you become like lifeless glass, like a stone.   It matters not, if I cannot become a body, then I shall become a soul, if not a jewel, than the blood of gems; dear heart, never fear that you shall acquire notoriety, you will attain good renown in this regard.”


I was disraught that they had forgotten the world by falling into such a fanatically enraptured state.   In order to prevent my father from further foolishness, I said "Father, shall I water the horses?" He responded with "Do so," and praised me on this occasion "Now, Ahmet Zeki has awakened us, being sober minded.   It is not proper to fall into ecstasy.   I like mysticism and its poetry but not fanaticism.   Let us rise.”   However, that night, it is said that my father had accepted Fazkan as a disciple and vowed never to be a Seyh beyond that.


The second day Fazkan had a mare skinned, invited the mollas of all neighboring villages and gave an excellent banquet.   This feast was given to immortalize the boundless friendship the Kackinbayogullari had towards us, continuing for many generations.   I spent the night with Ibrahim Kackinbay, and we passed the time drinking honey.   My father knew that, but did not come near us in order not to see.


Kackinbay had very close relations with the Kipchak urug of the Kazaks.   As before, Ibrahim again at length recited to me the poems of Kazak poet Seydali, and the "Kizcibek" dastan.   Because, his late father was close friends with the family of the Kazak author Saydalin (Saeydalioglu), living in Troitsk.   Ibrahim knew well his translations from Puskin's poetry.   Ibrahim showed me such friendship on that occasion, I never forgot the occasion in my life, as well as "Fazkan's discipleship festivities.”


On his part, reportedly, Fazkan would proudly say "Molla became a Seyh, did not accept anyone as disciple except me.”   He was a strange person like Mollagul.   He was a good conversationalist.   He knew many poems and dastans.   Though he occasionally drank to the extreme, he never gave up namaz.   Towards the God whom he dearly loved, he was as fearless as the Anatolian dervish, who, addressing his God with "O Lord, are you drunk?" upon spilling his carafe of wine.


One day, my father had gone to visit a friend at another village.   I stayed with Fazkan perhaps for a week.   One hot August day in late afternoon, Fazkan returned home exhausted from pitching cut grass.   I asked him if he had not forgotten the afternoon namaz.   He responded with: "The afternoon namaz does not matter; if you have other business, you slam it against the 'kerte' (wall) and go on.   God will wait, but the dried grass will not.   You can make it up to God, but not to the grass.   I know that better than God.”   My father, who had accepted Fazkan as his only disciple, knew of his curses of this nature.   He said: "Fazkan had lost his front teeth in the war with the 'zemlamer' (Russian agricultural engineers).   He only does good to the Muslims.   God will forgive his occasional curses.   He is the most sincere Muslim among my contemporaries.   He is one of the most loved servants of God.”   Thus, this was my fathers's understanding of Sufism and Islam.   Nevertheless, it is reported that Fazkan did not drink after that date.   My father said: "The only benefit of my becoming a Seyh   appears to be preventing Fazkan from drinking," laughing heartily.   What strength and power my father's laughter possessed.


Our life during autumn—
During the fall, I would be busy not only in the bee fields at the village, but also at the "suluk" hives at the mountains, collecting honey.   We used to perform that task accompanied by my friend Mehmet Kafi of Qulgun village and at Burcen with Ibrahim Kackinbay.   During the fall, at home, I also would work on physics.   I had acquired physics apparatus during Troitsk trips.   A room in my father's medrese ostensibly served as my "laboratory.”   An elder friend, Aziz, from the Makar village, whose name mentioned earlier, was helping me.   I was working on electricity generation and telegraph.   I was operating Morse between our house and the medrese.


During spring of 1907 I had ordered a globus by post, collect on delivery, from Ufa or Troitsk.   It became necessary to go to Sterlitamak post office to take possession, thirty five kilometers from us.   I had saddled a horse and undertook the trip without my father's knowledge.   I was instructing the medrese students in astronomy.   I had written those lessons in the form of questions and answers, taking place between two individuals named Ahmed Togan's first given name and Said.   I had benefited from Flamarion and also from the work of a Syrian scholar named Huseyin al Cisr.   These were new topics in our country, and were of interest to the students.   This was my first scholarly work.   My father disliked these lessons, because, as I had mentioned, he did not believe in the movement of the earth.   I had constructed a larger globus.   I was showing the students the rotation of the earth around the sun, using a lamp in the dark.   When constructing this sphere, I had used dough instead of glue.   Because of that, mice had eaten it during the summer, as I had left it in my room at the medrese, causing my labors to be wasted.   My father was pleased with that outcome; quietly laughing, stated that even the mice did not believe in the rotation of the earth.   In addition to the Russian books on physics, I also had their Turkish versions printed in Istanbul.   I had purchased them in Troitsk.


I had mentioned several times that I enjoyed apiculture.   I used to apply to our bees whatever I learned from books on the topic, and a Russian language periodical entitled "pchelovodstvo" (beekeeping).   Upon the arrival of fall, I would personally place the hives in their winter sheds.   These bees would never touch or sting me, regarding me their friend.


One of the occupations of the fall was to take to Sterlitamak those animals I raised for sale within our herds, and to prepare winter meats at home.   Probably the most pleasant task of the fall was this meat butchering and preparation for the winter.   This was called "sogum.”   Plenty of sausage (qazi) would be made.   In connection with this occasion, many reciprocal banquets would be held.


Much honey wine would be made in the village from the honey produced.   Some Baskurt Imam would also drink this wine, supposedly in conformance to Islam.   I had earlier spoken of an Imam among our relatives, Ehil Molla.   He would collect honey as "osur" tithe from the population, drinking all.   The congregation performing namaz in his leadership was just like him, and they liked Ehil Molla better than my father.   The behavior of our Imam was in conformity with the views held by Alishir Navai and the Kazak poet Abay.   In his time, it is said that much wine was consumed during "sogum" days.   Alishir states: "you must add splendor to your gathering with wine, from sunset until yellow dawn.   Forget neither God, nor forsake wine; for God is great, he shall forgive you in the morrow.”


Summing up, in the fall, I would not return to the medrese before collecting the "suluk" honey with my own hands, placing the beehives into their winter quarters, going hunting with rifle and falcon during the early snows, hunting ruffled grouse, pheasant (qirgavul), and rabbit, with my friends.   Our animals would never return to the village and their pens before the snow cover deepened.   They liked "tebin," meaning digging the snow with their hooves to get at, and eat the grass.   Upon spotting us from afar, they would run away.   In order to find these rebellious animals in the forest during deepening snow, skis would be used.   In any case, when the snow cover thickened, they would go to the grass piles prepared for them in summer called "keben" in the forest.   But, those among them keeping to the tebin tradition ardently, perhaps left from the times when our ancestors were living in the East of the Urals, would attempt to run away when we wished to round them up at the grass piles.   Nonetheless, we would catch them, and bring them to their senses by administering an appropriate beating.   Just like our Baskurts beating the women they love, to bring them to reason.



THOUGHTS OF GOING AWAY FOR EDUCATION


Influences on Me of Arif Bey of Turkiye, an American, Murad Remzi and The Arab Philosopher Maarri--

Owing to the special care of my maternal uncle, I had learned quite a bit at Utek by the time I reached eighteen years of age.   My maternal uncle was a scholar who loved history, having read one of the primary sources of the Islamic history, Ibn ul Esir, from beginning to end, had translated portions of it into Turkish and published.   He had also read from the Turkish the Cevdet Pasa Tarihi, and almost memorized it.   He knew the Russo-Turkish war of 1877 with al of its details.   In fact, he had obtained a work pertinent to that war by a Russian by the name of Griaznov and would have me read it occasionally.   Among those Turks, whose names mentioned before, he had me repeatedly read Mehmet Akif Bey's Basimiza Gelenler, concerning this conflict.   I had read this work while we were under the impressions caused by the defeat of Russians by the Japanese.   I treated the words contained in a letter appended at the end of this work, written by an American addressing the Khedive of Egypt, containing the words "How can you, a population of seven million people, tolerate the yoke of two-three thousand English? You do not possess patriotism.   You are logs clad with clothes" as an admonition to all Russian Moslems.


On one hand, the works of the aforementioned Iadrintsev, and on the other, the book by Mehmet Arif Bey had greatly influenced me.   A scholar of our country, by the name of Murad Remzi, was living in Hejaz.   This person was a friend of my father and that of my maternal uncle.   He had been a guest of ours during the summer months.   He had written a two volume work on the history of the Kazan Turks and Russian Moslems.   My maternal uncle had read many portions of this work while still in draft stage.   It was published in Orenburg during the winter of 1907-1908.   That winter my father had gone to pilgrimage, and, despite the fact that I had not yet completed my seventeenth year, had left his medrese to me and to a halife of his.   I spent the entire winter reading this work, one thousand three hundred pages long, relating its contents to those students able to comprehend and especially to Ibrahim Kackinbay.   It recounted the past of the Turks with great pride, and the Russian cruelties with great sorrow.


I had opened a library in a corner of my father's medrese, under the name of "People's Library.”   I collected money to buy books for it.   I arranged for newspapers to be brought in.   Some newspapers, as I had informed them, were sending their publications for free.   In this manner, from Petersburg Ulfet, and in Arabic Et Telmiz; from Kazan Beyan ul Haq and Yulduz; From Orenburg Vaqit; from Astrakhan Edil; from Baku Irsad, and the journal Fuyuzat were arriving.   My father was taking Tercuman from Crimea for some time.   In addition, in Russian Berjevie Vedemosti newspaper and the Niva journal was coming.   In our village, I and my paternal uncle Alikerrar Molla were reading those.   Since he had been a teacher among the Kazaks for many years, he even used to mix Kazak into his speech.   He was raising my interest in Kazak language and literature.   Under his influence, I had ordered all of the Kazak books and pamphlets printed in Kazan for our library.   Essentially, my father had an affinity towards Kazak due to old familial traditions.   Though he himself had not lived among the Kazaks, he had friends among them such as Nurfeyiz Haci and Nayza Bay.   He had gone to pilgrimage with them.


For the purpose of obtaining books for our library, I established contacts with booksellers named "Sark" in Ors, and "Sredniaia Aziia" in Tashkent.   The owner of "Sark" was an educated person named Ahmet Ishaki.   His father Ishak Hazret was my father's friend.   Possibly he had studied in Turkiye.   He would obtain and sell the "modern" publications printed in Turkiye and Egypt.   He was procuring even the Russian publications on Islam.   This person aided me greatly.   He was circulating regular catalogs and informing me of new items by letter.   Through him, I had brought in the journal Malumat from Istanbul.


Among the books I acquired from Tashkent were the Russian biographies of Kazak Sultan Kine Sari and his son Siddik Sultan, who had rebelled against Russia, the memoires of the Afghan Emir Abdurrahman Han, and the Kashgar Travelogue of general Kuropatkin.   There were Persian originals and the Russian translations of the Abdurrahman Han's memoires.   Kuropatkin, while he was the Russian ambassador to Yakub Bey in Kasgar, had a Baskurt officer in his entourage by the name of Suyergulov, from a prominent family we also knew.   From this aspect, it was of interest to me.   This book also included some writings by Suyergulov.   Through this means, I had become familiar with Kasghar environs.


The memoires of Emir Abdurrahman Han contained a lively history of his struggles for the independence of his people; but since I read this work while comparing it to its Russian translation, it was useful in learning both languages.   I knew the Kine Sari and Nevruzbay dastans printed in Kazan.   Murad Remzi also had included in his history the undulating life story of Siddik Sultan, son of Kine Sari, which had also become a dastan topic.   Because, as Murad Remzi had served as a teacher for years next to Siddik Sultan and his brother Ahmet Sultan, he had written of them with high praises in his book.   When Murad Efendi was our guest, he had also provided me with information not included in his book.   Kine Sari and Siddik Tore were brave men who had struggled for the independence of our people.   My paternal uncle Alikerrar, whose name had been mentioned, had taught me poems about them.   For example, I would never forget the following piece:

"We attacked the enemy like a storming snow/ with the cries of Abilay, Abilay! (asking help from his spirit) we let our horses run, encircled them the enemy, crushing/ If God is not in your heart, where could your soul rest?/ If you do not have a State you can behold with your eyes, how could your mind be at peace?"


Alikerrar would not only teach me those, but have me memorize them.


Among the books I secured for the "People's Library," there was also the one by the Han of Khiva, Secere i Turk, printed in Petersburg.   Imam of Sayran, Bekbulat, and my father's assistant Kessaf Hazret, who had studied in Bukhara, would always read books in this library.   While Murad Remzi and Kine Sari were inculcating to us the idea of freedom from Russian imprisonment, Arif Bey and Emir Abdurrahman were suggesting that our national question could take its place among the issues of the world.   Emir Abdurrahman was a man of our times, may of his words acted as a salve administered to our wounds.   When the English mixed into the internal affairs of Afghanistan, he had gone to Khiva via Iran, and liked its Han and people.   From there, he had gone to Bukhara, did neither like its Han, nor its people.   Thinking that the Russians, who had occupied Samarkand, would come to terms with the English, he had arrived in Samarkand with his retinue.   At first, Russians had received him well, but upon hearing his sympathy towards the Kazak Sultan Siddik Tore, and Cure Bek of the Ozbek Kinegis urug, who were protecting the independence of Turkistan, the Russians had taken him in the middle of the night, ostensibly for consultations, to Tashkent.


Upon realizing that no good would come of the Russians, with the hope of acting alone, trusting that the Russians would act as if they did not see, he had returned to his country through Maca Mountains, Hisan and Badakhshan.   With the aid of native Katagan and other Ozbeks, he had liberated Balkh, later Kabul, had reestablished today's Afghanistan.   As he had independent ideas and reformist posture, he had set up some factories, printing presses, introduced western style medicine, western type uniforms, and followed the world politics from afar, with attention and devotion.


Though he had crossed over to the Russian side as an enemy of the English in the beginning, he had returned to his country as an enemy of the Russians.   According to him, the Asians would in the end realize that the Russians were expanding by killing and swallowing the Asian nations.   Though he did not like the policies of the English, he believed that the only salvation for the Asian nations lay in their joining cooperation with the Western nations.   My maternal uncle and my father, reading the newspaper of Mustafa Kamil of Egypt after the Russian revolution, had formed a negative idea about the English.   English were considered a deceitful people.   From that perspective, my maternal uncle and my father did not like Abdurrahman Han's inclination toward the English.   According to him and my father, it was necessary for the Turks and the Asian people to follow an independent path.   All their hopes were in Japan, and because of that they attached importance to the news that the Japanese Emperor, in 1907, was searching for a religion, inclining towards Islam, and a Turkish delegation was sent there.   My father did not care too much about my working on Pushkin and Iadrintsev's books.   Despite that, he would have me read and listen to my translations from those passages from Pushkin's Pughachov Rebellion touching upon the Baskurt, and from Iadrintsev, those complimentary words about the Altaians and the Kazaks.   He would state that, as there were individuals among the English siding with the Afghans and the Egyptians, perhaps among the Russians the likes of Iadrintsev would proliferate and that would benefit us; reciting an Arab aphorism, probably from Gazzali "Moanings and cries touching the nerves of the child of the cruel comes to the aid of the oppressed" and would pray for Iadrintsev.


The newspapers, journals and books I had obtained for the "People's Library" during the years 1906 1908, and the discussions at the side of my father and maternal uncle, even though I was sixteen years of age, had given me a sort of "weltenschaung.”   As a result of that, I wanted to improve my knowledge via Russian.   I had set myself the aim of attending Russian teachers' school (uchitel'skaia shkola), to compare the historical information I had learned from Islamic sources against the information provided in the Russian sources.   This idea was inculcated in me especially by Murad Remzi.   I had mentioned that he had my father and maternal uncle read certain portions of his book while being printed during those years.   He wished that I would learn Russian history, especially which of Soloviev histories he was unable to utilize.   He had especially liked the works of Iadrintsev.


That winter (1907 1908), I taught some lessons at my father's medrese, on Arabic language and on the life of the Prophet, from an Arabic language work entitled Nur al yakin.   The affection I had, in truth received from my maternal uncle, towards Arabic literature was not allowing me to attend solely to studying Russian.   My reading of Musa Carullah Efendi's works was especially increasing my affinity towards Arabic literature.   That year, Ahmed Ishaki published Carullah's book analyzing the philosophical ideas contained in the Arab poet and philosopher Abu'l Ala al Maarri's Al Luzumiyat.


I considered that work a masterpiece of the Arabic literature, charmed by his ideas and especially by his liberal thoughts on religion.   But, Musa Carullah had published the portion of this work only up to the letter D.   Through Ahmet Ishaki, I had obtained a copy of Maarri's original of this book, lithographed in India, containing marginal commentaries.   When I could not completely understand this work, requiring commentaries and explanations, my desire to better learn Arabic language was further increased.   Since I was naturally disposed to overcoming difficulties, Maarri's statement "the fact that treasures and truths being carefully hidden increases my determination to seek and solve them" altogether captured my mind.   I especially liked his following words about religion: "every religion contains superstitions; can you essentially point to a single people, privileged to arrive at the truth?"



If I were to leave my environment to study at far away locations, where should I go and what should I study—
Niyaz Maksudov, who later became an Imam in New York and died there in 1956, was at the time studying in the Beirut American College.   He was inviting me to go there.   I thought that, if I were not to stay in Russia, leave and go as far away as Beirut, I could descend into the depths of Arabic literature while learning English.   On his return from the pilgrimage my father had brought back, from Arab lands and Istanbul, works that were very important to me.   By spring, the thought that I would no longer be contained in Kuzen and Utek villages had taken hold in my mind.   I had decided to go somewhere and continue with my education on a larger scale.   On the other hand, my father wished to name me his successor as the Imam in the mosque and the muderris of his medrese.   According to his thoughts, since I knew Russian, I would be of value to our nation as an Imam who had the appropriate knowledge to be involved in "zemstvo" (township or provincial council) matters, or even a member of the Duma.   With this aim, he wished to have me get married immediately.   In fact, he and his friend Haci Mehmet Yahsimbertov, from the East of the Urals, had agreed that his daughter Nefise to be married to me.   But now, they wished me to marry the daughter, whom I had heard to be beautiful but had not yet seen, of Abdurrahman, a wealthy Baskurt of Katay urug of the Mirzakay village.   Actually, they had even bought trousseau and such.   This was influenced by a very close friend of my father, Sabir Hazret, the Imam of Mirzakay.


But when my mother stated that they would not force me to marry against my will, I realized that they suspected that I had intentions of going away for education.   My mother, Nur Muhammed and Aziz were agreeing with me on continuing with my education on this particular point.   Upon my return from Utek during spring, my father's friend Sahserif Metinov, who was a member of the Duma (Russian Parliament), had arrived.   In my father's presence, he encouraged me to continue my Russian education, stating "what would be the outcome of becoming a teacher?"   This person, knowing good Russian, presented me with the works of Professor Hrushevsky on the Ukrainian autonomy movement and those of Professor Maxim Kovalevskii on international law.   With that [gesture], this person wished to draw me into his field, politics.


In May, I went to Alagoyanbasi, to Ibrahim's.   One day, we were leaning against two pine trees close to one another, in front of the summer huts called alacik.   I told him my secrets entire.   I detailed how Niyaz Maksudov was inviting me to Beirut, and how Dr. Zeynep Abdurrahmanova and Sahserif Metinov were encouraging me to stay in Russia to continue with my higher education.  Ibrahim feared that if I entered the Russian environment, I would be lost to him and insistently advocated that I marry the daughter of Haci Muhammed immediately.   He stated that he would persuade my father in that direction.   His wife, "Ak-gelin," was listening to us while boiling "qurut" (cheese).   To her husband, she said "would it be right to hinder someone who wishes to continue with his education?" And I said "God Bless you.”   If my mother, Ibrahim, Nur Muhammed and Aziz insisted in unison, I was going to agree to be married.   If my mother did not give her consent, the thought of going to far away lands would be removed.   Although there had been times when my father was cross with me, until that day in my life, I had never injured my mother's feelings.   This intervention of Ak-gelin had caused my life to enter into a major turning point, because Ibrahim was able to exert influence on my father.   I had decided to leave in the direction of Orenburg, before the end of June.


Though I liked the milieu of my village, Kuzen, along with the yayla of Aliekber, Alagoyanbasi, Ak-biyik, I was belittling it since I considered this area to be much undeveloped in material culture.   But, I could only later understand that the Russian authors Tolstoy and Aksakov were correct in idealizing the Baskurt life philosophy.   The stratum comprising the spiritual leaders of this milieu had introduced me to the Turk, Arab and Persian cultures, also to the Western and Eastern thinkers, and had provided me with the ethical values and a political ideal, which I did not at all feel the need to alter later.



