Behbudiy and “Padarkush”

According to the textbook, Mahmudkhoja Behbudiy was born on 19 January 1875 in the village of Bakhshitepa near Samarkand. He was raised by his uncle Muhammad Siddiq and learned Arabic grammar from his younger uncle Mulla Odil. In 1899–1900 he made the pilgrimage; in 1903–1904 he travelled to Moscow and St Petersburg, and in 1906 to Kazan, Ufa, Nizhny Novgorod, Egypt and Turkey. In Turkestan he worked in schooling and education, the press, theatre and journalism, and wrote several textbooks for village schools. In his view, schools are the beginning of progress: no nation enters the path of progress until it increases its primary schools and adapts them to the times. In 1913 he began publishing the newspaper “Samarqand” and the magazine “Oyna” in Samarkand: in them he published articles on the state of the nation, the value of the language, learning foreign languages and history. He was executed on 25 March 1919 (the textbook names Shahrisabz as the place; many sources give Qarshi).