December 17, 2007
Putin Opens Mecca Path for Muslims
By MICHAEL SCHWIRTZ
MOSCOW — Gulsine K. Fatakhudinova, a 56-year-old Tatar Muslim, came lugging suitcases to pray at the lime-green mosque in central Moscow — one of dozens of people who arrived one recent day bundled in the weighty coats, fur hats and other winter garb they would soon cast off, at least temporarily.
Barred by the Soviets for decades from carrying out Islam’s most sacred rite, such pilgrims were among the tens of thousands of Russian Muslims traveling to Saudi Arabia to join the masses in Mecca for the annual pilgrimage, or hajj, to one of Islam’s holiest sites. Their numbers have swelled in the last several years thanks largely to Russia’s growing wealth and increasing stability in the predominantly Muslim North Caucasus region, including in Chechnya, where the effects of nearly a decade of war have begun to fade.
Ms. Fatakhudinova is making the journey for the second time.
“This year I am going for my mother, for my dead mother, who was unable to go on the hajj during her life,” she said. She explained that her family had always been religious, even during the Soviet era, but had neither the means nor permission from the state to make the trip before her mother died.
“I am going for her,” Ms. Fatakhudinova said, “so that before God, when we are resurrected, she will feel herself a hajji.”
The Soviet government allowed just 18 people a year to make the trip, said Rushan R. Abbyasov, director of international relations at the Russian Council of Muftis. Now, the only restrictions on the number of pilgrims comes from Saudi Arabia, which is host to the hajj.
This year, the Saudis increased the quota for Russian pilgrims to 26,000 people from 20,000, and despite estimated costs of $2,000 to $3,000 a person for the trip, Mr. Abbyasov said all visas allotted for this year had been claimed. Chechnya is sending about 3,000 pilgrims for the five-day pilgrimage, which starts this week.
“This year, because of religious consciousness, the end of violence in the North Caucasus, and in Chechnya in particular, and the current growth of people’s well-being, people can just allow themselves to do this,” said Abdul-Vakhed Niyazov, president of the Islamic Cultural Center of Russia.
Muslims who are financially and physically able are required to perform the hajj at least once in their lives, though many believe that a relative can complete the pilgrimage on behalf of someone who died or is chronically ill.
Islam, like Orthodox Christianity, is in a state of revival here after years of confinement to the kitchens and basements of the Soviet Union, which severely restricted the open practice of all religions.
Russia has about 4,000 mosques now, compared with about 90 in the waning days of the Soviet Union. In Moscow, Muslim groceries and other stores selling Muslim fashions have appeared, and the first hospital catering to Muslims opened this month.
Fourteen million to 23 million Muslims live in this country of about 140 million people, making Islam the largest minority religion. They live mostly in the Caucasus and in two autonomous republics, Tatarstan and Bashkortostan; there are also about two million Muslims living in Moscow.
The Kremlin has worked to facilitate the pilgrimage, part of a strategy to ward off potential unrest among the country’s Muslims and monitor their activities, while also improving ties with Saudi Arabia, where Russia has budding economic interests. When President Vladimir V. Putin visited Saudi Arabia in February — the first Russian leader to do so in decades — his lobbying efforts helped persuade the Saudis to raise the quotas for Russian Muslims this year.
At a meeting with Russia’s Muslim leaders in November, Mr. Putin pledged continued government assistance for the hajj.
The government has created a liaison office that offers pilgrims help with visas and transportation, and the state airline, Aeroflot, often gives pilgrims special rates. The government has also set up a $60 million fund to support Islamic culture, science and education, part of which is designated for state-accredited Muslim schools and universities.
The government is nevertheless concerned that its citizens could be exposed to extremist forms of Islam while on the hajj, and some analysts, including Evgeny Y. Satanovskiy, president of the Institute of Middle Eastern Studies in Moscow, say that government assistance to the pilgrims belies attempts to track their activities.
“We know that Saudi Arabia invests in the propaganda of the Saudi Arabian-style Islam, the Wahhabi-style Islam, much more than the whole Soviet Union for the whole Soviet history spent on the propaganda of the Communist ideology,” Mr. Satanovskiy said.