II. YEARS OF 1908 - 1916
MY FIRST SCHOLARLY ENDEAVORS


My going to Orenburg, thence to Kazan—
My life betwen the years of eighteen and twenty six years of age was spent under great difficulties, studies, teaching and scholarly research, first in my homeland Baskurt il and Kazan, later in travels between Ferghana and Petersburg-Bukhara, research and gradually opening to a relatively larger milieu.   I entered into this new milieu by degrees, by leaving our vilage on 29 June 1908.   That day, when my father and mother were guests in another village, I left home on foot, without taking a single coin from the household, with a pack on my back containing a round loaf of bread, a loop of sausage, a chunk of dry cheese (kurut) and an amount of tea.   I wrote a letter to my father stating "I am determined to study, I cannot get married.”   I added an old Arabic aphorism to it with the content "he who marries before his time is like the rat tying a broom to its tail, becoming unable to fit into his hole.”   I asked them not to be offended, requesting that they pray [for me].   I did not inform anyone in the village, though I had told my friend whom I liked very much, with whom I always used to go graze the horses at the pastures, spending the nighths huddling together, my nephew Nur Muhammed.   But I had not let him know of the exact day.   Our neighbor, the beautiful Miser girl Leylibedir, whom I liked very much, was a talented student of my mother's.   She and I had read together books on religion and ethics in Persian and Turkish.   She used to come over to get water from our well.   Just as I was about to leave, she showed up.   I did not tell her in order not to cause her to cry.   My brother Abrurrauf, who was the only one aware of this business, and I mounted a single horse, took the Togiz-qir mountain range route, against usual custom, to make use of the extant footpaths there.   My brother was going to see me off for ten kilometers, and return.   We dismounted and both of us cried much, because, this was the beginning of my still continuing adventurous life.   Abdurrauf also regarded this event just like Ibrahim Kackinbay, with trepidation.   I left on foot, Abdurrauf remained behind, crying, watching until I disappeared from his sight.   Since I was a youth recognized in all nearby villages, I bypassed the Sayran village on my route, following the rural paths.   I encountered a Baskurt from that last village, named Omer Kirav.   "Where are you off to, on foot?" he asked.   I told him that I was looking for a horse, and he responded with "this is not the 'tubek' (regular grazing pastures) of your horses.”   I indicated that I was looking for the horses of our guests.   This person became suspicious.   We said good-by and I continued with my journey.   But, I thought that this man would inform my father of the place where he saw me.   I did not wish my father to follow me by no means.   I turned my path into an entirely new direction.


That day was what the Christians called "Troytsa" (Trinity), the "Little Easter" day festivities.   I arrived in the Russian vilage of Verxotor, exhausted.   Russians say "Bez Troitsi dom ne stroitsia," meaning "Before Easter Day, house cannot be built.”   According to Russian creed, it was an auspicious day to start new undertakings.   I danced with the Russian girls with the small bag on my back.   I sang along peasant songs such as "v sadu li vogorode devushka guliala," which I had earlier heard from the Russians.   These girls were hugging and kissing me, saying "Bashkirinuk" (little Baskurt); I was saying to myself what sins I am committing, if it goes on like this, I shall be ruined.   A young man tried to force me to drink vodka.   When I declined, pouring out his glass, he spilled vodka on me.   I cried at that.   Because, though I drank honey since my childhood, let alone drinking vodka, I could not tolerate a drop of it touching my clothes, wine being "necis" (filthy) according to the Koran.


The Russian girls removed and hid my back-pack.   I was of the opinion that they had wicked intentions.   I was asking myself how I would be able to live among these unbelievers, away from my father and mother.   Finally, they laid me down on the green grass, in a drunken state, next to a Baskurt shepherd who was also drunk.   Even though he was intoxicated, he had observed the preceeding events.   He said "you know their language, you are dancing with them, of course they will hide your bag, pour vodka on you.   What are you crying for?   Lie down and go to sleep.”   They had brought my bag and placed it next to my head.   Next morning I left that place before sunrise.



Freedom of religion festivities at Meleviz—
When I arrived at the town of Meleviz three days later, I learned from a Baskurt teacher who had come to attend the Moslem festivities, that Omer Kirav had relayed to my father where he had seen me, that my father immediately mounted his horse to follow me, but encountered a wealthy friend of his named Kadi, at the village of Aznay, who was able to persuade my father to discontinue with his pursuit and intention of turning me back.   I was relieved when I heard all this.


In this Meleviz, there were a group of Tatars who had been forcibly converted to Christianity by the Tsardom.   These remained Moslem in their hearts.   Taking advantage of the prevailing partial freedoms following the 1905 revolution, they had openly returned to Islam and constructed a large mosque.   And now, there was the opening ceremony of this mosque.   On this occasion, Imams from many a village, and prominent individuals from among the Tatars and the Baskurt were invited.   Several hundred sheep, oxen and cows were sacrificed.   Many people brought kimiz from the surrounding villages.   They had me sit for the feast with the Molla.   While the news, as reported in the newspaper Alem-i Islam, was being discussed to the fact that Islam was spreading among the Japanese in large degree, the conversation turned to whether the Japanese could still be considered Moslems even if they would not join one of the true canonically recognized sects.   When I stated that there was a pure Islam above all sects, quoting by way of proof from the works of Ibn Teymiyye, ibn Qayyim al-Cavzi, I was subjected to the attacks of the fanatics.   On the other hand there were others present who stated that the sect and tarika were detrimental to the Moslems, siding with me.   Apparently my words had attracted the attention of a Tatar merchant by the name of Ilac (Ilaceddin) Bayezitov.   He invited me to his home and those Imams who appeared to have open minds towards the topics that were under discussion at the earlier gathering.   It was understood that Ilac Aga wished to facilitate free and open talks among those competent on the topic.   Very enjoyable discussions took place.   Those molla present at this second gathering heard that I was intending to go to other countries for educational purposes.   They advised me to go to Egypt in order for me to broaden my knowledge in Islamic topics.   The fact that there was a merchant interested in the thought of Ibn Taymiye in this isolated corner of Baskurt lands was at the time the positive manifestation of the developing national cultural movement among the Baskurt and the Tatar.   This person also gave me money, four - five liras.


The Konakbay Beauty—
I left Meleviz on foot.   I avoided the main road, as a precaution against the possibility of my father following me.   Even at night, I slept among the wheat.   In this manner I stopped at an "alacik," meaning a summer house, near the small village of Konakbay.   I was going to eat there, but they were very poor.   The adults were not at home, so a sister and a brother, ages twelve and fourteen boiled some water for me.   I had tea with bread.   Both of them were of extraordinarily beautiful creations.   It was indicated that a beggar had died, and they were going to make a quilt out of his dirty, torn "çapan" (overcoat).   O Lord, I said to myself “how destitute these people are, how can they subsist?”   However, I was truly captivated by their beauty.   I gave them all the bread, cheese and sausage I had in my bag.   I kept asking myself what beauty is this and, in turn, what destitution.   Celaleddin Rumi had a poem reflecting this strange contrast seen in the life of the Turks: "blacker and poorer the felt tent, the more the Turk beauty in it will shine like the full moon.”   They had one goat, which they milked to drink.   But among the Baskurt, generosity sometimes goes too far.   If, for example, a highly esteemed friend or an "isan" Seyh, to whom the father of these siblings regarded himself as the "murid," then he father would not hesitate to kill and serve this goat, which has been providing his family's daily sustenance, to the visitor.


I thought to myself I would marry this girl if I were not going away for education.   When her brother left the alaçik, to change the goat's grazing place some distance in the vicinity of the alaçik, I wondered if I should kiss this girl, but I was hesitant to put this thought into action.   When she affectionately asked me if I would come back to visit next year, I explained to her that I was on my way to far away places for education.   In response, she gave me an amount of white string and a needle, saying "as you are going on a long journey, perhaps this will be of use.”   Possibly this was a tradition, or even a good omen.


After leaving their place I became a guest to a friend of my father's, named Nebi Haci, a wealthy man of the Musa village, located somewhat away from the road.   He was a very fat man.   He stated that even if my father would arrive looking for me, he would not surrender me, but instead let me escape.   He indicated that he, too, did not wish me to remain stuck in the village surroundings, even had told that to my father, suggesting to him that I should be given educational opportunities.   Next day, while I was leaving, he provided a carriage to take me to the Kargali village.   In addition, he gave me some travel money.   He further began giving me fabric sufficient for a suit of clothes, suggesting that I would have it tailored in Orenburg.   In response I told him of the needy state of the family living in the alaçik near Konakbay and I asked him to send two quilts to them as if a present from me, instead of the fabric he intended to give me.


After I left the Haci, in his carriage, my mind was occupied with that girl named Züleyha and her brother.   I was telling to myself that it is a good thing that I did not take advantage of the circumstances and kiss her, for, in our village, there was no such tradition, and probably the thought of kissing was placed in my mind by the novels I had read.


Time marched on.   During 1913, when I was on my way from Orenburg to Sterlitamak, riding post horses, I passed a location near the Konakbay village.   I recalled a poem of Geothe's addressed to a girl named Züleyha, since I learned German during those years, as if it had been written for my Züleyha.   I regarded Geothe's fetish in "Lass die Renegatenburde, mich in deinem Kuss verschmerzen/ Denn ein Fitzliputzli wurde Talisman an deinem Herzen" perhaps corresponding to the white string and the needle given to me by my Züleyha.   I asked a resident of Konakbay, whom I saw at the post station, the news of Züleyha and her brother living in the alaçik near the village, indicating I had earlier met them.   He told me that both were now married and their first offspring were born, adding that a poor student had once became their guest, later sent two quilts to them.   He asked me if I was that person.   When I responded, without mentioning my infatuation with her "they were very poor, I had sent them that present via Nebi Haci," this man said "but it was said that you were a poor student.   We referred to that girl as 'Züleyha Huluv [sweet].'



My arrival in Orenburg and the students of Huseyniye—
As I had very little money, I was spending it only on food.   With the permission of its muezzin, I was sleeping at a corner, resembling a room, of the "grass market" mosque.   I was rising for the morning namaz, going to sleep after the yatsi namaz.   I got very dirty.   I bought soap and went to the Sakmar River to wash my clothes.   But while washing them, the River carried away my single shirt.   Though I had another, I had not brought it with me to the Riverside.   While attempting to catch it, I was caught in the whirlpool of the River.   I was a goner.   But the vein of a tree extending into the water saved me.   Grasping it, I emerged and got out.   The currents had dragged me quite a distance.   Though the underwear was lost, I thanked God, I was saved.   As I was approaching my clothes on the bank, some students came over running, who told me that they were studying at the Huseyniye Medrese.   They were living here I was informed, called "roshcha," meaning resort, during their summer holidays, and had seen me caught in the whirlpool.   A Baskurt youth among them, whose name I later discovered to be Bektemir, with whom I stayed friends for a long time in our lives, until his death, approached me and told me to give thanks to God for saving my life.   And I said "yes, God punished me for throwing myself into the water without knowing well how to swim, but had mercy on me and extended the vein of a tree at my hour of death.”   He said "do not worry, I shall teach you how to swim."


He took me to the barracks where they were staying, noticing that I was left without a shirt, gave me a clean one of his.   We ate with them.   Some of his friends, among them Kavi, the brother of Abdullah Battal, were of the type, in today's terminology "rebellious youth," in that day's expression "dehri [materialistic, atheist].”   I became friends with them after this incident.   They were laughing at my outfit.   Because, I only had Baskurt village clothes on me.   On my head there was a "kirpuvli bork" and "takiya," on my back gowns termed "bismet" and "yilen," on my feet, shoes called "çetik" and "kata.”   The spare shirt I brought from the village was of the Baskurt style referred to as "kirbavli'" and underneath the gowns I was wearing "uçkurlu"cotton [long] underwear, without trousers.   One day, one of these mischievous younsters, while we were among his friends, pulled the cord of my underwear, called "usqur" to cause my underwear to fall down.   He almost disgraced me.   Everybody laughed.   They told me not to wear these clothes here any longer.   Bektemir gave a pair of trousers sewn by the city tailors.   This was the first "European type" summer trousers I had worn in my life.   Among us, trousers are worn only during winter.   Due to my outfit, these [students] were much deriding me and regarding me a naive peasant.   Among them, there were those who knew some Russian, and speaking of socialism.   Upon discovering that I knew Arabic and Persian well, and much better Russian than themselves, they were astonished.   Al-Luzumiyat of Abu'l-Ala Maarri, Russian scholar Iadrintsev's Polozhenie inorodtsev Sibirii and Pendname of Attar were the only books I had brought from home in my bag.


At a Russian bookstore, I found the Russian-Arabic dictionary of Arab Cezvi.   As I had very little money, I went back and forth for three days in a row, deciding whether I should buy it.   Finally, I bought it.   This was a great blessing to me.   Utilizing it, I would occasionally sit down and translate separate chapters from Iadrintsev's book into Tatar (Chaghatay), and read them to Bektemir.   For example, I had translated "Reasons for the decline of the non-Russians and their talent for cultural life" and "Importance of nomadism on the history of humanity" as much as I could understand.   Thanks to this activity, my credit increased among the "rebellious youth.”   Bektemir was the son of a well off village Imam.   He gave me one of his own light overcoats.   As a result of this, more and more, I began resembling a city dweller.   Some of these students asked me to give them lessons in Arabic and Russian.   I hesitated and declined, on the grounds that my knowledge was not sufficient to teach others.   They asked me to move in with them, but I did not see it fit to join these youths, some of whom were drinking and gambling.   I left the mosque and moved into the home of a small merchant, a Miser Turk from our village.   Bektemir taught me swimming very properly.   We would go swimming in the Sakmar River, where there were no whirlpool and bathe every day.   These students were asking me what I intended to do.   I did not yet know, but I was stating that I would definitely obtain an education.


My examination by Kemal Bay—
Just in those days, the revolution had taken place in Turkiye.   I used to go to the kiraathane [coffee house] operated by the Tatars and read the copies of Sura-i Hummet newspaper published by the Jeunne Turc in Paris.   The Russian papers were also carrying detailed information pertaining to the revolution.   This event, once again, drew me to the Turkish side.   Upon recommendation of Musa Haci, I had made the acquaintance of a wealthy Tatar by the name of Kemal Bay Ubaydullin.   He received my desire to go to Istanbul, Beirut and Egypt with interest.   But, suddenly, he began to examine me according to his own knowledge.   He asked "do you know the kirk farz?" Since I did not know any other farz than namaz, zekat, oruç and hac, I could not at all answer.   Next, he asked me some of the prayers, I did not know them either.   Because, my uncle had taught me some Arabic, stating that I would later easily learn the religious lessons, and no time was left for that.   Since he was a liberal thinker, he only attached importance to the prayers that were farz [obligatory] and neglected to teach me those that were sunnet [Prophet's own habits].   Kemal Bay asked me those "sunnet.”   I was not able to answer well.   Present also was the man looking after his business matters, his "upravliaiushchi.”   He, too, looked at me with disdain.   He continued with "tell me, since you claim to know Arabic, in the Koran, there is a reference to the four animals made helal [canonically legitimate] to the Moslems; in one place it is stated that there were four pairs, in another, eight pairs.”   I responded "I understand the Koran partially, but I do not know "esbab-i nuzul" [reason of descent] or "ahkam" [judicial sentences, ordinances].   Later, Kemal Bay told me "before going to Istanbul and Egypt, there are plenty for you to learn here.   Attend the Zahid Hazret Medrese, begin studying.   I shall provide you with aid.   But, I cannot help you to travel to Istanbul this year, since I have a large construction.”   Upon hearing all this, I recalled the words of Abu'l Ala al-Maarri, in one of his poems: "The poorest people on this earth are the rulers who need money to assemble large and powerful armies."


After leaving Kemal Bay, I felt anger within myself towards my maternal uncle.   and, as if addressing him:  “You taught me ‘Mutavval,’ ‘Nehc al-Balaga’ books of syntax, literature, rhetoric of scholars such as Molla Cami, Teftazani; encouraged me to read histories such as Ibn Hallikan, but did not teach me fourty farz; caused me to bring shame upon myself.   I related the incident to my friend Ibrahim Kaçkinbay in a detailed letter.   Though Kemal Bay and his "upravliaiushchi" indicated that I could visit them occasionally and that they would help me, I did not go anywhere near them again until the day I left Orenburg.   But Kemal Bay's scolding caused me to give up my thoughts of going to Egypt and Beirut environs.   Because, according to him, what I had learned from my maternal uncle was nothing.   And I said to myself, I would not busy myself with your fourty farz.


Rizaeddin Fahreddin—
That year, in Orenburg a literary journal entitled Sura began to be published under the direction of the great scholar Rizaeddin Fahreddin.   This person, again during that year, had published a very good work on the life and philosophy of Abu'l Ala al-Maarri, whom I also admired very much.   I had read that book while I was still at our village.   I visited Rizaeddin Hazret, a very good friend of my fathger's.   He received me as if I was an adult.   He was residing in a single story house owned by the Remeyev family, the publisher of the journal.   We discussed many topics pertaining to history, literature and especially about Al-Maarri.   Naturally, I could not tell him about the "Forty farz" incident.   I described my worries about education.   It appeared that he knew some Russian.   He showed me various history books and the Soloviev History.   This, too, was a sort of examination.   I told him that I was between two dilemmas, that of attending the Russian schools and going to Syria.   He advised me to stay in the country.   This person, during 1926, on his way to Pilgrimage, spent some time in Istanbul and was a guest in my house in Samatya suburb.   He recalled our meeting in Orenburg, and that he had encouraged me to study in Russian, adding "It was very proper for you to stay in Russia, because, if you had gone to Syria, you would not have accomplished these undertakings that you have among the Eastern Turks, during those revolutionary years.   Among our educated that have come to Turkiye, other than Yusuf Akcora and Ahmed Agaoglu, none is discernible who had retained their personalities, leaving a trace in this milieu."


I also visited the poet Zakir Remeyev, at his home, who was one of the publishers of the "Sura" journal.   I had visited this person, with my father, during our 1906 Troitsk trip, at the goldmines east of Irendik mountains, called "Sultan;" meaning, we were already acquainted.   His poems were beautiful and he was versed in Chaghatay literature.   When I had arrived in Orenburg, he had taken two lines from a work by Ali Shir Navai (originally, that poem was by the 14th century Altinordu poet Horezmi) "God, who had created a mole on the face of my beloved, also created her hair as long as her height," rearranging them into four lines, in a most beautiful manner, had decorated the front cover of the Sura journal.   I stated that this piece had taken a more beautiful format in Zakir Bey's hands, and recited some other poems of Navai that I could recall.   He was immediately recording those into his notebook.   For example the one which states: "A person cannot be happy away from home, nor any good can be found in the compassion of the strangers; Even if a red rose were to be grown in a golden cage, it is not as desirable to the nightingale as a thorn nest" was one I liked very much.   Obviously, he knew that that poem was reflecting my circumstances.   I explained to him that I would be going to Kazan, with the intention of entering Russian teacher’s school and he thought it reasonable.   But I did not mention my financial condition.   Nevertheless, he suggested that I go and see a writer at the Vakit newspaper office, by the name of Yarullah Veliyev.   Next day, this person gave me fifty lira in the name of Zakir Bey.


Zakir Bey spoke very sincerely.   He asked me where and how I was able to I had read the works of Navai.   In response, I told him that my father had a copy of his "Divan" and at Alagoyan, at the Kaçkinbay; and the printed copy of his Hamse at Sayran village, at the hands of Bekbulat Hazret.   Apparently, Zakir Bey had not yet seen the "Hamse" and the "Divan" of Navai, only having read his "Muhakeme [Muhakemat al-Lugateyn]."


Astrakhan trip and Abdurrahman Omeroglu—
I left Orenburg aboard a freight train, to go to Astrakhan first, then to Kazan, with the monies given me by Nebioglu Musa Haci and Zakir Remey Bey.   Along the way, I disembarked at the city of Buzavlik, and met with an Imam and author by the name of Aliasgar Cagatay.   This person, under the pretense of liberalism, had issued a work smearing the Prophet's wife Ayse.   From our talks, I saw that he took all he wrote on this topic from Russian missionary works, and he did not have any of the Islamic history sources in his home.


In Samara, I spoke with Imam Fatih Murtazin who was publishing a journal entitled Iktisat.   He was an educated person.   We had very sincere talks about our national life.   He suggested to me that my simply studying economics or gaining admission into Russian teachers' school would not suffice, and that it would be better for me to seek ways to enter the university, and as I had reached the age of eighteen, it would be necessary for me to prepare for the related entrance exams privately.   These suggestions were also made to me, in the past in our district, by Dr. Zeynep Abdurrahmanova and lawyer Sultanov.   I was astonished to discover that Fatih hazret was of the same opinion.


I left that place, by boat, for Astrakhan.   My only reason for travelling to that city was to speak with Abdurrahman Ömerov, who had just started to publish a new newspaper by the name of Edil.   This person, a Kara-Nogay Turk, had been a student of my maternal uncle at the Mercani medrese of Kazan; when I was very young, once he had come to our village looking to visit his teacher.   Together with my paternal uncle and my father, had roamed the entire region alongside upper Aq-Edil and Yayik, visited the places mentioned in the old Nogay dastans such as yaylaks of Eremel, Bikmamay and others.   He was in continuous correspondence with my maternal uncle and my father.   This person was living in a suburb of Astrakhan, called "Tirek.”   He made me a guest in his house, took me to see the Nogay villages in the vicinity.   This person, too, was a lover of the old Turk dastans.   He had works which he had prepared in that vein.   He had published some of them in the form of pamphlets.   His knowledge of Arabic language and literature was also excellent.   He had translated into Turkish and published the Arabic syntax book called Kafiye.   I consulted him about my education plans, but, as he knew of my talent in writing, suggested that I stay in Astrakhan as a writer and get married there.   But, I indicated that I had the thought of going to Kazan and continue with my education, leaving by boat.


