How does a reform movement survive losing its homeland? In A Son of Two Soils, Younus Ejazi traces the life of his great-grandfather, Hashim Shayeq: a Bukharan Jadid who came to Kabul as a diplomat and stayed to help build Afghanistan’s schools and literary culture. The Jadids believed Muslim societies could secure their sovereignty through knowledge. They sought to reform schools, revive the press, and master the sciences of the age. Trained in Bukhara’s madrasas and Istanbul’s institutes, Shayeq carried that conviction into a world of collapsing empires and emerging states. After securing control of its foreign affairs in 1919, Afghanistan sought teachers and expertise beyond its borders. Ottoman officers, printers, doctors, and engineers were already helping develop its institutions. As Soviet rule extinguished Bukharan autonomy, Kabul offered Shayeq a place to continue his work. For three decades, he helped shape curricula, taught students, and led a bureau of compilation and translation. His journal, Ayna-i Irfan, introduced readers to science, philosophy, and literature from abroad. In its pages, he also published what is often considered Afghanistan’s first modern short story. Kings fell, friends were executed, and educational reforms were curtailed. Shayeq continued teaching. His life follows the patient work through which a displaced generation’s ambitions found a home in the schools, books, and intellectual life of another country. Read more on Kasurian. Link below: