Essay from Marjona Mardonova

The souls of the Jadids are eternally in our hearts 

Mardonova Marjona Muhsin kizi

Student of Polytechnic No. 1

Tel number:998-94-326-58-50

Abstract:

This article talks about the selfless Jadids who fought for the people, showed that science is an important factor, and raised the flag of the homeland to the skies. Who are the Jadids themselves? What did they do? Why are they called Jadids? These questions are not relevant for the Uzbek people, because the people of Uzbekistan highly respect their ancestors. The bravery and heroism they did in our past are immortalized in epic books in different languages. It is not difficult to learn from their lives that the Jadids would not have survived even death for the homeland during their lives. Most Jadids died early from this life, while some faced death in the very prime of their lives. But they died early not from death, but for the foundation of the homeland. Of course, these terrible events can shake the human heart, but we must understand that they wanted us to speak their names on our tongues, not with tears, but with pride. That is why the Uzbek people keep the souls of the Jadids in their hearts forever.

Keywords:

Jadids, enlightenment, spirituality, progress, reforms, people, self-sacrifice, science, struggle, commerce, generation, cultural heritage, research, prosperity

Introduction:

It is not for nothing that we named the title of this article as the souls of the Jadids are eternal in our hearts. Today, let’s bring together the Jadids who fought and strived for our current peaceful life. True, there are so many of them that if we wanted to write about them, we would create a book, but we will cite a few.

1. Mahmudkhoj Behbudiy, one of the founders of the Jadids, was one of the representatives of his people with a number of books, articles, and poems.

 2. Abdulla Avloni, one of the representatives of the Jadids, a poet, a teacher, an enlightener of the Shura period and a number of other creative figures

3. Shepherd, a national artist of Uzbekistan

These are the founders of the Jadid school. Selfless heroes who fought for the homeland

1. Jaloliddin Manguberdi

2. Amir Temur

3. Zahiriddin Muhammad Babur

Our scientific and writer ancestors

1. Alisher Navoi

2. Abu Ali ibn Sino

3. Hamza Hakimzoda Niyozi

These are just representatives of the Uzbek people, how many more of our ancestors fought for Uzbeks.

Main part:

Thousands of heroes around the world fought for their homeland, their names are sealed in books, we can only read about their heroic deeds in books because they fought for our prosperity and independence. If we write thousands of articles and books for them, we must show them again and again for the younger generation that they are still with us, and this is necessary, regardless of what nationality we are from.

Conclusion:

We, the youth of Uzbekistan, will never tire of showing the world the bravery of our Jadids, and this is our duty. This article was written about the Jadids of Uzbekistan. Let us be grateful to them for the peace and prosperity of our homeland, which the Jadids have done for us. The souls of the Jadids are eternal in our hearts

References:

1. B. B. Islamov – Jadids and enlightenment

2. Sadriddin Ayni – Esdalik (memories)

3. Khurshid Davron – Jadid

Poetry from Ahmed Miqdad

Headshot of a middle aged Middle Eastern man, bald, clean shaven, in a collared black and white and green plaid shirt.

My Loyal Cactus

My loyal cactus,

I’m sorry to leave you alone in my balcony

I have no excuse except being forced to go to the south

Under the barrage of heavy bombs,

Frightening explosions and thousands of martyrs.

I’m sorry  again to let you encounter the terrible days and nights,

Witness the destruction of my surrounding neighborhood

And let you face thirst for more than a year without a sip of water

But I was there hungry and starving like you

When I came back

I found you still stalwart

Only some scars on your body

As a testimony on the merciless soldiers.

Let me  hug you tightly  and console you 

Because your thorns more delicate

Than the hypocrisy of humanity.

©® Ahmed Miqdad

Gaza

Palestinian poet

Activist

Awarded poet

Literary prize

Naji Naaman

2025

Poetry from Duane Vorhees

ALL-PURPOSE FACILITY

You were a noted venue
and I would often rent you
for some special attraction.

Equipped to meet any need,
enhance any intention,
sometimes you’d be my circus,
or you’d flaunt a convention.

But my business wore you out.
Now you’re vacant and condemned.


DEPOSITION

Thinking’s rearranging information
will displace
thin kings rear-ranging in formation



THE DAY I FRUIT BASKETED

In morning I wore a peach.
The sun oranged me at the beach.
Evening brought me raspberried.
How fruitful! How varied!