Most Muslims — with the exception of some extremists in the North Caucasus — are highly integrated into Russian society, and many government officials and Muslim leaders worry that an influx of more conservative or even radical Islamic beliefs from places like Saudi Arabia could whip up discord.
The Russian press has reported recently that many security service personnel are among this year’s pilgrims, evidence, some say, of a government effort to supervise Russian citizens while they are in Saudi Arabia. Officials and hajj organizers have denied that this is the case.
For now, the biggest problem the government has with the hajj is dealing with complaints by Saudi officials that Russian pilgrims are smuggling contraband into and out of the country, said Andrei E. Severtsov, who is in charge of the Department for Communications with Religious Organizations, a government body that mediates on religious matters and provides assistance to pilgrims. Most often, he said, the culprits are from the relatively poor North Caucasus, where porous borders make smuggling easy and profitable. Last year, several were arrested trying to transport nearly a ton of bottled water.
Most often, however, the Saudis and other Muslims gathered in Mecca for the hajj react to Russians with curiosity, Mr. Abbyasov said.
“A good many people are surprised that there are Muslims in Russia,” he said.
ISLAM IN THE FORMER SOVIET UNION
53 PERCENT OF TAJIK POPULATION ESTIMATED TO BE POOR
AND 17 PERCENT ESTIMATED TO BE CRITICALLY POOR
DUSHANBE, July 1, 2008, Asia-Plus /Malika Rakhmanova/ -- In
Tajikistan, 53 percent of the population are estimated to be poor and
17 percent are estimated to be critically poor.
Ms, Bakhtiya Muhammadiyeva, the first deputy chairman of the State
Committee for Statistics, remarked this on June 30, while speaking at
a ceremony of presentation of the basic info rmation document
entitled "Tajikistan: Living Standards Measurement Survey 2007."
She defined the poverty line as equal to not more than 139 somonis
($40.5) per month and the critical poverty line as equal to 89
somonis per month (the critical poverty line means that money is pent
to foodstuffs only).
According to Muhammadiyeva, the survey provides updated data of the
poverty level in Tajikistan as well as monitoring of the
socioeconomic situation of the population with an emphasis made on
women and children.
The survey will serve as foundation for making decisions as well as
provide the better monitoring of state social measures and economic
programs specified by the Poverty Reduction Strategy for 2007-2009,
Tajik official said.
According to her, 5,000 households in urban and rural areas have been
surveyed. The living standards survey was conducted September through
November 2007.
According to the Sate Committee for Statistics, the survey results
are being discussed in details today at the conference formally
titled "Role of Surveys of Household and Statistics in Monitoring
Poverty, Developing Policy and Decision-Making and Implementation of
Programs." The conference is expected to bring together some 125
representatives of the government, ministries and organizations as
well as 23 representatives of international organizations and the
diplomatic missions of the United States , the United Kingdom ,
Germany , etc.
AND 17 PERCENT ESTIMATED TO BE CRITICALLY POOR
DUSHANBE, July 1, 2008, Asia-Plus /Malika Rakhmanova/ -- In
Tajikistan, 53 percent of the population are estimated to be poor and
17 percent are estimated to be critically poor.
Ms, Bakhtiya Muhammadiyeva, the first deputy chairman of the State
Committee for Statistics, remarked this on June 30, while speaking at
a ceremony of presentation of the basic info rmation document
entitled "Tajikistan: Living Standards Measurement Survey 2007."
She defined the poverty line as equal to not more than 139 somonis
($40.5) per month and the critical poverty line as equal to 89
somonis per month (the critical poverty line means that money is pent
to foodstuffs only).
According to Muhammadiyeva, the survey provides updated data of the
poverty level in Tajikistan as well as monitoring of the
socioeconomic situation of the population with an emphasis made on
women and children.
The survey will serve as foundation for making decisions as well as
provide the better monitoring of state social measures and economic
programs specified by the Poverty Reduction Strategy for 2007-2009,
Tajik official said.
According to her, 5,000 households in urban and rural areas have been
surveyed. The living standards survey was conducted September through
November 2007.
