(pseudonym of Sadriddin Said-Murodzoda). Born Apr. 15 (27), 1878, in the village of Soktare, near Gizhduvan; died July 15, 1954, in Dushanbe. Soviet Tadzhik writer, scholar, and public figure. First president (from 1951) of the Academy of Sciences of the Tadzhik SSR. Honored Scientist of the Tadzhik SSR and honorary academician of the Academy of Sciences of the Uzbek SSR. Wrote in Tadzhik and Uzbek. Founder of Soviet Tadzhik literature and one of the pioneers of Soviet Uzbek literature (the songs “March of Freedom,” 1918, and “To the Glory of October,” 1918).

Aini studied in Bukharan madrasahs. After the Revolution of 1905–07, he joined the left wing of dzhadidizm. His elegy On the Death of a Brother (1918) urged the overthrow of the emir. From 1919 to 1921 he wrote for the journal Shulai inkilob (The Flame of the Revolution); his articles laid the basis for Tadzhik pamphleteer literature. After breaking with dzhadidizm in 1920, Aini participated in the Bukharan people’s revolution. In the prose satire The Bukharan Executioners (1920) he condemned the feudal regime. The novella O dina (1924), together with the novels Dokhunda (1927–28, published in 1930) and The Slaves (1934), makes up a unique trilogy, an epic of the life and struggles of the Tadzhik people in the course of a century. In the novella The Death of a Usurer (1939; revised edition, 1953) his depiction of the death of a miser symbolized the fall of the old order. During the Great Patriotic War (1941–45), he wrote sharp topical articles and historical essays (The Uprising of Mukanna, 1944, and others). From 1948 until his death, Aini worked on an autobiographical book, Remembrances (Russian translation, Bukhara, books 1–4, 1949–54; State Prize of the USSR, 1950), in which he portrayed the life of the Bukharan khanate at the turn of the 20th century. He wrote about the history and philology of the peoples of Middle Asia: The History of the Emirs of the Mangyt Dynasty (1923); the anthology Models of Tadzhik Literature (parts 1–3, 1926); and essays and monographs on Rudaki, Firdausi, Avicenna, Saadi, Navoi, Vasifi, Bedil’, and others. A deputy to the third and fourth convocations of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, he was awarded three Orders of Lenin and the Order of the Red Banner of Labor.