REPORTING FOR DUTY

Like the Snowy Egret, 
at any given second--
always you will entrance.

To your brushy entrance
I am ordered to second.
I obey. I regret.


DEAR DEPARTURE

Reason, in fact, is irrelevant --
Treason does occur, despite intent.

Butterfly, goodbye -- your flitting's lost its power.
Sigh and sigh, flatter, flirt. Flutter your eyes by the hour.
Fear of your favor's loss finally dissipated,
"Dear," and I learn how grossly lonely is overrated.

...

Poetry from Stephen Jarrell Williams

This Is The End

1.

there’s no more ink

to print the truth

straight lines erased

2.

the great downfall

deeper and crushing

when hitting bottom

3.

fire burning

blood letters flowing

thick drips

4.

this is the end

unless we stop

fingertips of sin

Print Maker

I’m not sure

you should print this,

it’s up to you

when the last period

drops.

Seeds

And somehow

the rain comes,

filling up the wells,

the overflow

saving

all when realizing

the flower Master.

Poetry from Christopher Bernard

The Value of a Life

. . . the wellsprings of creative phantasy 
which make life worth living.— Anthony Storr

What makes it worth the mocking 
of what you cannot have,
the fog of what you cannot know,
the mortality of what you love,
the meanness of humanity?

Many say “Love”
but do not believe it.
Others say “God”;
few become saints.
Some say “Humankind,”
but they litter history with corpses.

Then someone gives it a name,
and it shines bright above you,
a lamp of enamel and gold.
Or, far away, it sings,

drawing you down a nave
toward the shadows
of the choir, the carved 
panels above the sanctuary
and the tomb of your fathers.

It is a fairy tale 
you tell yourself in the night
against the treacherous body, 
a broken bell that coughs like a patient
warning you of questions you cannot answer,

against the night flies dancing in the beam
of a weak flashlight
as you walk, from darkness
through darkness toward darkness,
toward a point of light small as a star in the black woods.

_____

Christopher Bernard’s book The Socialist’s Garden of Verses won a PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Award and was named one of the “Top 100 Indie Books of 2021” by Kirkus Reviews.

Essay from Dr. Jernail Singh Anand

Older South Asian man with a beard, a deep burgundy turban, coat and suit and reading glasses and red bowtie seated in a chair.
Dr. Jernail S. Anand

MARLOVIAN OVER-REACHER IN THE LUXURY RAUNCH OF DEVIL

Dr. Jernail Singh Anand

John Milton wrote ‘Paradise Lost’ to justify the ways of God to man. The man that we meet in Eden has now stumbled into the 21st century but his reluctant preference for the tree of knowledge has now become a passionate quest into the unknown.  And we are face to face with several existential questions whose answers no thinker has provided till date: Can man know everything? Can he possess the ultimate knowledge? Is the physical world the only world about which man should know? What about the invisible forces which control men? Can AI bring to man insights into those realms which have been held sacrosanct till today?

In one of my poems, Godrok, which won me the title of the Grok Star from the xAI, I have shown how AI is helping Yama also in creating charge sheets, and serving them while man is still on the ventilator itself, and instead of death taking him into oblivion, the AI reconstitutes him on the hospital bed, into a small child, and is handed over to his new parents, with his entire memory reset.

With technological advances like Grok, we see technology running ahead of man. If we look at it dispassionately, advances in science and technology are meant to make life more livable, comfortable, and easy, so that most of the human jobs are taken up by technology, leaving time with man, to devote to his mental and moral upliftment, or it can be better described if we say, to bring him into a state of bliss, from where he had digressed.

The Limited Existence

Man is not bad, nor evil intentioned. Only he is crazy, and he forgets his limits. He forgets he has a body which has been forestalled from evolving beyond a certain point. He has eyes which have a limited vision. He has arms which do not extend beyond two feet. How big are his hands and fingers? Everything is in a fine balance, so that if even one becomes excessive in size, it will destroy the balance which characterizes the cosmic creation.

It is often said ‘A little knowledge is a dangerous thing’. The truth is that Knowledge is a dangerous domain, and one reason why I call so is that Adam and Eve tasted the forbidden fruit at the instigation of Devil. Even today, we are living in that state of curse. The only proposition that emerges is  that we can return to Eden, only if we relinquish all that we have accumulated over the years by way of knowledge?  In other words, we shall have to ‘forget’ our knowledge, and press the ‘reset’ button, and return to the state of original intelligence, i.e. innocence. Only then, we can get back into the realm of bliss which was created by God for his chosen species, homo sapiens.