According to the Sate Committee for Statistics, the survey results
are being discussed in details today at the conference formally
titled "Role of Surveys of Household and Statistics in Monitoring
Poverty, Developing Policy and Decision-Making and Implementation of
Programs." The conference is expected to bring together some 125
representatives of the government, ministries and organizations as
well as 23 representatives of international organizations and the
diplomatic missions of the United States , the United Kingdom ,
Germany , etc.
Photo at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/04/world ... &th&emc=th
January 4, 2009
Independent, Tajiks Revel in Their Faith
By SABRINA TAVERNISE
DUSHANBE, Tajikistan — The crowd in the airport parking lot was jubilant despite the cold, with squealing children, busy concession stands and a tangle of idling cars giving the impression of an eager audience before a rock concert.
But it was religion, not rock ’n’ roll, that had drawn so many people: the Tajik families were waiting for their loved ones to land on a flight from Saudi Arabia, where they had taken part in the hajj, the annual Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca.
This did not use to happen. Tajikistan, a Muslim country north of Afghanistan, used to be part of the Soviet Union. Religion was banned, and any public expression of it, like prayer or making the hajj, was harshly punished.
A resurgence of Islam began here almost immediately after independence, in 1991, but years of civil war kept outward reflections of it, like the hajj, from appearing much.
Now, though, expressions of faith are flowering. At least 5,200 citizens of Tajikistan went on the hajj in 2008, more than 10 times the number who went in 2000, according to this country’s State Committee on Religion. Religious leaders have become important community figures, and Islamic political parties are permitted.
That enthusiasm was thick in the greeting crowd here, one of many that met the more than a dozen hajj flights in December. A woman whose first name is Marhabo, a 25-year-old mother of three, was waiting in the bitter cold with a 40-member extended family, most of them children.
“We’re Muslims,” she said brightly, hugging her small daughter closer to her in the cold. “Now there’s no limiting. Before, there were no mosques. Now there are many.”
It was close to midnight and the children were getting cranky. Marhabo’s sister-in-law bounced her own daughter, Medina, a small girl in a pink snowsuit, who was starting to cry.
There were many Medinas in the crowd, actually, named after another holy city in Saudi Arabia, in a fad that began here after the Soviet collapse.
The group was largely segregated, with women in bright scarves standing in clusters with the children behind the main arrivals area, where the men, some in traditional velvet robes, waited with camcorders to record the moment of arrival.
One old man with a long gray beard said he first made the pilgrimage in 1998. He took a bus that went through Iraq, “before,” his friend pointed out, “George Bush showed up.”
It used to be hard to be a believer here.
A man in his 30s whose first name is Akbar remembered running away from the Soviets when they caught him praying. His teacher ridiculed him for it, leaving him with a distinct dislike for school.
“Everyone was looking at me,” Akbar said. “I felt like a criminal.”
While the Tajiks’ newfound faith is thrilling for some, it has alarmed others, who worry that Islam’s popularity, combined with an economic crisis here, could lead to a surge of fundamentalism or militancy.
More than half the population lives on less than $2 each a day, and the country is currently experiencing a reverse industrialization: 77 percent of its population lives in rural areas, compared with 63 percent in the mid-1980s, said Khojamakhmad Umarov, a professor at the Institute of Economic Studies here.
Now, with migrant Tajik workers, the single largest contributors to the economy, facing an uncertain future in Russia, experts like Muzaffar Olimov worry that religious leaders will gain disproportionate power in society and that with the state education system in collapse, families will turn to religious schools for their children.
“The mullahs will make the weather,” said Mr. Olimov, who is director of Sharq, a research center here. “We have a model: our neighbor Afghanistan.”
But Tajik society is still strongly Soviet. New Year’s, a holiday celebrated in Soviet times with a decorated tree and presents, is still cherished, even in observant Muslim families.
“It’s not a Muslim holiday, but we like it,” Marhabo said, her small daughter reciting poetry she had learned in school for the occasion.
Marhabo talked about the meal they would have when they arrived at their home — a baked sheep. The government recently issued a rule forbidding families to spend too much money on weddings and other celebrations, a directive she said they were observing.