I left for Kazan, as a semi-stowaway, among the cargo of a boat.   But, before arriving in Kazan, I thought of staying somewhere, to earn some money.   After passing Saratov, I disembarked at a boat landing called Balakov and walked to the farm of a Russian named Prokhorov.   I was wearing my winter clothes that I had made for me in Astrakhan, and I was carrying my books on my back.   The distance to the farm turned out be thirty kilometers long.   My feet swelled.   I arrived at that farm in the afternoon, entered a tea house and wrote my mother and Ibrahim Kaçkinbay each a letter.   I told them of the difficulties I was experiencing, adding that, since I had resolved to pursue education, I would withstand all.   I did not have the courage to write my father, because I knew he was cross with me.


I worked at the threshing machine of that farm for fifteen days.   On one hand, this occupation had the nature of an enjoyable entertainment for me.   I had thought of staying there possibly for twenty five days, but the director (upravliaiushchi) of the farm became angry with me upon discovery of a defect in the threshing machine.   I was very distressed.   I asked that my wages be paid to me thinking "may no benefit be derived from earnings made under insult.”   When the director realized that he was in the wrong, he paid me for the sixteenth day as well.   I returned to the Balakov landing on foot, to preserve my earnings.   There, I had to wait for the next boat for one day.   In the meantime, it transpired that a Kemelik Baskurt by the name of Guzeyir was returning to his village with his carriage.   I asked him whether he would take me along so that I may see the Kemelik region Baskurt (meaning, the Baskurt of the Kemelik River basin), because it is said that an ancestor of mine named Istogan had died there.   He gladly took me along.   We had arrived at a place called Solak and to villages whose names I now cannot recall.   During our 1917 Baskurdistan movement, many very valuable personages joined us from among these Kemelik Baskurt.   This trip of mine turned out to be of use for matters that were to take place nine years later.   Next day, I again returned to the Balakov landing with someone who was going there.   I could not catch the boat; it became necessary to wait for another.   I took this opportunity to write my mother and to Ibrahim a long letter describing my labors at the Russian farm and my Kemelik trip.   Though I never wrote poetry, I wrote this letter describing that chapter of my endeavors in rhyme.   Later on, I learned that many acquaintances had read that letter and copied by hand.   On the boat, I busied myself with translating Pushkin's work the Pugachev Rebellion.


Mercani and his works—
As soon as arriving in Kazan, as he was my maternal uncle's spiritual master, I visited the medrese of Sehabettin Mercani and his son Burhan Molla.   I spoke with the muderris Safi Hazret and the the other halifes in his medrese.   Mercani certainly was the greatest Islamic scholar who emerged from among the Moslems of Russia during the last centuries.   He was also known among the Russian Orientalists.   He had attended their congresses.   But, Safi Hazret, who was managing his medrese, did not satisfy me.   My relations with Kasim Hazret and his entourage were good.   But I regarded the milieu of Mercani as mine, since my maternal uncle was trained there.   I was reading, in the libraries of his son Burhan Molla and the elder of Kazan, Alimcan Barudi, the "Vefayat al aslaf" named as yet unpublished eight volume history by Mercani in Arabic.   One volume of this work, constituting the introduction, was printed.   Mercani had expressed many liberal thoughts in that "Mukaddime," matching Arab philosopher Ibn Khaldun.   Mercani had devoted this great work of his, as he had mentioned in the Arabic summary of his Muntahab al-Vakfiye, published during 1881, to the history of the Caliphs, biographies of Islamic scholars, and in the final volumes, he wrote about the Volga region, Turkistan and Ottoman scholars.   As I had heard certain things about this great work ever since my childhood, it was a great pleasure reading it.   Though we learn, from the publications of the Russian [sic] Academy of Sciences Kazan filial, that today this great work is in the Kazan university library, we again learn, from the publications of the same Russian Academy, that not even a Russian summary of this work is done, nor is even an index of it yet compiled.   The numerous initiatives I had undertaken to bring a photocopy (film) of this work to Istanbul University, via Professor Ali Muzaffer Bey, the Turkish ambassador to Moscow, did not yield a result.   During 1908-1909 I had read this eight volume work from beginning to end, producing a one volume of summary in Turkish.   In 1915, on the 100th anniversary of Mercani's birth, Archeological Society of Kazan University had produced a summary from that summary, which was, on that occasion, published in Russian.   It is an astonishing fact that, among the Eastern Turks, no individual had emerged to read and prepare a concordance of this very important cultural historical source.   Apparently, lately, from among the Kazan Tatars, no historian equipped with appropriate command of Arabic had emerged.

Reformers in Kazan—
Among the Kazan Tatars, there was a group of people who wished to conduct wide-ranging reforms in the interest of positive nationalist outcomes, as well as a milieu of young adults who were pursuing the thought of upgrading the schools.     In general, I was not exchanging thoughts with many people.    They were publishing a newspaper called Islah (Improvement).    I had talks with those gentlemen.    I found them without a plan, hesitant, and their ideas without a foundation.    They were interested in changing the nature of their Tatar medrese into a gymnasium (college preparatory school), school of engineering and a university all at the same time.    In my view, realistically, two types of educational institutions could be salvaged out of these outdated medrese.    A portion could become ‘theological seminary’ as the Christians had, and another segment could become ‘teacher’s college.’  On this matter, I had published a proposal in the Tatar newspaper Beyan al Haq (Expression of Justice).    This thought was not well received by the ‘reformists’ with the exception of the intellectuals.    The poet Abdullah Tokay wrote a poem because of my published piece, and an author by the name of Fatih Emirhan issued a couple of commentaries.    However, they thought the piece was written by one Abdullah Ismeti.    Their responses were in the nature of derision.    Abdullah Tokay wrote his satire beginning with the line “ol ziyalidir, bilemsin marifet hikmet sata (he is an intellectual, don’t you know, he is selling skill and talent).”   When I met this poet shortly afterward, and he understood that it was not Abdullah Ismeti who wrote the piece but I was the author, he realized many a point he made in his satire was incorrect.    Since the group which this poet belonged (the Fatih Emirhan group) were addicted to alcohol and gambling, and I did not join them frequently.    I often visited Abdullah Tokay personally, in the rooms where he lived at the Bulgar Hotel.    He grew curious about Chaghatay literature, when I informed him that the poem that started with the letter qaf, and expounding qazi, qozu, qiz, qaz and qimiz was descended from Shaybaq Han.    However, the matter did not bloom since his close friends were not interested.    Tokay wrote a piece about his satirical poem, stating his misunderstanding my article, for the newspaper El-Islah (the Reformer).    The owner of the newspaper, Fatih Emirhan was haughty and conceited, and took umbrage of my proposal and did not publish Tokay’s latter piece.    Later, they all learned: the reason for the misunderstanding of my proposal was due to a column of it was thrown away by the owner of Beyan al Haq.


Making acquaintance of Musa Carullah and Abdurresit—

The famous Islamic scholar Musa Carullah was living directly above the administration of the newspaper The Reformer.    I met him.    He was pleased that I was captivated by Arabic literature.    We discussed the thought of Al-Maarri, and his own thought which he wrote in the Arabic language newspaper et-Tilmidh he was publishing.    In his house, I met the famous traveller and author Abdurresit Ibrahim.    I discovered he knew my father from way back, as they had travelled together for the pilgrimage.    He took me to his home in the subdivision of Kazan known as Yeni Biste.    I told him my concerns on education.    His thoughts on the subject resembled Rizaeddin Fahreddin:  “It is not necessary to journey to Syria or Egypt in order to study Arabic subjects.    Ahmet Sanqiti, one of the great masters of Arabic linguistics, is visiting for a year and living in Kasim Damolla’s home.    Learn Arabic topics from him and Musa Carullah.    To study Russian, do not enroll in Russian Teacher’s College, it is the seat of intrigue.    Learn Russian privately, you can later pass the exam, or take the gymnasium test.    Kostanay Tatar Abdullah Ismeti is doing all this.”    The next day, I broached the same subject to Musa Carullah, he repeated the same ideas.    The subject that occupied me for the past two years, whether to journey to Islamic countries or stay in Russia for my education, was thus resolved in favor of staying in Russia and completing my learning in Russian.    In general, I preferred to consult persons I trust, if the decision I was to make at the end I knew to be a turning point in my life.    I always benefited from this practice.

Since I had no money, I entered the Kasimiye medrese.    The lessons in the medrese were not of any interest to me.    I only followed the algebra lessons taught by the teacher Fatih Muhammedyarov.    I started visiting Ahmet Sanqiti, taking Arab literature lessons.   I read the anecdotes by the Arab author Hariri.    Ahmet Sanqiti as well as Musa Carullah and Kasim Hazret were helping me with a certain regular monthly payment.   Master Musa assigned me to read the collection of Arab poet Tarfa Ibn al Abd and ibn Durayd’s kaside.    Master Musa was also testing me in Russian and providing me with helpful books.    At the same time, he asked me to correct the type-sets of two of his books which were at press (Al muvafaqat and Ifadat al Kiram), and he gave me more money specifically for that task.    Son of Master Abdurresit, Munir Bey was the Editor of Beyan al Haq.    He had me correct the scientific writings to be publiched in the paper and had me paid for the labor.    In addition, the owner of Beyan al Haq, Muhammedcan Saydasev, was also publishing an annual attached to this newspaper called Malumat (Information).    He assigned the task of writing for it, and I translated, from Russian, a series on bee keeping.    One day, this Muhammedcan Saydasev commented about me to Munir Bey, son of Master Abdurresit, ‘he speaks good Russian, Arabic, Persian, but he goes around in village clothes; I will have clothes made for him.’  Later he called me and told me that he would have a suit in the Tatar style made for me.    In response, I told him that I would not wear a city dwelling Tatar outfit either; instead I will be wearing Russian style clothes.    He was put-off.    The same day I went to the Kazan flea market where old clothes were sold, and bought a Russian style black suit.    Muhammetcan Saydasev, upon observing that I arrived at the administration offices in this suit, stopped paying me for my labors.    These Saydasev’s were exceedingly fanatical people.

Private Russian and Islamic knowledge education—
I was studying Russian language and literature from Emilyanov, who was a teacher at the non-Russian teacter’s school right next to Kasimiye medrese.    Except, since the Kazan citizens regarded everyone entering that school to convert into Christianity, I did not meet him there, but at his home.    In Kazan, I spent all my time:
1) Reading the unpublished works of Mercani
2) Studying Arabic literature
3) Preparing to take the exam to become a Russian language teacher.

There was another objective I was reluctant to let go: I wanted to learn the Kur’an and Fikih (canon law), by comparing the Russian translations and the Arabic originals, with the aid of a knowledgeable person, in order to obtain a true knowledge as these two subjects constituted the foundations of the culture and the religion I belonged.    Master Abdurresit indicated that Imam Sadik Imankuli would be a suitable teacher for the purpose.    My uncle had advised me to learn literature deeply, and I could learn Kur’an and Fikih later.    For that reason I had remained ignorant of the basics of Islam.    I retained a desire to obtain a comprehensive knowledge of our religion.    Imam Imankuli agreed to teach me privately.    Twice a week he taught me the ‘true path’ from the Kur’an and Fikih.    I was reading the Sablukov’s Russian translation of the Kur’an, and the Russian translation of Hidaye (true path) published in Tashkent, and we were comparing them with Imam Imankuli.    After three months of this work I began to realize that the Bukhara educated Sadik Mullah’s knowledge was not as wide as needed to tackle this task.    At the same time, I also realized it was not my business to learn the basics of our religion from the Arabic originals as it demanded too much time, and if I persisted, I would have to stop preparing for the exams that would appoint me to a Russian language instructorship as well as earning a high school diploma.    Besides, what would I gain by plumbing the depths of Kur’an and Fikih in order to learn the ‘true’ knowledge?  Three months later, I reduced my labors on this to one hour per week, later completely abandoned it.    I satisfied myself by reading Sablukov and Hidaye’s Russian translation, to obtain a general knowledge on the subjects.    Even though my Islamic knowledge was limited, since I knew well the Islamic history, culture, historical geography, economic conditions at various eras, I was Professor of ‘Islamic Knowledge’ at Bonn and Gottingen Universities during 1935-1939, and Director of ‘Islamic Research Institute’ at the University of Istanbul which I myself founded.    As my primary specialization is Turk history, and I desired to devote my work to that subject, in 1953 I had accepted the Directorship of the Islamic Institute in Istanbul for a period of six months; a suitable replacement as Professor and Director still has not emerged.    I surmise that this condition is an indication of how backward the Islamic sciences remained in the Turkish Republic as of late.    In reality, it is rare to find a Professor equipped with the Eastern and Western languages in the field of Islamic culture in the Turk lands.    For example, Muhammed Sefi and Zakir Huseyin in India, Takizade in Iran was not reared in our lands for whatever reason.    However, there were distinguished scholars such as Ismail Saib, Babanzade Naim, and Hamdi Aksekili when I arrived in the Turkish Republic in 1925.    In the meantime, since the university began following the path of Islamic culture instead of the theology known by the aforementioned, their existence did not serve the purpose.    Islamologists, capable of Eastern and Western languages in the contemporary context, only began to emerge among us.


Let us return to Kazan once more.    I benefited from Ahmed Sanqiti quite a bit.    I read a large portion of the Arab author Hariri’s Maqamat, Cahiz’s Turklerin Fazileti, and the old cahili poet’s On Makame under his guidance.    In addition, at his suggestion, I wrote a thirty-two page paper in Arabic on Kazan scholar Sehabettin Mercani, on his life and works, and presented my work to him.    Sanqiti knew my interest in and love for Turkish history.    After he returned to his homeland, he wrote and sent me many a poem extant in Arabic literature on Turks.   Among them, a poem, as follows, remained in my memory:
“In those steppes, Turk fawn ate the saxaul; immediately his blood became musk.”


At the Rawalpindi congress, the Palestine muftu Muhammad Emin al Huseyni read me the same poem.    Apparently, it is part of a well-known poem in the Arabic literature.


Meeting Katanov and Asmarin—
The aforementioned Emilyanov introduced me to teacher and Orientalist Nikolai Asmarin, who was teaching at the non-Russian Teacher’s School and finally with the Professor N.F. Katanov.    In that manner, I met the milieu of Kazan Orientalists.    Nikolai was a Cuvas Turk.    Nikolay Katanov, on the other hand, was a Sagay Turk from the Altai.    Both had completed the Russian Oriental Institute, and joined the Russian Orientalists.    I benefited much from both.    That year, I translated Asmarin’s paper Tatar Edebiyati, which he published in the Russian Ministry of Education journal in Russian, to Tatar.    This translation was later published as a tract in Orenburg, by the Vakit press.    As a summary: that winter, I was very loaded, I read much, I benefited much.    I lived a pauper’s life.    In March, I received seventy Russian Rubles from my father, and from Ibrahim, forty Rubles.    My mother and Ibrahim’s mother sent me quite a few things including underwear, etcetera.    I breathed a comfortable sigh as a result.    I could now buy books and hire tutors with the money in order to prepare for the exams of the Teacher’s School.    Asmarin found me a teacher named Gluxarev.    I followed the Russian literature, mathematics and pedagogy classes.


Summer Vacation at the Village—
In May of 1909, while returning with a steamboat, I arrived at Ufa.    There I met Ziyaeddin Kemali who opened a medrese and was working toward nationalist goals and some other individuals.    This was my first visit to the seat of our province.    There I met a Russian teacher by the name of Filonenko who was seriously working on the history of the Baskurts, who was to publish the results of his work in a few years’ time.    When I arrived at our village, my father and maternal uncle completely forgot their resentments.    My father was authoritative at home; we were afraid of him and respected him.    But he liked it if the answers to his questions were rough.    He did not believe that I was studying Arabic at Kazan, and thought that I was studying Russian.    First time we spoke, he asked me to summarize what I learned from the Russians, good and bad.    I responded with “the good is learning to urinate standing-up; the bad is putting a collar around our neck.”    He liked it very much.    Later I learned that he repeated my statement to others as what I learned from the Russians was only a new way of urinating and wearing a collar and tie, in a jocular manner.    Because, according to my father our life-style and civilization was so excellent, we had nothing to learn from the Russians and Europeans except new technologies.    They learned my habit of smoking tobacco from the smell of my clothes.    They did not look kindly to my wearing clothes resembling the Russians.    The tobacco smell emitted by these clothes caused both my mother and father to experience stomach wrenching.    They hung those clothes in the attic, till I left in the fall.    I wore my old clothes.    The morning after my arrival, I rode my favorite kula horse.    While returning home, I saw the Misher girl Leylbedir, whom I loved from earlier times, washing clothes in the small River behind our house.     Upon seeing me, she, later I learned, now was engaged to another fellow, ran away.    My genuine feelings toward her had not changed.    I sent her, with my youngest brother, the words of a popular song that I transcribed:  “I wonder if her wrists do not get tired washing clothes in the River?  Will not her heart burn when she sees me occasionally as a neighbor?  She responded with a missive to me:  “The cuffs of his trousers are narrow, it is said that he is smoking tobacco at the medrese where he went to study the Kur’an; from the dirty smell, the villagers are sneezing and cannot sleep; let this buster’s mouth, mustache burn but not the village.”   No Misher girl, who were not known to compose poetry, could write such a metered and rhyming poem, called taqmaq.    Later on I realized that my niece Muhiye wrote that poem.    In other words, smoking tobacco was such a despicable act amongst us; she immediately forced me to face the issue.    Even though I wanted to completely give up cigarettes, I was only able to realize that ambition fifteen years later, after arriving in Germany.    However, under the influence of this girl, whom I liked very much to see even occasionally, I did not smoke during that summer vacation, even in secret.


It became necessary to wear eye glasses—
After staying at our home for a few days, I rode my kula horse, which had missed me very much, to the Yaruv and Karagas plains, to see Ibrahim Kackinbay.    I only understood the affection I had for the depth of my affection for him after this year of separateness.    On the road, I often recalled and repeated the poem by Navai “a brave among those whose faces are like angels stole my heart.”    When I reached Karagas Yurt, Ibrahim killed a sheep, and invited our friends.    All of them were my age, but all were married, and instead of going back to their wives at night, they stayed with us and listened to what happened and what I learned during the past year.    Hunting woodpeckers, on horseback bilen karav running around the mountains, drinking kimiz was pleasant and occupied our time.    There was a misfortune at the Nigus River; while we were fishing at night with torches and forked spears, I caught a cold.    There was fear that I caught pneumonia, left the plateau in a cart, lying on pillows, returned back to the village.    I was laid-up for a month, maybe more.    Even though my father was an Islamic scholar, he allowed my mother to call a bagucu (shaman) by the name of Ayneddin to treat me.    While I was in bed, recuperating, I read the novel supplements of the newspaper Birjeviya Vedemosti.    The aforementioned Murad Remzi’s two volume history was banned by the Tsarist government, because it contained, in quite graphical language, the atrocities committed against the Moslems by the Russians.    The publication costs were underwritten by Zeynullah Isan, who was my father’s Seyh.    The volumes that were secreted away from the confiscation were sent to us and to my maternal uncle.    My father had undertaken the task of distribution of these.    Even though it contained some negative thoughts, since it made the Tsarist government angry in plenty of places, I read it time and again, and influenced deeply by it to work on the Turkish history.     It turned out, by forcing myself to read in bed, I became near-sighted.    I realized that when I tried to play the familiar bow-and-arrow game after I was able to leave the bed.    We were able to pass the arrow over the crescent moon placed on the minaret of the mosque close to our home.    I was a master of this.    This time, I could not see the crescent moon when I tried to shoot over it.    I was informed it was there.    Later, when I went to the forest to hunt birds, I realized that my eyes were no longer good to see the distance.    As a result, three to four months later, I was obliged to wear glasses, even though I dislike them.