The Puppet and the Divine Will

It is an accepted truth that everything happens as per the Will of God. If man ate the fruit of knowledge, God created conditions, by sending Satan with an insidious message.  We should remember that although we try our best to say that God is all powerful, omniscient and omnipresent, still, man has been cleverly endowed with a brain and ideas like ‘free will’. These ideas help God to escape all responsibility.  The basic issue is: who provides the stimulus to man to undertake various deeds. Moreover, if we compare life to a film or a play, we shall have to accept that there is a director, and a script writer too, and men are mere actors who cannot trespass their script. It means whatever man does is already scripted and he is being supervised. In this way, it becomes clear that all that is happening is God’s will, and man is an intelligent puppet only.

The puppet is ‘intelligent’ because man is imparted a false feeling of self-importance, that he can do this or do that. Facts are disturbing. Man has no power over his birth. He has no power over the skin of his colour, his parents, the place where he will be born, and whom he will marry and where and how he will die. This shows that all these things are like different roles which have been prewritten. Otherwise, you won’t be on the stage.

In a drama, the director is invisible. We feel characters are acting on their own. In real life too, people seem to be acting on their own, while the fact is: they are helpless before an overriding fate.  There are  thousands of strings which control their actions, and the most surprising thing about human life is we have no idea who is pulling them. We think we are doing everything after brainstorming sessions. And thus, when some good takes place, we garland ourselves. But when something goes amiss, we curse fate. This shows that we accept we are being controlled by a superior force. But here is a catch too. When gods see people engaged in minor ego scuffles, they leave them to their fate. God gives them a long rope, and they strangle themselves to death. Getting free of them, gods go only after people who are meant to move the earth; on whose deeds depends the future architecture of human race.

It is not that we are being controlled, there are theories [Stephen Hawking’s Fermi Paradox] which show that what is happening to us now, the way things are unfolding, might have taken place, on some other planet, years ago. In the planetary world, where objects are situated millions of light years away from each other, it is not possible that things that happened there a year or two back are now unfolding on this earth.  After such speculations, the questions gain more density: Do we go anywhere after death? I wonder if we really go anywhere.  Going under the earth does not mean extinction. Losing the body and the bones does not mean the end of man. It is a cycle. Death is an illusion which keeps men on tenterhooks.

Justifying Ways of Man to God

Let me get back to my original quest to justify the ways of Man to God. We respond to our changing needs as times change,  and relocate the social structures  accordingly. AI too is the need of this fast generation.  It is a great achievement of human mind, but let me alert you once again, we are navigating in the ocean of knowledge, and it was something God never wanted man to wade in. We have lost our innocence, and our bliss too. But, it is a paradox and a big surprise too, that it has never occurred to us for generations, and the sermonacs too are reluctant to point out this flaw of our civilization which is ‘progressing’ [?] on the wheels of knowledge. Where is it going? Away from its source? Shall it never return?

As pointed out earlier, we are imprisoned in our identity and nature blesses us with certain faculties which are essential to our existence, so that there is a working human being. With AI, we have crossed through the tight borders of reality and now, we can move at a faster pace, look far into planets, and think much faster. It is a feel good factor of our civilization, no doubt, but we shall soon start feeling that this artificial world is too much with us, and we shall start looking for our ‘self’ lost somewhere  in this melee of thrills and a sense of artificial achievement.

The Alert

With AI and its ready powers, man has proved that he can create a world of artificial reality, which runs parallel to the original creation of God.  But the only difference is that it lacks spontaneity that marks the divine creations. God, as I can see, is happy that if man took the path of knowledge, he has done so well. He is happy with man’s creative and inquisitive powers. But, we should not forget that God never wanted us to digress into Knowledge. God made it into a matter of choice. And even today, no God ever comes to life to force us into decisions we don’t want to take. He actually permitted us to create our own world with powers of the brain. So all this empire of knowledge, which is a creation of man’s choice, actually  stands on the wrong side of things.  It has a devilish imprint because it was Satan who had initiated man into the world of Knowledge, which was a moral and spiritual deviation. Now, we have taken this moral digression to the heights of non-creative imagination and are blindly following the agenda of corporates who have grabbed all centres of Knowledge. Holy knowledge which came from scriptures fell into the hands of quacks while the knowledge that man has now accumulated is also not neutral. It has an inbuilt mission to divest man of his divinity. Bliss, joy, happiness, are the byproducts of Innocence, towards which we possess neither any reverence, not any inclination.  We prefer to remain acquiring knowledge which is an endless pursuit into the realms of nothingness.