The plane from Saudi Arabia finally arrived. People threw candies, as if at a wedding, when they met their loved ones. Marhabo’s father, in a long white robe and a traditional hat, strode regally into their midst. He was met with an explosion of kisses.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/04/world ... &th&emc=th
January 4, 2009
Independent, Tajiks Revel in Their Faith
By SABRINA TAVERNISE
DUSHANBE, Tajikistan — The crowd in the airport parking lot was jubilant despite the cold, with squealing children, busy concession stands and a tangle of idling cars giving the impression of an eager audience before a rock concert.
But it was religion, not rock ’n’ roll, that had drawn so many people: the Tajik families were waiting for their loved ones to land on a flight from Saudi Arabia, where they had taken part in the hajj, the annual Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca.
This did not use to happen. Tajikistan, a Muslim country north of Afghanistan, used to be part of the Soviet Union. Religion was banned, and any public expression of it, like prayer or making the hajj, was harshly punished.
A resurgence of Islam began here almost immediately after independence, in 1991, but years of civil war kept outward reflections of it, like the hajj, from appearing much.
Now, though, expressions of faith are flowering. At least 5,200 citizens of Tajikistan went on the hajj in 2008, more than 10 times the number who went in 2000, according to this country’s State Committee on Religion. Religious leaders have become important community figures, and Islamic political parties are permitted.
That enthusiasm was thick in the greeting crowd here, one of many that met the more than a dozen hajj flights in December. A woman whose first name is Marhabo, a 25-year-old mother of three, was waiting in the bitter cold with a 40-member extended family, most of them children.
“We’re Muslims,” she said brightly, hugging her small daughter closer to her in the cold. “Now there’s no limiting. Before, there were no mosques. Now there are many.”
It was close to midnight and the children were getting cranky. Marhabo’s sister-in-law bounced her own daughter, Medina, a small girl in a pink snowsuit, who was starting to cry.
There were many Medinas in the crowd, actually, named after another holy city in Saudi Arabia, in a fad that began here after the Soviet collapse.
The group was largely segregated, with women in bright scarves standing in clusters with the children behind the main arrivals area, where the men, some in traditional velvet robes, waited with camcorders to record the moment of arrival.
One old man with a long gray beard said he first made the pilgrimage in 1998. He took a bus that went through Iraq, “before,” his friend pointed out, “George Bush showed up.”
It used to be hard to be a believer here.
A man in his 30s whose first name is Akbar remembered running away from the Soviets when they caught him praying. His teacher ridiculed him for it, leaving him with a distinct dislike for school.
“Everyone was looking at me,” Akbar said. “I felt like a criminal.”
While the Tajiks’ newfound faith is thrilling for some, it has alarmed others, who worry that Islam’s popularity, combined with an economic crisis here, could lead to a surge of fundamentalism or militancy.
More than half the population lives on less than $2 each a day, and the country is currently experiencing a reverse industrialization: 77 percent of its population lives in rural areas, compared with 63 percent in the mid-1980s, said Khojamakhmad Umarov, a professor at the Institute of Economic Studies here.
Now, with migrant Tajik workers, the single largest contributors to the economy, facing an uncertain future in Russia, experts like Muzaffar Olimov worry that religious leaders will gain disproportionate power in society and that with the state education system in collapse, families will turn to religious schools for their children.
“The mullahs will make the weather,” said Mr. Olimov, who is director of Sharq, a research center here. “We have a model: our neighbor Afghanistan.”
But Tajik society is still strongly Soviet. New Year’s, a holiday celebrated in Soviet times with a decorated tree and presents, is still cherished, even in observant Muslim families.
“It’s not a Muslim holiday, but we like it,” Marhabo said, her small daughter reciting poetry she had learned in school for the occasion.
Marhabo talked about the meal they would have when they arrived at their home — a baked sheep. The government recently issued a rule forbidding families to spend too much money on weddings and other celebrations, a directive she said they were observing.
The plane from Saudi Arabia finally arrived. People threw candies, as if at a wedding, when they met their loved ones. Marhabo’s father, in a long white robe and a traditional hat, strode regally into their midst. He was met with an explosion of kisses.