Some differences of thoughts with my father—
Every year, when I was returning to our village, I would bring a friend from Ufa, or one of them would arrive for recreation.    This particular year, while returning from Kazan, I had stayed for a few days at Ufa, at the home of Hayrullah Ahund Osmanov, who was an Islamic scholar and a friend of my father’s.    His sons Abdulbari and Ibrahim were studying at Russian schools.    Ibrahim was registered at the Lazarev Eastern Languages Institute in Moscow.    A little later, Ibrahim arrived, even though we were far away from Ufa.    His objective was to continue our talks on Orientalist training and rest.    That year, my father had published a book in Egypt in Arabic on Islamic theology and social issues.    Ibrahim brought a copy of this book.    I now cannot recall the details, but we had debated some of the matters in that volume and discovered that we had a difference of opinion with my father.    My mother, like my father, regarded that difference as a negative outcome of the Russian education.    Bekbulat Hazret, who lived at Sayran village, eight kilometers away from us, was a great master of tasavvuf (mysticism).    My father liked to converse with him in a pleasant way.    He suffered from an ache in his lower back for years.    Since he believed that, if he were to journey to Bukhara, and rest his lower back on the tree guarding the entrance of the mausoleum of Seyh Bahaeddin Naksibend, he would be cured.    He did that, stayed at the cemetery for a period and returned to his village.    My father and mother regarded him as a pilgrim equal to one who had just returned from pilgrimage to Makkah, went to visit him.    I laughed at Bekbulat Isan when he stated that no disease stayed in his lower back.     Because, I did not believe in tasavvuf and that visitation of mausolea would be beneficial.    My mother and father were hurt by my laughter.    My father, first of all, stated “it is insolent of you to laugh at the face of the old Seyh; secondly, I do not like you entering the road of repudiation,” and did not speak with me for the remainder of the day.    That year, as such ‘understanding differences’ were beginning to repeatedly emerge; my father and mother were perturbed.    After I got out of my sick-bed, even though I was still shaky, I returned to Alagoyan-basi.    However, Ibrahim was suspicious of my words and behavior.    He stated that I was observed tying my boot wrapping from the left, and wearing the left boot first.    He also did not like me to be reading a book by the name of Siskov, expounding nihilism, ideas against the Czar and religion.    He did not want to see anything get between our very friendly relations and stated that “if the outside world has this kind of influence on you, years will amplify those differences and we will end-up with a chasm between us.”

Second Astrakhan trip—
In the fall, my father accompanied me to the railroad station.    My maternal uncle recommended I visit Astrakhan; he handed me some presents for Abdurrahman Omerov and a small barrel of honey.    That year, my father and Ibrahim Kackinbay sold a horse each, and gave the proceeds to me.    My mother also gave me money.    From that point of view, my trip to Astrakhan was pleasant.    I wanted to visit the old palace city and ruins, but the Molla did not have time, and I gave up the desire.     I wrote for the Edil newspaper which he was publishing.    Even though these were newspaper articles, they were my first scientific output.    First of all, I published a critical analysis of the aforementioned work of Murad Remzi.    That author had attacked Mercani unjustly.    Since I regarded Mercani a forward thinker and Murad Remzi as a recidivist, I defended Mercani forcefully, and ended my piece with an Arabic poem “if someone’s actions are agreeable, his faults will also be received with a blind eye; if another person is resented, they will dig for his dirty clothes.”    This writing of mine was well received by Mercani’s students and friends.


Abdurrahman Molla, together with two Imams by the names of Abdurrahman Ilekf and Mehmet Sadik in Astrakhan, began publishing a journal called Maarif (education).    They wanted me to take over as editor.    One day, these Sadik and Abdurrahman Mollas took me to a historical place called Sungur Tube near Astrakhan.    At the home of a rich Nogay Haji, an excellent Nogay national menu was prepared.    They stated that this person had a very beautiful daughter, and warned me to pay attention, that they would point her out to me.    A little later, in front of the open window where I was seated, a two wheeled, covered and ornately decorated carriage called Koyme, stopped.    Out came a very beautiful girl clad in Nogay national dress.    This was a magnificent view.    She was exactly my type.    Later I learned that she was the daughter of a family well known to the author Necip Asri of Astrakhan.


Upon returning to Astrakhan, they insisted that I accept the editorship of Maarif journal, and remain in Astrakhan.    Abdurrahman Molla’s this invitation, compared to the one the he made the year before, was much bossier.    When I responded that I could not, coolness entered between us.    I moved from Abdurrahman Molla’s home to a hotel.    When I left Astrakhan, Molla did not bother to buy me a ferry boat ticket, and did not accompany me to the landing.    He did not even pay me the author’s fee for the article I wrote for the Edil newspaper.    They knew of my monetary poverty, and wanted to take advantage of that to force me to become a journal writer.    I had no intention of becoming such at the level of Astrakhan and be stuck.    I wrote a lengthy letter to Abdurrahman Molla after I left Astrakhan explaining all this.    The primary reason for my declining the very favorable invitation pivoted around the religious interests of the publishers, and their backward thinking.    We had debated certain issues deeply; I came to realize I could never reform them.    That Omerof knew the fact that I even stood up to my father and my maternal uncle, whom I loved very much, in intellectual matters, so that I could not understand the behavior of Omerof behaving haughtily toward me.


I could never forget the girl Abdurrahman and Muhammed sadik Molla showed me at the home of a rich haji in a Nogay village.    Since this extraordinary girl, resplendent in her Nogay clothes, was educated in and able to read and write in Turkish, I seriously considered writing her a letter and visiting Astrakhan one again the following year.    However, I recalled the question asked of a famous Arab Commander Muhalleb ibn Abi Sufra “How were you able to obtain the victories (such as the large scale conquest of Horasan) you accomplished?”  He replied with an answer I liked so very much “in every action, concentrating on the act, and rebelling against desire.”    I decided not to write the girl.    I wanted to learn and be educated, not married.


This second Astrakhan trip resulted in some curious outcomes as well.    There, in the hands of a village Imam named Cemil, I found a manuscript written by Ibn Kutaybe who died in the year A.D. 889, entitled al-Imama va’l-siyasat, and wrote an article on it in the aforementioned Edil newspaper.     In this manuscript, those Emevi Caliphs we were taught to be bad were lauded, and some others who have acquired halos of sanctity criticized, and I liked the work altogether.    The well-known scholar of the time aforementioned Rizaeddin Fahreddin did not wish to believe that a copy of this important work was extant in our country, or thought that I had mistaken another work as this one.    He had borrowed temporarily the said manuscript, inspected the contents, became convinced of the correct lessons I had derived from it in the newspaper article.    As one result, he had acquired a never waning trust in me.    He told me all this in 1926 when he arrived in Istanbul as my house guest.     With these two articles, I had actively started my research into the history of Turks, as well as that of Islamic history.


Foundations of my friendship with Abrurrahman Molla—
Abdurrahman Molla, too, arrived in Istanbul along with Rizaeddin Fahreddin in 1926.    He was also my house guest.     For a time, we stayed at the Bursa thermal baths.    He apologized with “you visited Astrakhan twice, and I was faulty in not rendering full respect on both occasions.”    I responded with “you had rendered much respect, there was nothing missing.”    He continued “there were shortages; I was not able to understand you well.    I could not show you the Old Palace ruins and other historical places as a comrade.    I did not think of inviting my master Habib Neccar and your father, hosting them for a couple of months.    I had considerable wealth, all of it became fodder to the dogs and the birds; I am sad that I could not spend it with friends.”    In addition he recited from al-Maarri, which he knew quite well “we like life because we are afraid of death; we become brigands due to our ambitions, and we leave this world without gaining a respected friend.”     He began crying, he added “you left our lands, and you are like dead to us.    We hear friends remaining alive, but to me they are dead; they speak of a collective life.    In reality, the people of a collective is separated from others with a Wall of China, became completely isolated.”     Abdurrahman Omerov was very pessimistic.    I heard that he died shortly after returning to his home.


I had earlier heard from a student of Abdurrahman Molla, by the name of Sahip Gerey, who was then a student at the Kazan University, how Abdurrahman Molla was relating how he was pitying himself for not showing me the Old Palace ruins, travelling with me to see the places mentioned in the old Baskurt and Nogay narratives even though I really wanted to see those places.    He was also sad that while I was leaving he had not bought my steamboat ticket, did not come to support me, and I was compelled to work in a Russian farm in Bulkov in order to earn money for travelling.    In other words, he began telling these after I had become a well-known person, while I had not attached any import to any of it.    I had not realized how closely Molla was genuinely attached to me and my family.    Molla also had stated “I realized how right you were in turning down the editorship of a small journal in Astrakhan, when I heard of your speech to the 1917 Moscow Congress entitled ‘Ethnography of the Russian Moslems.’  Later on, you accomplished great things.    Riza Hazret and I believe that you will do much more.    When you arrived in Astrakhan, I saw myself as your second father; because, I regard myself a member of my teacher’s (Habib Naccar) family.    Thus my authoritative behavior toward you; I was certain that you would follow my word and also naturally become enthralled with the beautiful Nogay girl at the village.”


Now, what do I think:  Why did I travel to Astrakhan in 1908 and 1909, back-to-back to Abdurrahman Molla?  He was not any relation of mine, even distantly.    When he visited us, I was so young, I did not remember him at all.    Astrakhan was about one thousand kilometers away from us, and why did I wish to consult with this Molla concerning my future life and educational issues?  I of course knew that he was a beloved student of my maternal uncle at the Mercani Medrese.    But, his relationship with my father began when Molla began explaining and showing the historical places that occur in the Kara Nogay dastans which he was very lovingly studying, such as Edilbasi Eremen Tav,  Yayikbasi Karaorman, and accompanied my father to visit those places.    He further explained and showed my father and veli Molla, as he learned from my Grand Uncle, Boskuncak and Bozan, occurring in the Baskurt narratives, as places in the vicinity of Astrakhan.     Abdurrahman Molla regarded us as relatives who were left in the distance, when he visited the old lands Bokuncak and Bozan in the vicinity of Astrakhan mentioned in the still remembered Kara Nogay dastans, and continually corresponded with my father.    Molla collected plenty of his own Nogay’s poetry and dastans from the 16th century when they lived in the Yayik basin, Southern and Eastern Ural and Aral lake regions and published a portion as a pamphlet in 1909.    Kara Nogay kept the dastans alive concerning Baskurt Han Kucuk Sultan and his son Murad Sultan, and a portion of those was published by a Nogay scholar, Muhammed Osmanov, in Petersburg.    Murad Sultan, in 1708 on his way to Crimea and Turkiye, Nogay Bey Allaguvat Mirza and his tribe Yedisan from the Allaguvat village, which is not far from us, accompanied him to the shores of Volga.    When Abdurrahman Molla visited us, he went to that village and spoke with the Baskurt who had not yet forgotten that they were Nogay.    To Abdurrahman Molla and those who thought like him, the homeland of the Nogay began from Yaxsay and Kuban in Daghestan, stretched all the way to Western Siberia and the Aral Sea.    They recalled all the events in that region vividly as if they took place yesterday.    My father’s and Grand Uncle Kuzenoglu Veli Molla’s geography stretched from the East, Tobil; in the North, Cubarkoy and Miyes River; in the West, Kemelik River, in the South, Boskuncak in Bokeyorda and Buzani and Kuban around Astrakhan.    In these memoirs, the reason I stress the trips I took to Astrakhan and our relations with Abdurrahman Molla, is to show that our uruk is extremely traditional and in history lived from Tobol in the East to Astrakhan and Kuban in the West, mixed with very lively other nomadic uruks, and have been devoted to the historical events they lived together.     The lives of groups living in Central Asia and the Urals and the individuals belonging to them, such as myself, can only be understood in this context.


Vice Captain of our steamboat—
I spent this Astrakhan trip among the students of Mercani, hearing the anecdotes of this great scholar’s time.    While I was returning to Kazan via a steamboat on the Volga River, I spent my time reading Mercani’s al-Tarikat al-Muthla which distilled all his ideas on Islamic religion.    I also had with me the Russian translation of J.   W.   Draper’s Conflict between Religion and Science, and Professor Ovsianiko-Kulikovsky’s History of Russian Intellectuals.    The colds started early.    The steamboat could no longer navigate the River at night, due to the ice forming.    It is a good thing I had these works with me.    I had earlier learned of the liberal thoughts contained in Draper’s book from the writings of Ahmet Mithat Efendi in Turkiye.    I thus re-learned them from Russian.    In Turkish it was comprehensive; the Russian translation was made from an anti-Catholic point of view.    That book and Ovsianiko-Kulikovsky’s, are among the books that had the best influences on me in my life.    The small box of sweet apples called Enis I bought along the way, in Saritsin (now Stalingrad), proved to be helpful.    But, the third class room I was in was cold.   I was shivering.     Every time I passed the Vice Captain on board, I noticed that he was taking note of the books I was reading.    One day, he invited me into his state room above.    He said he had “never seen a Moslem interested in these books; why don’t you stay here” and placed me in a warm room next to the First Mate.    It turned out, this Captain was an intellectual, and he had the same books which he had read.    He was from Simbirsk, he knew well the Akcurins among the Tatars.    He asked me about the contents of the Arabic book I was reading.    He gave me his address.    Later on he sent me by mail P. Miliukov’s History of the Russian Civilization, and the Russian translation of Draper’s History of European Enlightenment and a couple of books by Chernishevsky as a present.    This person also was the reason for my meeting of the intellectual Ibrahim Akcurin from Simbirsk.    Ibrahim Bey, who passed away during the Soviet period, in addition to Russian, also spoke German, Chaghatay and Uyghur.    A year later I journeyed to Simbirsk and stayed in his house.    Until 1923 when I left Russia, I spoke with him and corresponded in the Uyghur alphabet.    He and his family had the best influences on me.    I was forever grateful to the Captain for introducing us.    Our steamboat, crunching the surface ice of the water, reached Kazan with difficulty.   There, we took our leaves with fondness toward each other with this very likeable Captain and unfortunately I was never able to see him again.


My teaching in Kazan and the Russian Milieu—
This school year (winter of 1909-1910), I was appointed teacher of Turkish History and Arabic Literature at the Kasimiye Medrese.    I rented a room at Kazan’s Russian section, in the home of a large family named Shalygin, who owned a large farm.    Their son named Nikolay (Kolia) was my close friend who was studying medicine.    Two of us lived in the same room the entire winter.    They were attempting to have me eat pork as a joke, but could not succeed.    I thought that I succeeded in having them eat the horse meat as if it was goose, and believed I succeeded.    It turned out that they ate it knowing it was horse meat.    In the winter my mother was sending me pilmen named Tatar borek (pastry filled with meat and vegetables) in a frozen state.    We were getting along famously.    They were living in Kazan during the winter so that their children could go to school.    I began writing my book on Turk History as a textbook.    I was reading the book of Professor Karayev on historical research and writing, also giving lectures on the topic.     It turned out, fortunately, that book was a summary of the German Professor E. Bernheim and the French historian Seignobos’s historical methodology works.    Later on (in the 1950s) while I was writing my Methods in History volume, while benefiting from the books of those two Westen scholars, I realized how correct was Karayev’s understanding of history and how much time he had saved me by acquainting me with those scholars.    I was also reading the Orientalist Professor Barthold’s notes on Central Asian history, which was living in Petersburg, printed with the stone tablet method.     At that time I also read the works of Karamzin and Solovyev on Russian history containing information on our national past.    I read the Russian chroniclers as well as the works of French scholar Leon Cahun and English scholar Henry Howorth on Turk and Mongol history in Russian.    Leon Cahun’s work was abridged in the E. Lavisse at Rambo in Russian, and the entire volume was translated into Russian by the famous Baskurt lawyer Ali Asgar Sirtlanov.    I had obtained that volume from the family of General Seyh Ali.    The portion on Cengiz Khan from Howorth was published in Russian in the journal Ortaasya (Central Asia) in Tashkent.    That year, with all those, I had entered the correct path in order to learn the history of the Turks.    With the aid of Professor Katanov, I began obtaining printed source works from the Western booksellers in London and Leiden as well as from Tashkent and Baku.    Also with Katanov’s help, I obtained the facsimile copies of Persian books of Mirhond and Hondemir as well as the memoirs of Babur Mirza from the bookseller Luzaq in London.    The sections on Mongol history from D’Ohsson and Howorth in abridged Russian versions made me aware that I needed to fully learn French and English from scratch in order to read those works in their entirety.


I continued to attend preparatory classes in order to pass the non-Russian Teacher’s School as well as the High School graduation exams, in addition to my work as a teacher at the medrese.    Even if I could not pass the High School exams, I thought that I could become a Russian teacher.    Rklitski and Arbakov, who taught prep classes in Latin, German and mathematics, helped me to meet the Russian intellectual circles.    I quite often went to the Russian city theater with them.    Once I went to the opera and listened to the guest singer Chaliapin sing King Lear.    Later on, when I saw this great artist in 1934 at the Austrian town of Kitzbuhl, I related to him my impressions of listening to him the first time.    Shalygin family, in whose home I lived, provided me with the occasions of meeting with many other intellectual Russian families.    I went to plays and danced with their daughters.    We used to go ice skating on Lake Kaban with their daughter Tatyana.    Every member of the Shalygin family was fond of me.    However, our religious differences always placed boundaries on our relationships.    I never drank alcohol, and they never offered me any.    Their family library contained a full complement of Russian classics, and I widely benefitted from them.    My work at the medrese was constructive.    Before me, no classes were taught on Turk history or Arabic literature.    However, everyone was pleased due to this new development.    I had many students and they were happy not only with what they were learning, but also liked to help me.    One of the students brought, from his own village, a good copy of the Persian language collection of poems by Devletsah, the Turkmen Bey of Samarkand who lived under the over-all rule of the Timur Bey’s offspring, which was recorded close to the time in which the author lived.    Finding the Arabic work by Ibn Qutaybe in Astrakhan, and in Kazan, the Persian work of Devletsah, reminded me that in our country one could find works on Islamic and Central Asian civilization if one looked.    That also gave birth to the idea that one needed to search for them, which put me on that track later on.    Also, both the Tatar scholar Sihabeddin Mercani and the German Orientalist Gottwald, who was then living in Kazan, found some important works in the last century.     I asked my students to let me know, if they knew of the existence of such volumes in their villages.    During the four years of teaching at the Kasimiye medrese, I learned of the existence of many such works, obtained them or went to see them where they were kept.

The orientalist Ch. Fraehn, back in 1840, had published a work indicating the names of manuscripts that ought to be searched, constituting the basis of historical Islamic culture.    That was also a helpful resource.


That year, my German language instructor Rklitski indicated that it was a useful method to learn German by comparing the German translations of works from Arabic, Persian or Turkish with their originals.   I had done the same in learning Russian, so, I was leaning toward that path.    Professor Katanov also recommended the same method, and suggested that I pursue Turcologist Radloff’s Specimens of the People’s Literature of the Turks and the Kutadgu Bilig.    All this changed my direction into studying the dastans of the Turk populations.    In the meantime, I also studied Professor Pozneyev’s Mongol Tribes’ literature Specimens.    That allowed me to add the Mongol studies to my workload, in addition to the Turks.    As one result of these studies, my first scholarly work entitled “Songs in a four-line structure among the Turk Tribes” was published in the journal Sura the next year.     Professor Katanov was very, very happy of my endeavors.


My learning of the reasons for the historical decline of the Turks and other Islamic Peoples—
I spent the winter of 1910-1911 again in the home of Shalygin family.    The Russian seminary students who were also boarding at the same house were happy to see me read a book by Krimsky, showing the fate of the Russian Moslems in dark tones.    The Dutch Professor Dozy’s History of Islam was translated into Turkish, and it was causing incertitude in my mind.    I regarded it my absolute duty to find answers to two questions in the courses I was teaching at Kasimiye:
1.    What are the real reasons for the Islamic people, especially the Turks, to fall behind;
2.    Is it true that Islam is the primary culprit in this matter?


I was learning the Islamic philosophical ideas through Mecani’s Mukaddimatu Vafiyat-I’l-Aslaf, through him, reaching back to Ibn Haldun.    The necessity of critical examination of historical events, detriment of theocracy, principles of nationalism in this century were among those ideas I liked.    I also immediately grasped that other ideas were old and no longer applicable to life or practical for scholarship.    I most liked Draper’s Europe’s Intellectual Growth and Meliukov’s History of Russian Civilization books.    After reading those, I wrote a letter to Captain Mishkin expressing my gratitude for introducing me to those writers.    I even had translated Draper’s chapter on “The end of faith in the East” (Chapter IX) from Russian into Tatar.    Because, the ideas contained there on the reasons for the decline seemed original to me.    However, when my mathematics and physics teacher Arbiakov introduced me to social democrat Plexanov’s books Materialist Understanding of History and The Role of the Individual in History, I saw that learning history from the prism of economics would serve me better.    Reading the same author’s Twenty years of Life and Criticizing those who criticize us, which he wrote under the pseudonym Beltov, in which he expounded the idea “Consciousness does not constitute life; Life constitutes consciousness,” directed me toward socialism.    And, I had already been leaning in that direction, too.    Plexanov attacked the right leaning Russian authors such as P. Struve and Kareev, which I liked very much.    I did not find Professor Masaryk’s, who later became President of the Czech Republic, criticism of materialism and Marxism convincing.    I had labored on Grand Russian thinker Ovsianiko-Kulikovsky’s History of Russian Intelligentsia since the summer.    In his preambles, this author took literature into the center of his work, and I found his criticism of Plexanov (Beltov) very on the mark.    In general, Ovsianiko-Kulikovsky was instrumental in my intellectual development of ideas, especially making me understand the distinctions between the Eastern and the Western types of worldview.    Reading him, I further understood that materialism only served historical analyses, and since it was a specific ideology belonging to the industrialized Western countries, it was difficult to apply to life conditions in the East.    Plexanov and Ovsianiko-Kulikovsky were not devoted to the problems of the East, and did not understand the Eastern issues as well as Draper.    In these matters, the Russian Orientalists and the Western Orientalists whose works have been translated into Russian should have been more beneficial to me.    However, the many Russian missionaries who were living in Kazan were fully propagandist zealots.    Even the Russian translation of the German Professor August Muller’s and the Turkish translation of Dutch Professor Dozy’s works on the history of Islam were not satisfactory to me.    And the university courses of Professor Krimsky’s, whose personal friendship later benefited me, on the Arabs and the history of Persian and Turkish literature, were never sufficient.    Among the Orientalists, two liberal scholars, Baron Victor von Rosen and Professor W. Barthold, because they had competence in economic doctrines, and because they resonated with the ideas of Plexanov and Ovsianiko-Kulikovsky’s, satisfied me.    Articles by both of these scholars were published in the Rusian Archeological Society Eastern Branch Zapiski, and they were very important in critically introducing the Eastern works to the West.    I purchased the extant 19 volumes of that journal as a collection.    Barthold, Leon Cahun, Grumm-Grjimaylo, Aristov’s critical analyses of the historical works belonging to the Turks was very important.    Accordingly, the reason for the Islam to fall behind was not the precepts, but the opening of the sea-trade routes at the beginning of the 16th century that had left the land-trade routes redundant, which provided the Europeans with economic superiority.     I accepted the views of Plexanov and Barthold and made them my central point when I was lecturing and began writing my History of the Turks.    I remained faithful to this understanding of economic history idea in the 1910, as well as in 1940 when I wrote Introduction to the General Turk History and Methodology in History, both of which were published in Egypt, and those works I published in Istanbul in 1946 and 1950.    In other words, it was not necessary to change my ideas that I had made mine while I was in Russia.