Picnicing in the Pleasure Dome of Devil

As I said, we are treading on dangerous ground already, because it’s devil’s luxury raunch where we are camping now. In the first instance are we aware of it? If so, do we really want to renounce these joys and go back to Eden? The condition for entering the tents of God is: emptying this mind of everything we accumulated by way of Knowledge at the behest of Devil [sorry to infer]. Return to Innocence and Bliss  it seems is a dream no infected mind will entertain.

If we want that God should own us, [how many of us really want?] we shall have to surrender all our knowledge, and embrace wisdom, and use this knowledge for the welfare of mankind.  It is not that man disobeyed God. It was a rehearsed act. God gave man a very long rope. It is for us that we do not let this rope go round and round our neck, in the name of liberty [free will]. We should not forget that God loves his Satan too, because it is his police that strikes and brings to account people who err on the path of duty. Still, God waits for man to return to the divine fold, forsaking all his knowledge, artificial or original, because there [in His Golden Tent]  we do not need it. Here too, we did not need so much. We actually overdid ourselves. AI is a Marlovian overreach for man, if he does not realize its evil potential, and surrender his knowledge to divine wisdom.

Dr. Jernail Singh Anand, [the Seneca, Charter of Morava, Franz Kafka and Maxim Gorky award and Signs Peace Award Laureate, with an opus of 180 books, whose name adorns the Poets’ Rock in Serbia]]  is a towering literary figure whose work embodies a rare fusion of creativity, intellect, and moral vision.

Poetry from Kristy Raines

White middle aged woman with reading glasses and very blond straight hair resting her head on her hand.
Kristy Raines

Walking Without You

When you passed, thoughts of you only occupied my mind.

I held my pillow at night tightly, and during the day,

I busied myself tirelessly to keep from falling apart.

People say you feel like your heart is going to break.

Mine broke into such small pieces that I wondered 

if it would ever be put together again.

I would look up at the sky at night sadly.  

The stars used to make my wishes come true, 

and the moon used to make me feel hopeful.  

But then, they brought only memories of us.

The sun, I hoped, would warm me, 

also turned away, leaving me cold inside.

I thought I would shrivel and die with you.

You could not run to me as I held out my arms. 

Only in my dreams could I find you.

In my sleep, you wiped away my tears.

The presence of your spirit still wraps around me

when I miss you most.  

Years later, I now think of you without such sadness

and bask in beautiful memories of us together instead…

Even though I am walking without you.

__________

Love is Perfect

You need never give up your life

nor give up all wins or costs for me

For no monetary value can be placed on love

And in the end, riches will mean nothing… 

Only love will remain and never die

because my destiny you are 

What God puts together can not be shaken

For it is through him that all good things come

In this life, things are given and taken away

And even a heathen can change his life

For love is perfect, and our prayers were answered

on the day we met, and will certainly remain far beyond death.


_________________________

Kristy Ann Raines was born Kristy Ann Rasmussen in Oakland California, in the United States of America.  

She is an accomplished international poet and writer.  Kristy has two self-published books on Amazon titled, “The Passion within Me”, and  an anthology of epistolary poems, written with a prominent poet from India, Dr. Prasana Kumar Dalai, titled, “I Cross My Heart from East to West”.

She has one children’s short story book coming out soon, titled “Tishya the Dragon”, and a few other children’s stories to follow. 

Kristy is also working on finishing two very special fantasy books that have been in the works for quite a few years, titled “Rings, Things and Butterfly Wings” and “Princess and the Lion”. 

She is also writing her autobiography titled “My Very Anomalous Life”.  

It is her life story that few know about, and the many transformations she went through.  She reveals every interesting and sometimes tragic aspect of her life. She shares her failures, victories, tears, joys, losses, heartbreaks, and how she changed, by the grace of God. 

A loving family and how two wonderful children stood by her through her transformation to who she is today.

Kristy has received numerous awards for her distinctive writing style and her work as an advocate and humanitarian around the world.

Kristy also enjoys painting, making pottery, writing song lyrics, and being with her family.  

She is married, has an older brother and sister, two wonderful children, and is a proud grandmother of three beautiful granddaughters. with one great-grandchild on the way!