January 09, 2009
Salafi Ban Reflects Tajik Officials' Growing Fear
by Farangis Najibullah
The government of Tajikistan has banned Salafism, saying the Sunni Islamic movement represents a potential threat to national security.
Tajikistan's Supreme Court on January 9 added Salafis to its list of extremist religious groups prohibited from operating in the country.
The movement claims to follow a strict and pure form of Islam, but Tajik clerics say the Salafis' radical stance is similar to that of the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Salafi leaders insist their movement has peaceful aims, with no political or extremist agenda.
"In order to prevent national, racial, and religious conflicts and damage to the nation's reputation and honor, Tajikistan's Supreme Court, as of January 8, 2009, bans the Salafi religious movement's activities in the country as an illegal group," Supreme Court spokesman Mahmadali Yusufov said, adding that the movement poses a security threat.
Sowing Division?
The Salafi movement, which has been active in Tajikistan for just over two years, claims to have recruited more than 20,000 believers there.
Local officials say the group has only a few hundred supporters.
Tajik authorities are worried the movement will gain traction as it focuses its efforts on the country's younger generations. Most of the movement's local leaders are themselves in their 20s and early 30s, and came to Tajikistan after graduating from Islamic schools in Pakistan or Arab countries.
I've never heard any Salafi follower say anything against the government
One Salafi activist, Hoji Nazirmat, protested the court's decision to ban the group, saying the Salafi movement in Tajikistan has always steered clear of politics.
"Any act of persecution and harassment of Salafi followers would violate Tajikistan's laws, because we live in a democratic, secular country with the rule of law," Nazirmat said. "I've never heard any Salafi follower say anything against the government."
Salafis claim to adhere to a pure form of Islam, and do not recognize other branches of the religion, particularly Shi'ism and Sufism.
A majority of Tajiks follow Hanafi, a relatively moderate branch of Sunni Islam. There are also more than 200,000 Ismaili Shi'a, most residing in an eastern province of the country.
Official Concern
Tajik authorities claim that computer discs and videotapes confiscated from Salafi members show the group's leaders expressing strong anti-Shi'ite and anti-Iranian sentiments.
Local clerics have also warned the group is intent upon creating sectarian divisions within Tajikistan's Islamic faithful.
The Salafis' focus on "pure" Islam and their campaign to recruit young madrasah graduates has prompted many Tajiks to compare the group to the Taliban.
In October, Tajikistan's Council of Islamic Ulema, a grouping of prominent Islamic scholars, demanded that the Salafis abandon their beliefs or stay away from local mosques.
The group's anti-Iran stance has prompted rumors that the group has been funded by Western countries to weaken Iran's influence in Tajikistan. U.S. officials have rejected the allegations as baseless.
Tajikistan has a history of tolerance for Islamic groups that is arguably unique in the region, although official curbs on some expressions of stricter Islamic tenets have emerged more recently.
Dushanbe has cracked down on the most radical Islamic groupings, including Hizb ut-Tahrir. Tajik authorities have arrested hundreds of Hizb ut-Tahrir members, whom they accuse of trying to overthrow the secular government in favor of an Islamic caliphate.
But it is also home to Central Asia's first -- and so far only -- officially registered Islamic political party.
The country's five-year civil war from 1992-97 had pitted supporters of the secular government against members of the Islamic Renaissance Party (IRP). The government that emerged from the eventual truce went on to make peace with the IRP.
Some Tajiks, however, worry that measures like the Supreme Court ban on Salafism will only serve to radicalize the country's outlawed Islamic groups and stir antigovernment resentment.
The IRP criticized the court decision, saying the ban violates people's right to peaceful assembly and association.
****
TAJIKISTAN: 'No rights to organise prayers'
By Mushfig Bayram ("Forum 18", January 20, 2009)
Dushanbe, Tajikistan - The authorities in the Tajik capital Dushanbe
have continued to close down places of worship in the city, Forum 18
News Service has learned. Mosques not registered with the Culture
Ministry's Religious Affairs Committee have been closed down by special
commissions of the city authorities. Defending the move, Shamsiddin
Nuriddinov of the City Executive Authority, who headed the commissions,
told Forum 18 on 15 January that the places they closed down were
so-called public halls, and people had "no rights to organise prayers"
there.