Developments in my religious considerations—
For the past two years, I was away from my father’s oversight in all matters, yet I continued to perform namaz, though not regularly, and was still under the influence of my parental religious upbringing.    This matter was also in the Kur’an (V.   104; XLIII, 21) “Even if the Arabs are ignorant and careless, what we have learned from our fathers will suffice.”    In the Holy Bible (John, VIII, 41) “it is their stupidity to follow their fathers’ path instead of their mothers’.”    And, Abu’l-Ala al-Maarri stated “humans are separated from each other under the guise of religion by following their fathers’ precepts blindly.”    I slept in the same room with Kolia Shalygin, and when we held discussions, we agreed that if there were no fatherly precepts influencing us, there would be no strife.    Kolia was completely cold to Christianity.    He would have me read the secret writings of a Russian author named Siskov, who claimed that there was no historical person named Jesus, that person was the invention of the priests.    In return, I would read him from Abu’l-Ala al-Maarri:  “I am surprised that the Brahman rulers washing their faces with cow urine; I wonder about the Christians calling a person God, even when he is being crucified who does not resist and received no help from anyone; another tribe gathers in Mekke in order to stone the devil.    I wonder if all these people are blind.”  Also from Maarri; “They say Jesus arrived and cancelled the religious precepts of Moses; Mohammad brought namaz five times a day, and there will not be another prophet after him; apparently people lost their way between the morning and the evening.”    Kolia loved those poems, as I translated them into Russian.


I believed that, conscious people could convene and find a mutual religion.    I wondered if the ancestral Shamanism of the Turks could become a national religion for us.    I thought that, possibly, as it is a natural religion, it had better facets than the religion of the books.    However, I thought, since Shamanism did not have a developed literature like the Semites have, it did not turn into a formal religion.    I used to read works on Shamanism from Radloff, Mihailov, Verbitsky and especially Cokan Sultan Velihanov’s research.    Cokan Sultan’s collection was always in my hands.    He, too, idealized Shamanism, and he especially liked the selflessness and love of nature in it.    I knew, much better, the prayers of the Altai Turks and the Kazaks better than the Arabic prayers.    However, these basic precepts did not seduce the large population of Turks from an intellectual point of view.    It had not become a systematic religion.


I had been reading the Torah and the Bible since 1908.    It was teaching the followers to remain passive in the face of aggression.    The fact that it did not punish the assailants made the Russians I knew very skeptical of this religion, and did not satisfy me either.    Especially in the Bible (John, VIII, 1-15) Jesus declines to apply the principles of extant law to a public woman, even going as far as stating: “you are ruling according to the physical presence; I do not rule over anybody.”    I regarded all those words of a weak, hypocritical community, philosophy born of them.    Actually, as Draper stated, Christianity was a religion created by Jews living in Rome, under the oppression of the Romans.    The Bible is a collection of stories and does not contain any dictums regulating the internal and external [societal] behavior in life.    Principally, it strives to regulate the internal and external life of the individual.    To my spirit, “life for a life, eye for an eye, ear for an ear, and tooth for a tooth” principle was more suitable for a struggling warrior society, reflecting their life and values.    On the other hand, Islam being the religion of an energetic military milieu, in time, constricted the human self-determination, understanding, and fanaticism took over.    The works of Swedish Phander’s Mizan al-Haq and the Indian Rahmetulla Dihlevi’s Izhar al-Haq portrays such a view as they contrast Islam and Christianity.   Among those fanatics, the patriarch of my father’s patriarchs, Naheddin Naqsibendi (d. 1389) and the theologian of Herat, Ali al-Qari (d. 1605), would have shown more violence, I thought, had they been able to put their hands on weapons than Pope Pius II.


I read many a work repudiating God and religion, brought to me by my philosophy teacher Davidov, as issued by the Social Democratic Party.    However, the writings rejecting the administration of the universe by a single conscious power assuming different identities under natural laws never satisfied me.    In reality, God and religion is dominant on humanity.    Anyone rejecting this must separate himself from his nation and will be condemned to live alone.    Especially in Moslem countries, the statesmen who wish to aid their nation in social and political spheres, must respect religion even only in form, and forced to trick their people to believe that they will be buried according to the religious ceremony.    Therefore, it is necessary to compare and weigh the benefits of displaying irreligious behavior and withdrawing from public life against living with the people in order to be a benefit to them.    I am only a teacher and not a statesman.    Why do I bother?  In that case, if I were to speak frankly, what is my religion?  I was thus thinking on 1 May 1910.    On that day, one of my students named Osman, and another whose name I cannot now recall, wished very much to know the answer to that question.    I gave them the following answer:  Humans display their adoration toward the creator of the universe and express that admiration via the ceremonies of one of the religions; seek refuge in that creator during times of hardship.   However, doing this must not prevent the individual from thinking about religious topics.     Humans must not allow religion to regulate thought and behavior in the extreme; prevent it taking away the free will, and one must not be completely under the thumb of religion.    Islam must be taken as a moral religion and the statement in the Kur’an “if the oceans are writing ink, and if it is necessary to write the mysteries of God along with that of the universe, the oceans would run-out, but the mysteries will not” will be just.    My relation to religion is as much as the deist Draper had; my adherence to Islam is as Abbasid Chaliph Me’mun, who knew that Kur’an was a “creation,” and as much as the liberal Mutazile.


Even though I thought along those lines, I was thinking of protecting myself from the wide-sweeping interference of religion and Islam on myself.    Namaz and muharremat (prohibitions) had become a very heavy lead for me to carry.    That year, on 10 May, while attending the country fair called “Tas Ayak Yerminkesi” I decided to throw away that load and finally be completely free of them.    Even though the weather was hot, I entered one of the Russian drinking establishments, which I had never patronized before, ate food that I knew to be prohibited, and also drank alcohol.    On the way to the Shalygin house, that was located in the Sukonoye section, situated on a high hill, I was about to fall down.    I was able to reach the house with difficulty; later I discovered that I threw myself on the floor in my room.     My student Osman used to visit me, whom I liked very much.    He had completed what was known as the “City School,” a Russian Middle school, and had entered the school of Agriculture.    He had left that and began attending Kasimiye in order to complete his religious education.    In addition to attending my history classes at the medrese, he used to take additional private lessons from me at my home on Arabic literature.    Ostensibly, he planned, like me, journey to Beirut for his education.     When he arrived, unusual to common practice, he saw me sleeping on the floor, in my clothes.    But, he did not wake me, and waited for me in the garden, till I awoke.    When he queried me as to what happened, I told him the truth.    I also read him the following quatrain from Navai:  “For years, I listened to the words of the sheyh; but those words did not provide me with a pleasure to my soul or to my heart.    But the wine selling son of an infidel gave me a swallow of drink, and the harmony entered my life, my heart was elevated.”    That night, we left the books behind, and entered into the world of pleasure forbidden to us by our religion.    Osman was of one mind with me on these issues.    We were experiencing the same pains, and we had discussed these many times before.    He was making suggestions toward himself in that direction, and liked my decisions on the topic.    I told him that, since I was an instructor at a Tatar religious institution, I was not about to tell anyone that I had crossed the religious boundaries.    Both of us agreed that we would behave as if we are not confined by the precepts taught us by our parents.    We were also convinced that that would not be entirely feasible, and the only path of independence of mental prison and imitation would go through acquired knowledge.    Osman and I planned to take a steamboat trip on 11 May on the River Volga, and arrive at my village over the Urals.    We had communicated with Ataullah Molla, who was busying himself with translating the Arabic language grammar entitled Elfiye, written in verse, into Turkish, who was living in the province of Samara, town of Melekes.    We were going to learn that book from him.    We arrived there together, and, along the way, we visited the ruins of the city of Bulgar.    We stayed at the house of a Russian family named Jibolin, and took lessons from Ataullah Molla for a month.    Since I had earlier learned a portion of Elfiye from Ahmet Sanqiti, I memorized the remainder from this Molla.


Two days before we left, there was an event there:  The old Jilobin, his son and daughter-in-law were drinking very heavily.    His son was a gambling addict.    It appears that they would sell everything when they were drinking.    In this instance the son Stephan sold my boots that I had purchased in Kazan, along with his own property.    Compared to his son, the older Jilobin was much sturdier, made his daughter-in-law his own property and had her.    His son knew that well and fought with his father in front of us.     Upon observing that development, Osman and I stopped the card game we were playing, and looked at each other.    We both knew what we were saying to each other:  “even though we were given empty values by our parents under the name of Islam, let us remain Moslem.    Let these people remain themselves according to what their parents taught them.”    In addition we also observed further events that were not possible in our circles.    I immediately deemed it necessary to leave this family, to find another house, or to leave Melekes and return to Baskurdistan.    The next day, I opted for the latter option.    Because, even though the village Russians seemed more religious than their city counterparts, before God they were less accountable.    Christianity, just like Islam, believed in resurrection and accounting of one’s behavior before God, but in life after death in Islam, as every believer knows, a resurrected person will not be allowed to live without rules, and for that reason Islam seemed more effective.    A priest who used to speak with us also agreed to this.


One night, while sitting in the window seat, Osman noticed that I kept repeating a poem by Navai:  “dear heart, we left our beloved, gave offense, let us find another, searching the mountains and the plains.    But, what will we gain by searching.    Who are we going to find?  It is best to find our old friend, and ask forgiveness.”


Osman had learned that piece from me, and he knew the meaning.     He stated that, “you are referencing me as the old friend; and Islam.    After witnessing these ugly matters, did you start looking for Islam again?”  I responded with “yes, but not only yes, because, Islam will not arrive as before.”    This statement of mine made Osman very curious.    He asked me many times what that new understanding of Islam was going to be.    Afterward he came to us for a stay, and while visiting the Ural Mountains, he was going to ask me many times more.    I understood that these matters which have been of interest to me, were also of interest to him with the same intensity, but could not find an answer, and thought I would provide it.    He, like me, discovered that the extant religions consist of following ancestral precepts from the words of Abu’l-Ala al-Maarri, and the Russian author Siskov.     He apparently understood the words ‘an enlightened person ought to be free of those’ as a desire to find a new religion and precepts.    And now, he regarded my repeating Navai’s poem with feeling to be a return to the ancestral religion.    However, my thoughts were on the neither option.    That fact constituted the crux of his curiosity.     As a summary: our talks searching for precepts apart from the ancestral religion continued only for two months, in May and June.    As a result of our search, we still remained true to Islam.    But, we were going to be true, according to our own understanding.    Osman was with me in that decision.    The cards we played occasionally, we were going to give up.    We were going to use alcohol in a measured way.    We will perform namaz when our heart asked for it.     I never deviated from those decisions.    I am certain Osman did the same, too.


We left the Melekes town at the beginning of July, and went to my village.    Before leaving, we saw Ataullah Hazret, and thanked him for instructing us, leaving aside his other business.    We told him what we observed among the Jilobin family, and asked Hazret if he was unhappy to be living in the same community with them.    He responded with “we have completely isolated ourselves from them.”    Really, for the rest of my life, I have never encountered another locality where the contrasts between the Turks and the Russians were so pronounced.


The weather was beautiful; we arrived in Samara and to the Safran station the day after.    All around, the crop was very good also.    The wheat and rye fields, for the next one hundred and fifty kilometers, were waving under the strong winds, all the way to the ground, straightening-up, then bowing once again.    We found nobody at home.    It turned out to be the annual imece grass cutting day designated by my father, with all the men called in from nearby towns.    We then traveled to the Iraman pastures where the imece was taking place.   From everywhere, my father’s relatives and friends brought kimiz and sheep, and my father had slaughtered several bulls.    Most of them young, hundreds of Baskurt were singing and playing as they cut the grass.    At late afternoon, the grass harvesting ended.    All the slaughtered animals were already cooked; after dinner, my father left the fields to the wrestlers, singers, players, and went home.    We had fun till midnight.    This was something Osman had never seen or experienced before.    Except, he found it strange that everyone ate the salma named pastry with their hands.

In our house, everyone was roused for the morning prayers (namaz).    Only if my father was not home, we could be exempted out of namaz.     After staying in our house a few days, we journeyed to other villages to see relatives and friends.


Ahmetsani and Mansur’s advice, for me to complete my education in Russia—
A little later, my old friends Kockaroglu Ahmetsani and Kilicoglu Mansur arrived at our house.    I and Osman had them mount horses, and we took them all to the high pastures, called Aygirolgen, some thirty kilometers away from us.    Ahmetsani and Mansur had arrived from Istanbul, and they wanted to drink kimiz at the high pasture [yayla].


Ahmetsani was from the Utek village and he was descended from mendicant scholars.    The Seyhs Kockar and Otegul arrived in this village in the 18th century, along with the Khoresmians and the Karakalpaks, and their descendants constantly moved about in Khorezm, Daghistan, Kazan, Istanbul, acquiring vast knowledge on Islam and they established many medrese along the way.     From this family, Emirhan was an Imam in the Mamadis-Kopka village of Kazan, brought some Tatars, some of whom were muezzin from the village of Bahtiyar, and a number of them settled in our village.    Some offspring of Emirhan returned to Kazan, others remained in Utek.    Those in Kazan engaged in trade and became wealthy, regarded Utek as their root and built mescit and medrese there, brought the children of their relations and friends to Kazan for their education.    In short, these Kockar and Otegul families were the primary reason and conduit for the families of our Imam and sheyh to remain in touch with Khorezm, Kazan, Daghistan, Istanbul, Egypt and Mekke.    The Ahmedsani mentioned here was the grandson of Ahmedcan who was a well known scholar and author of Arabic works in Istanbul.    With the aid of his wealthy relatives, he had studied, first in Utek at my maternal uncle’s medrese, later in Kazan.    Later, he was taken to Istanbul, entered the “Sultaniye.”    We became friends at my maternal uncle’s medrese.    We had studied Russian together from a person named Gerey.     He had learned French after arriving in Istanbul.    Ahmetsani (known in the Turkish Republic as Ahmet Emircan), was my conduit with Istanbul, he sent me books from there.    Now, he had graduated from highschool, he was about to enter the university.    He had returned to his village to see his relations.    Since the distance between Utek and my village was fourteen kilometers, we saw each other often.    I was learning the conditions in Istanbul from him.    And he was consulting me, as an old friend, concerning which branch of learning would be beneficial to him.    I suggested he continue in Geography.    Upon returning to Istanbul, at the Faculty of Literature, he did just that.    He taught history and geography in highschools and he never married.    He always thought of returning to Utek and teach what he learned in Turkiye, according to the last testament of his uncle, but the war that started in 1914 and the following Russian Revolution prevented him carrying out his plans.    When I arrived in Istanbul during 1925, we met.    We endeavored to have our homes in close proximity, and looked for land-plots adjacent to each other in Erenkoy and in the mountains East of Adapazari.    He was a cultured person, since he had money; he would journey to Europe every year in order to increase his knowledge.    During 1951 and 1953, we were neighbors in Goztepe.    He acquired the ailment of shortness of breath.    He believed that the Southern climate was easier in living so he moved to Medina and lived there till he passed away in 1958.    He had placed all his money in the bank, land lots, and real estate holdings in trust, to be spent for the education of his countryman.    Those vakf [foundation] would end with the completion of education or marriage; and among the beneficiaries both of my children were included.    Ahmetsani’s thin body in his elegant gown, his fez on his head, and shoes, always seemed enjoyable to me.     He read to us the works of Turkist poets, such as Mehmet Emin Yurdakul.


Mansur, who arrived with Ahmetsani, was the son of Imam Numan Kilic, from the village of Yumran in the vicinity of Ufa.     Imam was my father’s friend, and took his son for his education to Mekke.    Mansur studied in the medrese there and in Istanbul, became hafiz [Kur’anic reciter], commentator, and specialist on the statements of the Prophet.    This young scholar’s grasp of matters Arabic was also outstanding.    Even though his precepts were very conservative, he liked to learn the European research on Islam.    Along those lines, I had learned from him that he was collecting Arabic language texts published in Europe, in his library in Mekke.    Mansur’s father stayed with us almost every summer, sometimes with his son.    So, I got to know him from our early days.    He arrived here in 1910 from Mekke, in order to visit his family.    He had coordinated his homeward trip with Ahmetsani in advance.     They both aimed at opening a contemporary Islamic kulliye in Baskurdistan, specifically in Utek.    In meaning, they were aiming at a theological seminary as in Christianity, or a faculty of theology; because, in their thoughts, the era of ‘medrese’ was, by now, passé.    Mansur Efendi went back to Turkiye that year, along with Ahmetsani, but both intended to return to their homeland.    When the First World War began, Mansur remained in Mekke.    But, when the Sharif of Mekke betrayed Turkiye, and took the side of the British, Mansur Efendi moved to Dortyol in the Hatay province, stating “I will not live here.”     I met and spoke with him several times when I arrived in Turkiye.    I headed the International Orientalist Congress that took place in Istanbul during 1951, as well as the preparatory Committee, I was exhausted.    After the conclusion of the Congress, I journeyed to Dortyol, and was a houseguest in his home for a few days; we reminisced.    He told me repeatedly that it was a pleasure for him to have me as a guest, and I told him that meeting once again Mansur Kilic and Ahmet Emirhan, the friends of my youth, was a joy after arriving in Turkiye in 1925.    But, he passed away in Dortyol, a year or two before Ahmetsani.    His offspring is still there.


This is the curriculum vitae of AhmetSani and Mansur Kilic, who had visited us during Summer in 1910, and later we again met in their own village in the Fall, were intending to return to Turkiye.     Even though Osman and I had decided to continue our education in Russia while we were in Melekes, when these two friends arrived, we decided to re-visit this issue one more time.    After arriving in Aygirolgen, this was our first topic of discussion.    Both of them indicated that they were homesick in Istanbul and Hicaz, travelling both ways was very expensive, and if one moves to Turkiye, it would be very difficult to return home, and since you wish to work at home, stay here.    Beirut American College is a missionary institution more than a place of scholarship, attending it is no different than entering a Russian missionary school.    Musa Akyeyitzade, who immigrated to Turkiye after studying in Russian schools, also indicated that “those who wish to serve the Russian Islam, need to stay there; home is in greater need of enlightened people like you.”     Both recommended that Osman and I remain in Russia and attend Russian schools.    As a result of this, Osman and I gave up the idea of going to Beirut, and I decided to prepare for the exams to enter the university, while Osman was to register in the Higher Russian Agricultural School.    At that time, I also stopped working on Arabic literature.    I was not able to busy myself with the publication of the History of Arab Literature book that I was writing.    The summer visit of Ahmet and Mansur Bey’s visit was very important in giving a new direction to my life.


