Whether colonizers encouraged the growth of religion or attempted to stamp it out, they played a pivotal role in formation of religious movements within regions under their control. During the Russian colonial rule of Central Asia, a group of intellectuals began a modernist Islamist movement called Jadidism. This movement formed in response to the founders’ belief that Central Asian society was backward and primitive, as well as, in opposition of Russian colonial rule. Though Central Asia did not have a printing press prior to the Russian colonization, the printing press arrived with the Russians and enabled the Jadids to spread their ideas. Yet the low literacy rates within Central Asia caused the Jadids to push for educational reform. My research focuses on the influence of Russian and then Soviet rule on the Jadidist movement. Furthermore, it discusses the Jadids’ influence on education at the beginning of the twentieth century until today. I conducted my research by reading and analyzing texts on the issue and piecing together the information within a field which has been largely ignored by academia. My project attempts to draw attention to the gaps in the knowledge surrounding the Jadidist movement and its significance for the current education systems in Central Asia.