“Surat Coffee House” in the Ural Mountains—
When we arrived at Aygirolgen high pastures, we found there the Russian engineer Nikolay Moskov there, whom I knew from earlier times, drinking kimiz.     Even though this person did not have tuberculosis, his body was very fragile.    A few years back, he was here again, stayed a couple months to drink kimiz.    Aygilolgen was an extraordinarily beautiful place along the River Urik.    Prior to the confiscation of our lands, this place was one of our high pastures.    However, we had retained the rights to benefit from the forests of the mansions, to fell a certain amount of pine trees, cut and sell the dead trees in the market, make tar out of the pine and beach barks, make fiber out of the linden trees, scoop beehives in the pine trees called suluk, harvest the grass in the pastures, and construct temporary shelters for feeding the animals called otar during the winter.    So, we came here to work during the summers.    For that reason, personally, I knew all of the hills and valleys like I knew the back of my own hand.    My guests, Osman, Ahmetsani and Mansur Kilic immersed themselves in kimiz drinking.    I, on the other hand, went deer hunting with Moskov, as I did in the years past.    He was a member of the Social Revolutional Party.    He used to tell me his political views.    He liked the fact that I was reading the Russian sociologist Chernyshevsky’s novel Prolog.   He advised me to read that author’s other works, especially his novel What is to be Done?  In general, he was devoted to Chernyshevsky.    He was happy to learn from Mansur Efendi that the concepts of ‘beautiful’ and ‘ugly’ found in Chernyshevsky’s works were debated in Islam under the rubrics husun and qubuh.     In sum, Moskov was an enlightened person with wide interests.    Our snippets of hunting together with him, reminded me the stories in the Russian author Turgenyev’s Memoirs of a Hunter.    He was taking notes on our hunting.    He may have published those as articles in the Russian newspapers and journals I knew him to be contributing.    I was greatly pleased that my friends were eating the deers I had shot.    Moskov spoke a little Tatar.     Mansur Kilic, who was very traditional in his understanding of social and religious issues, was speaking with a view to rejecting Moskov’s socialist ideas.    He was also suspicious of my continually speaking in Russian with Moskov, and from the Russian books I was reading.    Since Moskov was an atheist, he always expressed free ideas.    Among the religions he rejected, Moskov spoke positively about Islam, which caused Mansur Efendi to regard him as having left Christianity and a converted to Islam.    Between my friends and Moskov, these discussions always took the form of religious debates, and were of great interest to me.     Mansur Efendi knew the history of religions and Islamic Sects, as well as the publications emanating from Egypt and India in support of Islam.    Osman and I would take advantage of these conditions and would ask Mansur questions concerning all the issues that were of interest to us.     Osman would detail all the tasteless accusations leveled against our religion in the journal published by the Russian Anti-Islamist missionaries, and noted all the responses from him.    All these religious debates had turned the open summer home of Ferey Molla, termed alacik, into “Surat Coffeehouse.”    Surat is a commercial port in India.    Russian author Leon Tolstoy wrote a good story about the people congregating in the coffeehouse of this port, belonging to many different races and religions who arrived by sea, debating religious issues, utilizing the writings of the French authors who lived before himself.    The debates taking place in the Surat Coffeehouse are portrayed as if the religious debates among various individuals had in the end yielded a common understanding.    However, those taking place in Aygirolgen did not, due to Mansur Efendi’s speaking in extra fanaticism.    However, Osman would record these discussions continually.     Ahmedsani and Mansur had heard that we were not always of one mind with them.    But, I liked to visit friends in the Yaltiran and Kebes plateaus all by myself, taking advantage of the excellent horses Ferey had.    Sometimes Osman accompanied me.    But, since he was not able to ride well, he would often fall ill.    His body would be wounded, and could not get on the back of a horse.    Twenty days later, Ahmetsani and Mansur took their leave from there.    Osman continued to ask me questions on the religious topics I discussed with those individuals.    Finally, I undertook to answer those questions in a written fashion.    That writing later caused me trouble, but it was also beneficial.    Osman could not get used to our food, which was different than those of the Tatars.    He intended to return home in order to prepare for the exams.    When we reached my village, I took him to Sterlitamak.    He rented a carriage from there, and continued on his journey.


I went in the direction of Akbiyik, with my father, to inspect our animals.    We were guests of my friend Ibrahim at the Karagac plateau.    My father told him, with sadness, my activities which did not agree with our local customs while I was travelling with Osman.     For example, Osman was mounting the horse from the horse’s right side, meaning he was lifting his left foot.    Ibrahim, in response, told my father that his mother noticed my performing namaz without the necessary ablutions.    And, my father told Ibrahim that Tatars had told him (my father) that I went into a Russian eatery in Sterlitamak with Osman, and ate a meal with sausage in it, and also took alcohol.    He concluded with “I wonder where these actions will take him.”     In my life, I had never seen my father talk about me like this to others, before speaking with me.    And, I was sad about that, but I did not tell him that.    Moreover, he did not like the debates between me and Mansur Efendi; according to him we were all Moslems in the Sunni sect and Hanafi legal school, any and all discussions on religion will not yield positive results.     The best position was to reduce all these matters to their simplest components.    He believed that the following words by Abu’l-Ala al-Maarri contained a great deal of truth:  “we are leaving this world without learning the secrets of life, the aim of humans in living.    The celestial books and the astronomical observations of scholars do not provide us with answers.”    And, Imam al-Haramayn Juvaini stated: “my entire life was spent dealing with religious statements, none of which provided a result; finally, I am dying with the precepts of the old women of Nishapur.”    And that is the truest of all words.    But my father had no knowledge of kelam [rhetoric; one of the five essential ‘sciences’ an Islamic scholar must know]; his knowledge consisted of and he taught ethics, Canon Law, and mysticism.    His acquaintance on the Kur’an and prophet’s sayings were fragmentary, he never taught commentary or prophets’ sayings in his medrese.    But, my friend was unlike that.    He always wanted to plumb the depths of religious matters; if he did not insist on answers, I would not have ever written the writings that caused me a lot of pain.


Pains of idea revolution—
The writings I produced at the insistence of Osman, summarizing our talks of those months, caused seismic tremors in our family after he left.    He put the writing I handed him in a book, and he forgot that book in the home of the owner of the Kalem library in Sterlitamak when he left.    At the time, a Tatar teacher by the name of Sunatullah Bekbulat who had studied in Egypt or Beirut was visiting from Orenburg read that paper in the presence of an outsider.    And that stranger repeated the contents to others, which generated a lot of gossip about me.    They broke my father’s heart at a feast where my father was present when the gossipers stated that I had left the Islamic community.    Because of that, my father’s behavior toward me changed instantly.    My mother told me the reason, that it is my writing, in the hands of the Kalem library owner, and that I needed to destroy it.    I immediately mounted a horse and galloped over to Sterlitamak.    I took the said writing from the owner of the Kalem Library, and had him promise that he had not read or seen the said paper.    When I returned home, I told the events to my mother, asked her to calm my father down.    But the matter was not resolved that easily.    I made an error, did not flatly state that I destroyed it by tearing it up.    When my father asked to see that paper, since I never told him a lie, I handed it to him.    Our relations completely broke-down.    He did not speak with me anymore.    He stopped waking me for the morning namaz.    I often saw my mother crying.    Neither of them leaked a word to my siblings, but they, too, could detect that I was being treated just like an outsider.    My father travelled to the Utek village.    Of course, they had decided what they were going to do.    My maternal uncle found that paper and handed it over to me in 1920 as a memento.


My maternal uncle was truly fond of Ahmetsani, who knew my maternal uncle’s private thoughts.    My Maternal uncle gave my writing to Ahmetsani, who copied it by hand, brought it to Istanbul and gave it to Dr. Sibatulla Devletgeldi of Kazan, who was then living in Uskudar.    Later on, Ahmetsani took that writing from Devletgeldi and handed it to me.    This was a big benefit to me, since the copy my maternal uncle gave me in 1920 was left in my papers in Baskurdistan.    The summary of ideas contained in this paper, which is seven pages long, is as follows:

“Religion, for enlightened individuals, is comprised of the belief that a consciousness exists and manages the universe; this is not confined to the period in which the individual is alive, but the spirit will live on after separating from the body.    Humanity always sought out the means of communication with that exalted entity.    Common People attribute human qualities to that Supreme Being and regard that being as a person speaking his own language or in Hebrew or Aramaic.    The same Common People fervently believe that their bodies will be roused from their interred locations, and they will be questioned by God as in courts of law.    However, God has laws and natural principles governing billions of other bodies similar to Earth, perhaps even more.    It is not His business to involve Himself in the fights between the ants, let alone the relations between Ahmet and Mehmet; it is the task of the laws he laid down.    The prophets living among the people are known as those individuals who deeply think about the beginnings and the end of the universe, morals, and the future of life.    They learn matters unknown to other humans as a result of long periods of comparatively auditing knowledge.    They are distinguished individuals who understand the mysteries of the universe by being closer to God.    However, among more primitive societies, they appear as the Kam and Shaman as found among our Turks, presiding over and leading religious ceremonies.    They constituted the prophet class among the Semitic tribes, who were comparatively more advanced.    Many of them were illiterate, emerging from among the Common People, closer to them in Culture, these Religious Leaders inculcated historical tales and thoughts and ideas in forms people knew and understood.    While suggesting that ‘those individuals who have grand ideas, they will accomplish much by the force of their will,’ is the bases of the story ‘double horned Zulkarneyn’ appearing in the Kur’an.    But, that is only the story in the Arabic language of the Macedonian King Philip’s son Conqueror Alexander who conjoined east to west.    The Kur’an itself stated at least twenty-four times, as it is also mentioned in the Bakara Sure, that it relates many a proverb.    Of course, the information about the Ethiopian origin Ebrehe, the Governor of Yemen who lived a century before the Prophet, and even the fact his statement ‘Jesus was not killed by the Jews, neither he was hanged, the events simply seemed that way’ are not proverbs but historical detail.    Scholars have advanced ideas on the question, ‘did God express himself by words or by meanings?’  Along those lines, the Mutalize answer to that is as God only meant the meaning.    In reality, it is not only the letters or words, but the stories and proverbs are meant to transmit concepts to the Arabs.    In other words, meanings were summarized to the Arabs in terms of tales and dastan and examples they would understand.    When the scholarly classification of the Kur’an can be done, to separate the historical facts from the Arab proverbs, the baseless claims of missionaries who allude to the old Israeli tales and the Old Testament forms will become more apparent.”


I still believe the correctness of those statements I wrote when I was twenty years old about the holy books and Kur’an.    Because, those three Roman Columns in Baalbek is recorded in the Irem fable in terms of what the members of the Semitic tribes could then understand.    The statement in Kur’an ‘while Ibrahim and Ismail were establishing the foundations of the Kabe,’ told in no uncertain and precise terms, is couched exactly according to one of the Arabic dastans.    The aim is to express the fact that Islam is very old as related by the Prophet, and he did not conjure the precepts.    After understanding Islam in these terms, it became a more likeable religion.    Let the enlightened, just like the Common People, choose whether to believe the contents as hard history or they accept the total meaning without regard to the words, there would be no reason for the two groups to regard each other as infidels.    Celaleddin Rumi, since he knew the forms of expression of the Kur’an well, he had inserted plenty of new stories into his Mesnevi.    But, he did not concern himself whether or not those tales were historically accurate; he only concentrated on the meanings he wished to express.    If a Prophet were to emerge from among the Turks, they, too, would have used examples from the extant works believed by the Turks, such as the tales about the wife of Kulerkin Yabgu in the dastan Oghuz to denote a naturally traitor personality; to express thoughts on justice, camel of Edige and the carpet of Kurkur in the Edige dastan.     As of late, the English scholar Kenneth Cragg, in his published volume Lessons on Contemporary Islam specified that the tales in the Kur’an encouraged the Arabs and the scholars in the West to produce a multitude of volumes, which led me to thank myself that I did not feel it necessary to read books on those topics since 1910 and I could then devote my time to other subjects.

But, my father was thinking differently.    After reading my paper on these topics, he believed that I had renounced Islam completely, but he did not talk to anyone about this, which had assumed the mantle of a disaster within the family, nor did he let out the deep hatred he felt toward me.    Even though he no longer woke me for the morning namaz, he wanted me to perform it when there were others around.    He had my mother verbalize this wish to me.    For the past fifteen days, I was living with the feeling of repulsion and hatred from my father which I had never experienced before.    I thought of leaving for Kazan, but that would have meant to cast-off all relations with my family.     That would have my mother even sadder.    I decided to wait, and see if my maternal uncle would find a solution.    One day, my father commanded me to rouse myself to visit my maternal uncle.    He did not want me to ride in his carriage, and told me I would be riding a horse.    Upon arrival at the Utek village, and when we entered my maternal uncle Habib Neccar’s house, I discovered that all the relatives and my mother’s elder and younger brothers plus the in-laws, from the Tasbuken, Yalgizqayin, Yaniris villages as well as from various sections of Utek village, who were all Imams, with their wives were present.     I believed I was going to face a family court.    But, from the lighthearted talk I heard, I discerned that some of those present were lightly let into the matter.    Some of them were cold to me, others were joking along with me.    After the Evening namaz, we all ate together.    After that, it was a complete family court.    My father spoke very harshly.    I responded with an Arabic phrase “father, do you mean to say ‘if you do not give up your ideas, I will strike you down and kill you with a stone’?”  These were the words used to threaten Prophet Ibrahim, by his father, as stated in the Kur’an.    My father said “No; Son, I always have known you to be one of us, and you are a scholar.    Now you placed the Kur’an before me.”    He started to cry.    He did not say anything more.    Kebir Mola, who was my brother-in-law, defended me by asking “the writing is a paper; I wonder if all the contents belong to him?”  My maternal uncle addressed me directly: “son, you are spending time in foreign places and reading a lot.     It is natural for you to have different ideas.     I told this to your father, too.    We believe that you will remain a Moslem.    Except, there is a matter:  do not tell the ideas that cross your mind to anyone in these lands here, nor write them down.    Our enemies will be the beneficiary, and your words will turn around and and hurtyour father, me and our entire family.    Note that Sahserif Metinov (former member of the Russian Duma) is an admirer of yours, having noted how good a Russian you are speaking, well enough to write petitions.    We all want you to be elected to the zemstvo (municipality) or even to the Duma when you reach the necessary age.    Everybody will want that.    Do not say words that will cause bad gossip to flourish about you.    Believe us, you are the apple of our collective eye.”     Shortly afterward, it was time for the yatsi namaz.    The entire family performed it together.    Both wives of my maternal uncle were very beautiful, and they were both educated.    My grandmother was saintly and scholarly.    They laid down white bed sheets for the namaz.    This was a family namaz, the namaz of enlightened people.    I very much liked the namaz of this type where the women were behind the men, all understanding the Kur’an in Arabic.    During winter months, my mother’s and my father’s brothers, brother-in-laws, with their wives and children, would fill our house and stay three or four days.     For the other namaz times, they would all go to the mosque near us, but the yatsi namaz was performed just like this, on white bed sheets, man and women together, as my maternal uncle served as the Imam out front.    He would read selected sections of the Kur’an.    It was just like that this time.    My maternal uncle read the al-Hidjr verse from the Kur’an, which is not usual during namaz.    He slowly read these words:  “openly display and suggest the works you are ordered to perform.    Do not accept the words of those who attempt to appear equal to God.    We will send those who make fun of you, to their places.    We know that what they are saying is bothering you, but, give thanks to God and worship Him.”    In the second rekat of the namaz, he again slowly read from the Fusillat verse:  “Allah is our God, and the angels will come to those who keep this word, so that they are not frightened.    Angels tell them they will remain friend and protector.    Who has a better word to say than praying to God and stating that he is a Moslem?  Goodness is not equal to evil.    If you respond to evil with goodness, you can even gain your enemies as your friends.”    My maternal uncle was addressing me with those verses.    Because he possessed more liberal thoughts tan my father.    After the namaz, he turned toward us, and as was his custom, he commented on the verses he had read.    After the prayers, he addressed me:  “what is the path?”   He answered his own question:  “continuing on the road you know to be true.    The aim is to reach the heights without becoming waylaid by trivia.    In Islam, the path is having the conscious self, finding its own way in life.   If you continue on to your path in higher education with belief, you will reach your destination.”    He continued with a series of verses and aphorisms in Arabic, showing the benefits of pursuing an objective without fail, and the harm any hesitation would result.    After the namaz and the prayers were completed, my father stated:  “see, your maternal uncle solved all the problems.”    My maternal uncle stated: “One of the biggest names in the history of Islam, Umayyad Velid ibn Muaviye, tore apart the Kur’an and addressing the pieces and recited a poem with the meaning ‘Go tell your owner, the God, that Velid tore me apart and threw me away.’   Umayyad Mervan ibn Muhammad and the Caliph Ma’mun were called Professorly because they were free thinkers.    And the Damascene declared Timur Bey Infidel because he preferred the Mutazile to serve as Imams to the four sects, and forced them to accept that fact.    Our son is not any worse Moslem than those.    Sometimes he conceives strange ideas, and those can come to anyone who reads.    Among the Islamic scholars, there have been those who equated Zulkarneyn with that of Alexander.”     My father stated: “but, our son is not following Ahmet Mithat, he believes the infidel Draper, Christian Arabs, and every Russian book he reads and changes this thoughts.”    In response, my maternal uncle: “one cannot stop reading books in order not to change ideas.”   After these words and after the namaz, the entire family was greatly comforted, having lifted the crisis atmosphere.    My maternal uncle specified: “the teacher to the Emperors, Hizir Bey oglu Sinaneddin had similar experiences.   He had doubts, but he found his path with the aid of Seyh Vefa, and became the teacher to Fatih Sultan Mehmet.    I pray to God that Ahmet Zeki will also find his path.”     My father countered: “I hope his Seyh Vefa will not be a Christian or an atheist.”    My maternal uncle: “No, no; there is an error here.    He put on paper what was on his mind at that moment, and caused gossip.    Henceforth he ought not to write them.”
It was an extraordinary feat for him to bring to a sweet conclusion of this family court trying me with a great deal of anguish with a verse from the Kur’an during the namaz.    At that time, it became clear to me that my maternal uncle was a most definitely a liberal thinking person.    It appeared that he joined me in every idea I expressed, even applauded every one.    But the critical point was in his skillful tactics.    He thought as I was doing, but would not tell anyone in order not to cause trouble to himself.    He had ‘tried’ me for the sake of my father, but, in actuality, he protected me.    While protecting me, he left the final decisions to the Kur’an, in order not to be seen as protecting me against my father who was ferociously insisting on his own bigoted views, did not allow the thought that he was defending me enter the picture.     That had my father bend his neck.    The verse he read from the Kur’an calmed my father while let alone not criticizing me, actually directed me to continue on doing what I was doing without regard to the gossip of the enemies.


This milieu had many other virtues.    It was sincere to each other, deferent, determined in every business, lively but measured all members talented, far away from bigotry, drunkenness and all types of abnormal behavior.     At least it reinforced the idea stated by the Prophet:  “removing matters from the road that would otherwise cause pain to the people is a fascicule of faith.”    We would remove the tree if it fell across the road in the forest; if boulders fell on it, we would roll them away; if encountering a dead animal, we would bury it.    Even today, if I were to see horns, broken bottles that would cause a flat in auto tires, I will throw them away from the road.


The milieu I belonged never broke the hearts of others, or caused damage to anyone.    This society was going to rear many valuable individuals.    However, the negative influence on our people of the Russian Revolution, did not allow that.    Red Russians, though announcing to the rest of the world that they were teaching how to read and write, exterminated this society.    Before the Revolution, I had visited, with Osman in my company, each member of my family living scattered across many villages.    My maternal uncle congratulated Osman for deciding to obtain an agricultural engineering degree, and continued:  “our family so far reared teachers and Imams; we can serve our people only by obtaining an ukaz from the Tsar.    Among these children you see, we will raise lawyers, engineers.    A few of them will also become, like Ahmet Zeki here, will be educated in history, literature and philosophy sufficiently well to be able to contrast the results of both the Eastern and Western learning.   Then, you can make this region a seat of learning and wisdom.”     He aimed at opening a school of agriculture in his own village.    He also liked Osman:  “So, if you successfully complete your education, perhaps you can undertake the opening of such a school here.    Zemskii nachalnik (Russian official) Sultanov is also behind that project.”    From the other end, my maternal uncle also most welcomed the idea of Ahmetsani and Mansur Kilic’s idea of opening a medrese after their return from Istanbul in the same village.    He was also thinking of establishing a press.    As a result, Utek would become a center of culture.    After this family court business, my friendship with my father and my maternal uncle deepened.    I was now able to speak with Ahmetsani in front of my father “Kur’an is the word of God as instructions received by a human in the form of revelations; however, it is the words of our Prophet, reflecting his language, educational level and folklore of his people.”    My father did not react at all to this.    Much like those actual historical events taking place close to the time of the Prophet in the Kur’an, also the idea that the old traditions have been reflected there via their Arab variants found its way to my father’s mind via contemporary scholars Muhammed Halafullah and Cevad Ali and others.    During the winter of 1920, I observed the debates between the Indian scholar Ebu-Said el-Arabi and my father, on the Garden of Irem and the Seven Sleepers as well as the Irem and Ephesus excavations.    The family court in Utek left a good impression on my father.


My right to perform namaz when I pleased was also granted.    My father stopped waking me for the morning namaz.    And told others “he is now an adult; he will decide for himself.”    We stopped discussing religious and philosophical topics.    Besides, I never debated those topics with anyone else after that time, I did not touch anyone else’s precepts, never forgot my maternal uncle’s statement:  “never forget that Prophet stated ‘speak with the people so as to have your words fit into their minds.’”  My maternal uncle suggested that, after learning Arabology, I would then study religion.    Now, the latter was forgotten.    He did not teach me theology, precepts, Islamic law; never have me memorize prayers or formulas.    In Kazan, I studied only the application portion of Hidaye (the path), did not read worship, wedding, divorce portions.    I concerned myself with only the cultural aspects of Islam.    Again, at the recommendation of my maternal uncle, I purchased History of Islamic Civilization by Georg Zeydan.    Besidesm mt maternal uncle had already inculcated me with the pleasure of reading Arabic biographies and history.    I had already read the biographies of Ibn-Xallikan, Taskopruluzade (Sakaiq), and those of Hanefi and Safii scholars, published in Egypt and Istanbul.


Crossing from discussion on religion to El-Biruni—
I spent the last days of August with the laborers on the mountains and the forests, cutting bicen, meaning preparing dry grass for the winter.    I repaired the otar, the structures and stables where some of our animals would spend the winter.    We were along the Uruk River, where we had bee hives carved into the trees.    I had carved a few of those myself, the rest we had inherited from our uncle Veli Molla.    This year, as a great luck most were occupied by wild bees.    Perhaps thirty-five out of fifty were full.    The Baskurt there regarded that as a grand gift.    I collected honey from those suluk that were spread across various mountains and Rivers, because my father had indicated I could sell those for my own benefit.    I sold all that honey to the Tatar merchants who arrived.    Ferey Molla’s wife chose the very dark colored ones and made mead (honey-wine).    After spending a few days in complete pleasure, I returned to our village and immediately left for Kazan.    Ahmetsani, who was on his way back to Turkiye and I stopped to see Mansur Efendi at the Yumran village.    Apparently, Ahmetsani had summarized my family court circumstances to him.    Even though he was a conservative theology student, he did not move a hair because of the said paper.    Instead he told us the existence of scholars who told us that Zulkarneys is Alexander of Macedonia.    He continued: “Firuz Abadi, in the Zulqarneyn entry of his Qamus, and El Biruni in his Al Athsar-I Baqiya explained this.    I asked where I could find a copy of this El-Biruni book.    I learned that it was published in Europe.    Mansur Efendi opened a whole new world for me by these short statements.     Because, I had thus began learning El-Biruni, the greatest Islamic and cultural scholar.    I continued working successfully on those researches for the past fifty-five years since that day.     As soon as arriving in Kazan, I visited Professor Katanov, asked his help in obtaining a copy of El-Biruni’s book.    Because, this issue of Zulqarnenyn = Alexander had become a matter of honor for me.    The Professor told me that he could help me in obtaining a copy from Germany, but he already had a copy in his own library.    I borrowed his copy and read it with great pleasure.    It was in Arabic, published in Leipzig, and contained an Introduction of thirty to forty pages in German.    When the Professor told me that the Introduction contained information on El-Biruni’s life and works, I decided to increase my German language lessons.    I was always grateful to Mansur Efendi for causing me to meet El-Biruni, his works, and my learning German.
The summer of 1910 was very beneficial to me:
1.   I won a victory in the battle against the bigotry enveloping the Islamic world.
2.   My discussions with my fellow countrymen arriving from Istanbul and Mekke, on the topic of religion, the resulting impressions I had, allowed me to work on other aspects of Islamic and human cultures instead of religion.
3.   I was directed to El-Biruni
4.   to learn German.


My contact with Ibrahim Akcurin—
I stopped at Simbirsk while travelling by steamboat on the way to Kazan.    During the past year, I had corresponded with Ibrahim Akcurin, having met him by way of the Vice-Captain of the boat on which I was journeying.    He insistently had invited me to visit him this summer.    I went to see him.    I learned that he was related to Yusuf Akcura in Istanbul, who was the Editor of Turk Yurdu journal there.    He was living in a single story but large wood house.    One side was a largish library; the other side was a carpenter’s workshop.    He read a lot, and when he did not, he was carpentering.     I stayed there two days.    Simbirsk was the birth city of Lenin was very sparsely populated.    The green grass that was ever present in the city streets, appearing much like a green carpet, gave it a flavor of a village.    We went around with Ibrahim Bey’s daughters, who were high-school students.    Ibrahim bey was correcting Radloff’s translation of Kutadgu Bilig, which he thought very faulty.    He gave me a copy of “Temur and the Ant” story by Mir Haydar, published in Paris in the Uyghur alphabet, and asked me to transcribe it into the Arabic alphabet and send it back to him.    This was a sort of an exam.    Vice-Captain was no longer in Simbirsk.    I told Ibrahim Bey that I had read a novel by Chernyshevsky, and wanted to see a copy of the same author’s What is to be done?   It transpired that he owned a copy of this book which was banned by the Tsar, and he asked me to send it back to him by a courier when I was done reading it, instead of by mail.    He was the representative of his industrialist relatives, and internationally travelled widely on business.    But, he was not a ‘capitalist’ himself.    Instead, he was reading the output of the Russian authors, and he was happy that I was, too.    We discussed scholarly matters as well as politics when he visited Kazan.    The prime character in the novel What is to be done was a Tatar idealist revolutionary.    I likened him to (and, later journalist and teacher in Istanbul) the Tatar author  ‘Molla Husameddin’ in the novel by Musa Akyegitzade, and I, too, wanted to be like that.    Ibrahim Akcurin was one of those who influenced me best.    I learned that he passed away, living his last days in want, after I left Russia.


How I wrote my first history book—
I spent the 1910-1911 school year, again, with the Salygin family.    I continued to work on my examination preparation.    It was necessary to concentrate on Latin and German.    I began attending the lectures at the Philology faculty of Kazan University, as a visitor, at the recommendation of Professor Katanov.    I attended, mainly, the classes of Katanov in Eastern subjects, Professor Bogoroditsky in general Russian language, general history by Professor Xvostov and Xarlampovic.    I continued to write my lessons in the form of a book.    Professor Xvostov was concentrating on Roman history.    He had me read Professor Karayev’s Introduction to Social Sciences and Analysis of the World History, and spoke to me on those topics.    Katanov had me study Siberian Turk dialects, puzzled me with the aruz poetry metering, and lent me from his personal library sources on Turk history.    With those resources, I successfully completed.    The first volume covered the period till the 16th century, the second, since then, was done during that winter.   During the same winter I read works the people’s literatures of the Turks and the Mongols.    I studied the volumes of N. Aristov on the ethnography of the Turks; continued to learn the contents of Radloff and Potanin’s Turk tribes and ethnography.    With my master Professor Bogoroditsky, we held a seminar on ‘Experimental Phonetic’ which resulted in a study on Tone and Vibration in Baskurt and Tatar.    Because I was writing my history book, my high-school exams could not be undertaken in a regular manner once again.    I attended only algebra, German and Latin.    My teacher was Ukrainian Rklitski.    With his aid, I had translated Radloff’s Poetry metering in Altai Turks (Uber die Form der Gebundenen Rede bei den Altaischen Tataren) from German into Turkish.    I discovered that I had sent this work to Turk Yurdu for publication, to Yusuf Akcura Bey.    Since a lot of transcription marks were needed, it was not published.    When I arrived in Istanbul, Yusuf Bay returned the piece back to me.    I had established contact with Radloff via letter, on the occasion of aruz metering.    He sent me, as a present, a series of his own publications.    I translated his writings on Shamanizm into Tatar.


That summer, son of the Orenburg Husniye medrese, who was a student at the Russian gymnasium, arrived in our village as a guest.    I took him to the mountains and the high pastures.    Even though he was very young, he was already addicted to alcohol and gambling.    He returned back to his home, since he could not find someone to share his passions.    When I arrived in Sterlitamak, in order to wish him a safe journey on my horses, the owner of the Kalem bookstore informed me of the pending arrival of Tatar authors Abdullah Battal and Alimcan Ibrahim.    Since I admired Tatar authors, after obtaining my father’s permission, I wanted to invite them to our village.    I harnessed the best horses to the carriage, returned to Sterlitamak and extended the invitation to them.    At the time, I had no fame, and these already famous writers did not accept my sincere invitation.    Battal Bey took his place in the official mail carrier Tahirov’s belled carriage, and left town.    Nowadays, in Istanbul we see each other as old friends (now uses the family name Taymas).    When I hosted him and his wife Azize Hanim in my automobile, I reminded him my first invitation “you said you would not ride in the carriage of a Baskurt” and took the yamci Tahirov’s postal carrier; so, why do you ride with me in my car now?”  He apologized with “at the time you arrived from a village, a Baskurt teacher; how did I know you were going to be a well-known personality?”


After Abdullah Battal left, I spoke with Alimcan Ibrahimov at length, and I had mentioned my history book at the press just then.    He was a very intelligent man.    My work’s title was Turk Tarihi (Turk History), but Alimcan stressed that the title ought to be “Tatar History.”    The book was being published by the bookseller Idrisov in Kazan.    He did not like the title Turk Tarihi either.    When the printing was completed he gave the title as Turk-Tatar History.     I objected that a name such as Turk-Tatar does not exist; let us call it Turk and Tatar History and joined in the fait accompli.    He did just that.    He only asked me to expand the section on the Kazan Khanate.    Alimcan had obtained the printed fasicules from Idrisov, read and liked them.    He praised my volumes in the Yulduz newspaper, as the most important contribution to our culture in 1911.    This was a jest that encouraged me.


My getting acquainted with Russian Orientalists—
During 1911-1912 I continued to audit the lectures in Kazan University, in preparation for the high school exams.    That year, I concentrated on the works of the Western Orientalists on Islam, Arabic, Persian, Turkish literature.    I had made the acquaintance of Associate Professor Ignatius Krachkovsky at the Petersburg Faculty of Orientalism.    He wrote me often and sent me books.    He had published a large book on the Arabic poet Va’va’Dimaski.    I also read his articles on contemporary Arabic culture with pleasure.    I looked into the manuscript catalogs of European libraries.    My beginning to learn German, on top of the French I had begun earlier, was of a great asset in this.    With the aid of Professor Katanov, I had obtained K. Brockelmann’s volume on the history of Arab literature, his Foundations of Persian Literature, the extant fascicules of the German version of Encyclopedia of Islam.    The Russian translation of Hungarian Orientalist Goldziher’s Lessons on Islam was published that year.    I had obtained his volume Researches on Islam, even though I did not have a sufficient command of German yet, on the recommendation of the book review written by Russian Orientalist Baron Rosen.    I had established contacts with Zaman bookstore in Istanbul, Emin Hanci in Egypt, and other booksellers.    This year, I also contacted publishers of orientalist nature books Luzak, Brill and Harrassowitz in Europe.   I was aware that, due to the positive impression my volume garnered, I was about to join the Orientalists working on Islamic and Turk history.    Professor Katanov was encouraging me in that direction.    He also was supporting my endeavor in preparing for the high school exams, and was viewing me as a person who would complete university education and one who would become a university Professor.


1912 was the culmination of the Professor’s Fiftieth birthday.    I was one of the guests invited to his house for the celebration party.    There was plenty to eat and drink.    The Professor himself drank much.    That night, while the guests were leaving, he asked me to stay a little.    After everyone left, he spoke with me in his library, where we were alone.    It turned out that even though our Professor was a missionary style Christian Censor, his Russian colleagues were giving him troubles.    He was either dismissed or about to be dismissed from the Kazan University History and Archeology Society, of which he has been the President for years.    He told me: “from among the Eastern Turks and Mongols, Dorji Banzarov, Cokan Velihanov and I (Katanov) joined the Oriental studies, gave our essence to serve the Russians, I left Shamanism, became a Christian, and have been serving them.    Dorji and Chokan died before they were 35, from imbibing vodka, because my Russian friends did not teach them and me anything else.    Now, you are the fourth; preserve yourself from this milieu.    My environs did not contain a strong culture like Islam, we no longer exist, and we are now outsiders in Russian circles.    You must realize the strength of your own cultural environment.”    While telling me all this, Katanov continued to drink vodka and cry.    He was very hurt by the demeaning review of his magnum opus The Language of Uranxay Turks, especially by Mel’yoranski’s review.    It is possible that other matters, that I did not know, also existed between him and his Russian friends.     Later on, Katanov had sincere talks with me.    He was a very different person than his public persona, seemed to be cooling from scientific world, withdrawing into himself.    His words and behavior caused me to worry.    I was aftraid he might commit suicide.    After those events, I began to stand away from the Orientalists at the Kazan University, and stayed close to Bogoroditsky and Xvostov, who were not.    Katanov’s words left a deep furrow in my mind; perhaps he would not have told me those if he had not drunk that much.    I understood that I needed to be very careful in maintaining a relationship with those Russian individuals in Kazan who passed as Orientalists.    My history book pleased my father, maternal uncle and my friends; I was receiving laudatory letters expressing positive thoughts.    Most of that summer’s discussions were centered about this.


Echoes of my book on Turk history—
In fact, my publication on Turk history made me famous, unexpectedly, in a matter of few months.    Yusuf Akcura in Turkiye, in the Turk Yurdu journal; in Crimea, Ismail Gaspirali, in his Tercuman newspaper; in Kazan, Professor Katanov and the Orientalist Yemelyanov in Russian scholarly publications.    German Orientalist Martin Hartmann; Hungarian Professor Vambery sent letters of appreciation via the Orenburg Vakit newspaper management.    “Kazan University Archeology and History Society” elected me to full membership, gave me a diploma during a ceremony for the purpose as a token of their appreciation.    At that ceremony, Professor Xarlampovic gave a speech encouraging me much.    My work was taken as a specimen and Ridvan Nafiz in Istanbul, Yusufcan Haci Agaliqoglu in Xoqand, wrote books on Turk history.    In Azerbaijan Huseyinzade Ali Bey; in Orenburg Rizaeddin Fahreddin; in Istanbul Koprulu Fuat Bey announced me as a “Turk Author” in their writings.    My work was made known to be a result of contemporary scientific methods using Eastern and Western sources expounding the historical fate of the Turks.    Ibrahim Akcurin in Simbirsk, Alihan Bukeyhan who was then working as a bank clerk in Samara who was one of the grandees of the Cengiz descendents, Sahingiray Sultan Bukeyhan from Bukey Orda, Selimgerey Sultan Canturin from Ufa, the Derbend origin General Seyh Ali, also from Ufa invited me to visit them and stay at their homes.    The author Hoca Behbudi in Samarkand and Hayrullah Hazret, Director of the Medrese-I Osmani in Ufa invited me to teach at their institutions with a suitably good salary.    I accepted the invitations of Alihan Bukeyhan and Selimgirey Canturin; I left Kazan for Samara and Ufa during May.    The excitement and enthusiasm of Alihan Bukeyhan and Selimgirey Sultan were in the utmost.    I stayed with Alihan three days.    He was reading my book in my presence, and was telling me what else needed to be included.    Selimgerey Canturin also invited the former Duma member Kniaz Kugusev who was one of the nobles of the Altin-Orda Tatars, who naturally was inclined to follow the Turk and Mongol history.    We spoke quite a bit with him.    He was interested in having my work published in Russian translation.    In Ufa, General Seyh   Ali gave me the notebooks containing the complete Russian translation of Leon Cahun’s Introduction a l’histoire de l’Asie as undertaken by his son-in-law the deceased Ali Asgar Sirtlanov.    He also gave me other presents.    The person who appreciated my work most from a sincere scientific perspective was Professor Barthold.    As the editor of the journal Islamic World in 1912 he undertook a field research trip that summer among the Russian Moslems.    On that occasion I published a long article in the Orenburg newspaper Vakit (no. 125) expounding his scholarly work and value.    Upon reading my article, Barthold spoke highly about me in a meeting with the Barnaul Moslems, as one who has benefited from reading his entire scholarly output.    This too was published in the same Vakit newspaper.    He also sent me a letter indicating he would work to have me invited to Petersburg.    Those who were interested in my work from both the scholarly aspect, as well as their own Turk origins were Professors Katanov and Asmarin.    Though they were both Russian Censors, they did not erase those portions that touched the Russians, and allowed the work to appear in its entirety.    Katanov gave a proposal to the Kazan University Archeological and Historical Society general meeting, to support me for an expedition to Ferghana to research Turk ethnography and history, and to collect primary sources.    Such support I received from my ethnic brethren and scholars served me to be completely devoted to Turk history.    In the end, this would direct me into politics.


The most excellent example of the appreciation of my work was displayed by Asur Ali Zahiri and Yunuscan Haci Agaaliev’s journey, who were also working on our history, to my village, after reading my book.    They were from Khokand in Ferghana.    It turned out, Asur Ali was a teacher there.    Yunuscan Haci was descended from those who held the title of “agalik” in the Khokand Han period, and was among the wealthy of the city.    Yunuscan had inherited many manuscripts from his forbearers on historical topics.    Later he purchased more of the same, and formed a rich collection.    They both wanted to write the history of the Ferghana Hans but did not know how to and where to start.    They also experienced difficulties in placing Ferghana in Turk and Turkistan history.    My book solved their problems in those respects.    They undertook a trip to Orenburg, Kazan and Ufa.    They found my address at Ufa, and wrote me a letter.    They stayed and drank kimiz along the Dim River, later rented a carriage and arrived in my village.    The heat of the July felt cool to these dear friends.    They stayed with us for ten to fifteen days, told us the good effects of my book in Turkistan made me, my father and maternal uncle happy.    They invited me to Ferghana; stressed that the history of Turkistan needed to be expanded in the second edition and they were prepared to help.    These individuals truly stayed as my friends until the end of their lives.    At that time, an invitation arrived from one of the Kazak Sultans, Alihan Bukeyhanov, asking me to visit him in Samara without further delay.    I took our guests in our carriage drawn with our horses to the Devleken railroad station some one hundred twenty kilometers from our village.    From there, I went to Samara.    My guests left for Ferghana from there.    I held discussions with Alihan Bukeyhanov and his guest Ahmet Baytursun for a few days concerning the inclusion of Kazak Hans to the Turk History book.    This meant spending time on the second volume of my book which was being typeset.    I returned to my village after these talks.    I busied myself with domestic maintenance, and caring for our animals, began working on the Baskurt lineage.    That year, the entire summer was taken up with scientific work and I wanted to rest a bit in the mountains.    For that reason, I was in no hurry to return to Kazan in the fall.    I was intending to visit Ibrahim Kackinbay, collect honey from the tree hives and hunt.


Hunting in Nugus—
During the month of September, I only recovered the honey collected in the suluk in our trees.    I sold them at the market, collecting a good sum of money.    As I indicated earlier, my father was giving me the money resulting from that activity.    This year, too, a lot of the suluk were filled with bees.    (Amongst us, this was known as qurt qondi).    My father regarded that as a good omen: “you will be successful in your education, because, in my youth we did not have this many hives full.”    When I reached Alaguyan Tamagi village region, Ibrahim had already collected the honey from my suluk.    He was my friend who was most happy about the publication of my book.


Winter arrived early.    With the first snow, three of my father’s students Vildanoglu Suleyman from Aliekber village, from among the Kackinbay, Alagoyan village, Gilmeddin and Ibrahim, with their falcons, sparrow hawks, our hunting dogs, shotguns, we arrived at the structure we called otar, used to feed our animals during the winter, belonging to my father’s dear friend Vildanoglu Hamid Molla.    Since the animals were brought here only after the grass at the villages were exhausted, there was nothing in it.    Normally, there was no bedding or food in it.    But, Ibrahim sent everything necessary to stay for a few days, meaning this hunt was arranged only for my benefit.    We hunted for five days.    These were pleasant and delightful days on the Ural Mountains the memory of which I never forgot.    Ibrahim brought the honey and the mead with him.    Day and night we ate pheasant which we called qirgavul, and wild chicken or rabbit.    They also fermented the honey from the culuk.    During the day we spent time with our good horses, hunting birds and dogs hunting; at night meals, imbibed fermented honey wine, listening to the flute we called quray, and sing.    But, we never missed the five namaz every day.    In our lands, the art of the Yesevi type dervish was hunting.    The Seyh and his followers hunted together, and it was also the primary entertainment of the Beys.    The only memento left to us from those days of birding was the leather straps adorned in silver, used to hold the falcons on the hunter’s hand.    Nobody was keeping hunting birds any longer.    But, I always participated in such hunts wherever they were held by those individuals I knew.    Ibrahim was very melancholic this year (munglu, in our terminology).    He repeated the words of the Baskurt poet dervish Semseddin Izek during this hunt at the Hamid Molla otar:
“Trading in today’s world market is Professoriate, engage in that trade/ Because, the market may not be as Professorial again/ You have a good horse under you, run around and find the boundaries of this world/ As the same horse may not be yours someday/ When you are holding the falcon, make your spirit happy/ Because, someday the same falcon may not heed your word and may not respond to your commands/ Spirit and faith may join to drink inside a house/ But, they may not become one in the same house.”


Ibrahim was behaving as if we were enjoying ourselves as friends for the last time.    I can state that I did not recite poetry in my life.    Except, in these gatherings, when the context was appropriate, I would recite what I had heard from my Great Uncle Veli Molla, and my friends liked them.    The friends in this gathering would wake the sleeping by placing the biyeley termed glove on their head and make them scream.    Apparently, I had recited the following one such occasion:
“If you hold your gloved hand tight, the falcon will not attempt to fly away to free himself; getting drunk with good people is better than staying sober with people who are worthless.”


Even though they themselves were conservative, members of a tarikat, and strict adherents, the likes of Baskurt Semseddin Izek and Veli Molla, liked to drink mead with friends and get drunk.    Suleyman, who had a good education, was one of those.    Suleyman, much like Ibrahim, was tall, and both of them were poets.    Neither wrote a volume, but they would recite “ir” (poetry in the folk style) that was most suitable for the occasion.    They recited songs pertaining to hunting.    If I had known that this gathering taking place during the fall of 1912, at the time of the first snowfall was going to be the last, I would have written down every ir recited extempore.    After hunting for five days, everyone took onto his saddle as much as they could carry from among the kirgavul, qur and aguna termed wild roosters, and returned to their villages.    I left alone for the village of Qalgasav.    After returning home, I did not stay long and left for Kazan.    It was apparent that the words ‘can’ and ‘iman’ contained in the poem recited from Semseddin Izek by Ibrahim clearly referenced him and me.    I, too, repeated many times, on the way, the line “perhaps we will not be able to drink mead together.”    Once again, I stopped over to see Alihan in Samara.    My father was planning to go to haj this year.    That would provide me with opportunity for contacts in Istanbul.


Desire to visit Istanbul—
I knew about Istanbul from my fellow countryman Ahmetsani Emirhan.    But, I learned about the plethora of manuscripts extant in Istanbul libraries from the catalogs in Katanov’s personal library.    I also acquired those catalogs from the Zaman bookstore in Istanbul.    Those opened a new world unto me.    I also learned of the wealthy collection of old coins in the Imperial Museum of Istanbul.     I was obtaining books from there constantly.    My maternal uncle supported me financially; he gave me more money that year.    While I was returning to Kazan from my village, I spent a few days with Ibrahim Osmanov in Ufa.    Apparently, Ibrahim and his elder brother Abdulbari gave a copy of my book to Meryem Sultan, who had property in Ufa.    I met this lady in Ufa.    She told me that she would support my research and book acquisition; she immediately gave me some money.    With that support, I began obtaining Arabic books published in the West; Persian historical texts published in Mumbai and Calcutta, works of Mirhond and Hondemir.    In addition, I obtained books such as Baburname as well as the manuscript catalogs of Western libraries, and rented a largish room to form my own personal library.     With the aid of Meryem Hanim, I became a historian owning a library.    But, I chose to establish that library not in Kazan, but in Ufa.


When my father was leaving for Haj, I gave him a written plan for him to search for certain works in the libraries of Hejaz, Syria and Istanbul.    He was especially to look for the works of El-Biruni of Khorezm.    Their titles were known, but the actual volumes could not be found so far.    I had included that plan and my request from my father in the Introduction of my volume on Biruni’s Picture of the World published in Delhi during 1940.    I gave a copy of my Turk and Tatar History to my father, asked him to deliver it to Seyh Murad Remzi in Mekke.    Remzi wrote back, appreciating my book.    He recommended to my father to have the Temur Tarihi copied for me from the Fatih Library in Istanbul.    That recommendation necessitated my eternal gratitude to Seyh Murad.    My father had a majority of it copied for me in Istanbul, on his way back from Mekke.    He also brought back from Istanbul Fatih Library, the copied Introduction and a portion of El-Biruni’s on Geographical Research, from the only known autograph, written in his own hand.     It was Abdullah Efendi who made those copies for me.    He was a lecturer at mosques, a scholar fellow countryman of ours living in Istanbul.    He also had Kirimli Haci Abdulgaffar’s book found in the Suleymaniye Library on the History of Altin-Orda, and sent it to me.


These were presents at the value of the world to me.    These works gave me the impression that Istanbul was the greatest repository of sources on our history.    I knew that, I could benefit properly only by going there.    The notes my father brought were almost like the size of an ear on a camel.    So much so that when I first arrived in Istanbul in 1925, I visited Esad Efendi and Fatih Libraries as my first act.    To start seeing and reading the works I had only known from the entries in a catalog was the greatest happiness for me.


The winter of 1912-1913 was spent in preparing for the matriculation.    But, spent most of it collecting materials for and organizing the information in the second volume of my Turk History book, according to the recommendations of my Turkistan and Kazak friends, on the conditions of 16-19th centuries in Maveraunnehir [land between Seyhun (Sir-i Derya) and Ceyhun (Âm-u Derya)], Kasghar, Kazak Hans and the Nogay lands.    I also worked on the Arabic philosopher and traveller Ibn Haldun.    As before, I continued teaching Turk history and Arab literature at Kasimiye.


Death of Ibrahim Kackinbay—
I was back in the village for the summer months of 1913.    This time, Tatar author and intellectual Fuat Toktarov accompanied me to drink kimiz and rest.    This person had prepared privately and passed the matriculation exams, was now registered as a student at the Kazan faculty of law.    He intended to help me prepare for those exams during the summer.    But, arriving in our milieu, he could not get used to the conditions.    First of all, he did not like our food, or the way we ate with our hands.    He was not to smoke tobacco, but he did at times.    He kept repeating openly that our people were lazy, and had no talent for life.    He fell in love with a Russian girl; he would read her letters to him perhaps forty times a day.    He did not take-off his uniform.    On the other hand, it was necessary to sit on the floor in our house; Baskurt way of living seemed primitive and barbarian to him.    I was going to take him to the high pastures on the mountain.    At that time, I received news that my friend Ibrahim Kackinbay was very ill.    There was no doctor.    In our village lived a member of the old Baskurt Army doctor’s assistant Feldsher Allam.    He was the father of Alikerrar Molla, whose name is mentioned several times in these memoirs.    I wanted to take him, but he was addicted to alcohol, he could not ride any distance on a horseback.    There was no carriage to take him, or even road for a carriage where I was heading.    I left him at a village on the way, we pressed on with Toktar on horseback.    But, Fuat was not used to riding a horse either.    The saddle ravaged his body.    I left him at another village, and went to Ibrahim who was on his bed some one hundred twenty kilometers away from our village.    By the time I arrived, he was gone from this world.    I could not even be present at his burial ceremony.


Ibrahim’s passing away was a cause for change in my life.    Without him, I could not continue my wild bee tree apiary days during the summer.    It did not make any sense anymore.    Also coming to these mountains, to the Akbiyik high pastures during summer, after our horse herds, had no more meaning.    I cried plenty after losing Ibrahim.    Fuat Toktar was angry with me, asking me what purpose crying like a female would gain me.    But amongst us, crying was not shameful, nor was getting rid of the sadness in that way.    In our village, I had erected headstones and carved some Arabic words on those headstones of my grandfather Uzun Ahmetcan and grandmother Muhib.    In Ibrahim’s locale, I could not find suitable stones for the purpose, nor implements to carve them.    With only a hammer, I carved some Arabic statements, and the words of a popular song which he very much liked:
“Swallow is in the nest, and that nest is painted in colors/ Who did not leave this mortal world./ Some left behind their property/ Others, the one they loved.”
Just like Ibrahim, when another one of my childhood friends, Colonel Dr. Alimcan Tagan passed away in Hamburg during 1948, I had the same song words carved on his headstone.    He, too, sang the same song, and had published the melody of that song in the Vienna Academy of Sciences journal, with his friend Professor Jansky.


Ibrahim’s father, who had passed away sometime in early 1900s, Semseddin Kackinbayev spoke excellent Persian and Russian.    My great uncle Veli Molla and my grantfather were very tall, and were separated into the hussar class in the army.    I could not learn in which military school Semseddin and Veli Molla studied.    Kazak intellectual Muhammedcan Seydalin indicated that Semseddin Kackinbay was a member of the Tsarist Geography Society Orenburg branch.    He was a student of Moldakay Abdullah Seyyidoglu in Persian literature.    From what gathered from the statements of Ibrahim’s mother and wife, who had passed away from pneumonia, he had dreamed of “studying far away,” and was sad because he could not follow me.    They were wealthy, but, he always stated “it was not my intent to maintain herds and remain in the village.”    Ibrahim knew Hafiz, Sadi and Navai very well.    He also understood Pushkin.    If he was alive, and followed me in 1908, we would have been trained together like twins.    There was nobody else in my life, which followed me with his memories.


Fuat Toktar got used to our life after staying with us for two months.     He liked to listen to the sermons my father gave every Friday at the mosque, criticizing the Russian tsarist government, on the occasion of the Balkan wars that started that year.    According to his opinion, it was impossible for an Imam in the Tatar community to deliver such sermons critical of the Tsar and not be reported.    After returning to Kazan, he even wrote that in the Tatar journal Yalt-Yurt.    I was sorry that he did, and told Fuat “you might be right, but I fear an investigation of my father may result.”    But, Fuat was convinced that a secret political movement could be sustained in the lands of the Baskurts.    He repeated the words of Tatar author Kayyum Nasiri: “If Suyunbile was in the lands of the Baskurt, they would have never given him to the Moscovites.”    He belived that was true.    (We had read the words of Nasiri from an anecdote published in the journal Sura).


Effects of my writings on the ethnography of the Burcen Baskurt—
Fuat Toktar returned to Kazan after spending his vacation with us.    During that time, I wrote articles, to be published in the journal Sura, on the subject of Burcen Baskurt.    Those writings were serialized in issues 19-22 during 1913.    In those pieces, I indicated that the Baskurt folklore is very rich, but, under the influence of the Tatars and the Russians it was losing much.    Still, it was the Burcen Baskurt who best preserved the aspects of old Turk culture, national music and dastans, especially Edige and his son Nureddin (Muradim), that I depicted still alive.    Military discipline was in the blood of the Baskurt; they know how to move, as if they constitute one person, behind their leader.    On horseback, Baskurt will appear like a statue.    They kept alive the old Turk military spirit, in using their weapons, their skill in horsemanship, describing how the Baskurt lived on the Mesim and Irendik mountains.     Those pieces left a good impression on Baskurt intellectuals.    After the 1917 Revolution, among those who joined the Baskurt national movement, Habibullah Abid and Sabircan Kurmus published articles describing how excited they were reading my pieces.    Many others wrote me personal letters.    Those articles were beneficial when we began the Baskurt political movement four years later.



MY SCHOLARLY VISIT TO TURKISTAN


My First scholarly visit to Turkistan—
When I arrived in Kazan, Professor Katanov informed me that his efforts in sponsoring me by the Kazan University History, Archeology and Ethnography Society to send me to Turkistan for historical and ethnographic research in the Ferghana province have yielded fully positive results.    I happily accepted to undertake that trip, which would keep me from preparing for my matriculation exams and teaching at Kasimiye.    The first day I arrived in Tashkent, I found a manuscript, bought if from the sahhaf [second hand book-seller for manuscripts] and sent it to my father, who was beholden to the Nakshibendi Seyh of the Bagistan village, and to our neighbor Bekbulat Hazret as a present.    Seyh Havend Tahur, the ancestor of Ubeydullah Ahrar, (d. 1360) from Tashkent, had an important place in the spiritual lineage of my father, and this book contained stories of his complete deed, Persian and Turkish poetry, and selected statements.    The following is from that book I liked:

“A beautiful girl cannot be without her admirer next to her/  without a nightingale singing inside, a garden cannot be enjoyed by humans/  give your heart and mind to someone who will return theirs to you/  give your life to someone who can afford to buy it/  if you are not true to your sins, do not disgrace your pledge.”


Now that 53 years passed [note the publication date of these memoires], I hear that most of the mosques in Tashkent have been destroyed, but, the mausoleum of Seyh Havend Tahur is intact because it is in a central place.    This trip lasted until March 1914.    I collected materials from Ferghana, Samarkand and Bukhara, any and all manuscripts I could find in private hands pertaining to the economics, historical geography, and very important vakif [religious foundation] documents showing the fluctuations of income over time, as well as materials pertaining to the ethnography of Ozbek tribes living in Ferghana.    My trip was mentioned in the journal Turk Yurdu, under the title of “Signs of Appreciation Shown to a Turk Scholar.”    I discovered many works heretofore unknown, dating to the 16th century and later, mainly in history of literature.    When I returned to Tashkent in March, I gave a talk to the Turkistan Archeological Society on my trip.    The Turkistan Governor General Suholimnov was present at my talk, and spoke in terms of praising me, and specified “this is a positive example of our efforts among the Moslems in terms of publishing.”    The official Vice Governor General of Turkistankiye Vedemosti Alexander Alexadrovich Semenov wanted me to stay there and accept a position.    I responded with the fact that I wanted to continue my education and could not.    But, he sent word of my success at this trip to Petersburg.    As one result, I received a letter indicating a forthcoming joint sponsorship by Russian Academy of Sciences and International Central Asia Research Society for a more comprehensive research trip.    Those who supported that resolution were Professors Barthold, Radloff, and K. Saleman.    I responded to them, indicating I would arrive in Petersburg after I submitted my report to Kazan Archeology and History Society.    I arrived in Kazan by the end of March.    My brothers Abdulbari and Abrurrauf were in Kazan studying at the Muhammediye medrese.    I spent some time with them.    I also gave my report to the Archeology Society.


During this trip, I gained many friends in Tashkent, Ferghana, Samarkand, and Bukhara.    Many of them were very helpful to me concerning Turkistan cultural life as well as the political life later on.    Each friendship left sweet memories in my mind.    One of them was Baskurt Colonel Ebubekir Divaev, who had published many useful works on the ethnography of the Kazaks and the Kirgiz.    He introduced me to another Tsarist Baskurt officer Kucukov, and the Tatar General Yenikeyev, in Samarkand Kirgiz general Kolcanov and Mirbeledev as well as the Baskurt Akimbetov.    Wherever I went, I discovered that letters of Ebubekir Aga’s letters introducing and describing me has already arrived.     Among the recipients are the then high school student, later, Communist Nezir Turekul, in Tashkent; Petersburg University law student Mustafa Cokayev from the Ozbeks; author and poet Abdulmahit Suleyman (Colpan) from Andican, again in Tashkent, Nogay historian Polat Sali; Munevver Qari and Ubeydullah Hoca from the Ozbeks; from Samarkand, Mahmud Hoca Behbubi; from Bukhara, Ahmedcan Mahdum; again from the Kirgiz, a university student Canizaqoglu Ibrahim may be mentioned.


I need to dwell on a couple of the above; Nezir Turekul and Abdulhamid Suleyman, also known as Colpan as it is his nom de plume.    Nezir’s father Turekul was a translator to the Governor of Ferghana.    He had collected some valuable manuscripts.    Nezir would read any book that touched his hand, and he would fall under the influence of that author.    I was telling him that human life is short, learning and reading needed to be done according to a plan in order to obtain positive results.   He, in turn, would attempt to inculcate my ideas in the mind of poet Colpan who was a child of fifteen at the time, claiming he (Nezir) could not follow that path as he had no resolve.    In reality, he was an extreme Turkist at the time.     He would read the journal Turk Yurdu being published in Istanbul.    Later, he became a Communist.    He was appointed Russian Council General in Cidde, published articles in the issues of Turk language, but remained loyal to his national culture.    He was eliminated in the Soviet extermination waves because of that.


The greatest contemporary national poet of the Ozbeks, Colpan, was at the time probably fifteen years old.    He had written me a letter indicating he was my admirer, after reading my book, and invited me to their home In Andican.    When I arrived at their home with Nezir Turequl, his father, who was a big wealthy merchant, met us coldly, even critically, stating “can a child invite someone without the permission of his father?”  Abdulhamit was not home, he arrived later.    Actually, he was still a child; we thought he was an adult.    We motioned to move to a hotel.    His father stated “you can go after dinner.”    Abdulhamit could not say anything to his father.    But, he was speaking with his friend seated next to him during dinner, while we conversed with his father.    His father became angry at that.    I recited a verse from Mevlana: “nightingales are select birds, but other birds do not stop singing because he is.”    It turned out, he was an intelligent man, and he liked what I recited.    He immediately changed and insisted that:  “you are no longer my son’s guests; you will be mine.”    He did not allow us to move to a hotel.    Colpan’s father was more reverent toward Persian.    In order to intyroduce myself, I handed him one of my cards.    Apparently he had never seen such an item.    He said: “so, this is your name, and you had it printed” and handed it back to me.    This was the way we became friends with the great contemporary Ozbek poet, and his despotic father from the middle ages.    Nezir Turequl, though he was a Turkist, he also liked and had facility in Persian literature.    Those years, I greatly benefited from the Persian my mother taught me.    I always privately remembered my mother with gratitude.    Suleyman Aga gave us fabric as parting presents, and I took them to my mother.


The event that caused me to look into the Manas dastan—
I was occasionally studying the manas dastan of the Kirgiz since 1910.    But, that year, an event took place that necessitated my getting involved in a more serious way.    I was going to prepare for the matriculation exams.    I had money.    My father had sold a mare (biye), and gave the proceeds to me.    The honey money was already mine.    Ibrahim Kackinbay’s mother had sold a stallion and gave the money to my father, to be passed on to me.    I was attending theater, balls, student plays.    In such a setting, I had met and became close with an enlightened Kirgiz named Ibrahim Canikazov.    In Kazan, I met a manasci student [a trainee reciter of dastans] by the name of Sarikulov.    This was a result of a strange event.    On the Prolomny Street, there was a student restaurant and I was a regular there.    One night, two students, a pockmarked Kirgiz and the other a blonde Russian, had become drunk, and were speaking in Kirghiz, and occasionally in Kazak, cussing-out other people around them.     The table I was seated was directly across them.    Thinking I was looking at them, they tried to provoke me as well.    I did not respond.    My behavior annoyed them even more.    I addressed the owner of the restaurant, asking him to seat me away from those two, or have them removed altogether.    Other patrons were also in favor of this request.    The owner wanted them to leave.    They tried to jump me.    I told them to get lost.    I addressed the pockmarked Kirgiz in his own dialect: “when one says ‘get lost’ to the dog, the dog will go away; but why is it that the Kalmaq named Elmembet does not?”  When the Kirgiz student heard these words from the Manas dastan, he stopped.    He said: “excuse me; who are you and how do you know Manas?”  We thus met.    He was completely sober.    It turned out, he had heard of my name, and even read my history book.    The next day, at the same restaurant, he came to me and apologized.    We intended to work on Manas together.    Ebubekir Divayev, in Tashkent, gave me a complete version written in the Arabic alphabet during the 19th century.    It was completely different than the version translated by Radloff.     Many a place was illegible.    But, as Sarukulv indicated, it was taken down from an excellent Manasci.    That manuscript was in my hands for eight years.      In 1921 Canizakov borrowed that copy from me during the Baku Eastern Conference.    When he was martyred fighting against the Soviets, that manuscript disappeared.    In the 9th century the Kirgiz fought against the Chinese after establishing a large state in Mongolia.    The Manas dastan reflects the events and national myths concerning the Kirgiz uruk beginning from that period, much like those Greek epos.    Since Radloff was in the employ of the Russians, while he was transcribing that dastan, the Manasci made additions they though he would like, such as “Ak-Padisah” [the white emperor] mixing into the text the Russian Tsar.    Since 1924, the Soviets have been endeavoring to modify this dastan to suit their political needs.    The copy I had was written in the period of Kokand Han, shortly before the Russian invasion, containing about sixty thousand lines.    Sarikulov and I wanted to publish this work in the Arabic alphabet.    Canizakov also wanted that.    But both idealist Kirgiz intellectuals were sacrificed to the struggle against the Russians.    The publication plan we made together was not carried out to culmination.


The story of transferring an important scholarly library to Istanbul—
About this time, an event took place.    Professor Katanov’s wife hated books and libraries.    She finally told her husband: “either your books go, or I will.”    At the time, since there were no electric powered vacuums, it was difficult for women to dust, especially dust the books was a difficult task.    Because of that, and other reasons, they did not get along.    Since she was the mother of offspring, Professor Katanov decided to sell his library.    Since he gave a key to his library, and I was benefiting from it, I knew the value of this library.    The Professor wanted me to broker the sale.    I wrote an article published in the Vaqit newspaper, announcing: “the big library of a great Orientalist is for sale,” recommending that, in order to establish a scholarly institution specific to the Moslems in Kazan or Orenbug, this library be bought.    Nothing was heard from the Tatars.    I wrote to Yusuf Akcura in Istanbul, then writing in Turk Yurdu.    He told the Ministry of Evkaf, they decided to buy it and bring it to Istanbul.    Yusuf Akcura let me know of this result.    They sent an official of the Evkaf, Nail Resit, and a Tatar origin officer named Omer Terigul to me in Kazan.    I bought this library for eight thousand Rubles, for Turkiye.    I packed it in boxes and sent it to Istanbul.     But, this library missed a lot of material.    I indicated to our guests that I would fill in the gaps from Petersburg.    I arrived in Petersburg, met with Radloff and other Academy members in Radloff’s home and gave a report of my Turkistan trip.    I was told I would be given a large sum of money for a new expedition and to purchase more manuscripts.    In the meantime, I bought additional books from the Petersburg bookstores and institutions in order to fill in the gaps in Katanov’s library, with the money Nail Resit Bey had, in the sum of seven thousand Rubles.    I also collected books from the Academy and Institutes for free.    We again packed those books and sent them on to Istanbul.    Prior to the beginning of the First Wold War, these books arrived in Istanbul, and formed the seed of the library in the Istanbul University “Institute of Turcology.”    This library was a priceless treasure for me, after I arrived in Istanbul in 1925.    If it was not the Russian language scholarly sources in this library, my historical publications in Istanbul would have been solely based only on Eastern and Western European sources, thus deficient.