The country's only Jewish synagogue in Dushanbe has been confiscated and
bulldozed, while Protestants and Jehovah's Witnesses find it difficult
to use their places of worship (see F18News 8 October 2008
http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=1200). Members of
Dushanbe's Grace Sunmin Protestant Church told Forum 18 that if their
last-ditch appeal fails, they may be evicted from their building "within
a couple of weeks".
The Tajik parliament is still considering a new draft Religion Law. If
adopted, it would impose sweeping controls on religious activity and
religious associations, particularly on mosques. All registered
religious organisations will have to re-register by 1 July 2009. Those
that fail to do this or who no longer meet new more restrictive
registration criteria will lose their legal status (see F18News 17
December 2008 http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=1230)
Abdukayumi Kayumzod, a local journalist from Dushanbe, told Forum 18 on
15 January that a majority of the 147 mosques in the city's Sinai
district were closed down between 2006 and late 2008. In October to
December 2008 alone, he said, the special commissions closed down and
sealed several mosques in the district and sacked the imams. Kayumzod
said he has personally seen the seal placed by the authorities on some
of the buildings. He added that the special commissions warned imams of
some others not to hold prayers in their mosques, although they did not
seal their buildings.
Kayumzod told Forum 18 that the special commissions - established in
2006 by order of Mahmadsaid Uboydulloev, the Head of Dushanbe's
Executive Authority - include representatives from the City Executive
Authority and district police officers. "The commissions went around the
city and found that many places of worship used by Muslims in the city
did not have official registration," he said.
Kayumzod told Forum 18 he knows of several imams who, in the wake of the
mosque closures, were fined 50 to 150 Somonis (102 to 306 Norwegian
Kroner, 11 to 33 Euros or 14 to 43 US Dollars) for their religious
activity.
One imam of a closed mosque in Sinai's 33rd micro-district (suburban
area) confirmed to Forum 18 on 15 January that he had been fined, but
refused to discuss the fine and closure for fear of the authorities. His
mosque had been closed and sealed in late October 2008 and he was sacked
as imam.
Another imam in Sinai district told Forum 18 that city officials warned
him in late December that people should stop gathering in their mosque.
"They did not seal our mosque but warned us that we should not meet
there," the imam - who asked not to be identified - complained to Forum
18 on 15 January. Despite the warning they have continued their prayers
in the mosque, the imam added. "Our mosque has existed since Soviet
times," he said. "The people built it with their own funds, and I don't
understand why we shouldn't use the building for our prayers."
Nuriddinov of the City Executive Authority - who headed the special
commissions until December 2008 - told Forum 18 that he does not
remember how many imams were fined or their names. Yet he insisted the
imams were fined for "illegal" activity as the "public halls" were not
authorised for worship but were designed for recreation and games for
the public.
Local journalist Kayumzod disagreed, explaining that although these
places were registered during Soviet times as public halls and had not
received official registration from the Religious Affairs Committee
since Tajikistan's independence in 1991, it was "clear" to everyone that
people used them as mosques. "The commissions gave permission only to
some of the halls to continue as mosques for prayers five times a day
but closed most of them down," he told Forum 18.
Nuriddinov rejected criticism of the closures, pointing to the 57
cathedral mosques as well as many other mosques in Dushanbe where
prayers are recited five times a day. "I cannot say how many praying
Muslims there are," he told Forum 18, "but I believe those mosques could
accommodate all the Muslims wishing to attend for prayer."
Saidbeg Mahmadulloev of the Religious Affairs Committee likewise
insisted that there are plenty of mosques for Muslims in the city. "No
one has complained to us about their mosques being closed down," he told
Forum 18 from Dushanbe on 14 January. "People attending public halls for
worship do not necessarily need registration from the Committee but they
must get the consent of the local administrations."
The government strenuously denied to an Organisation for Security and
Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) that it had closed religious communities
and demolished places of worship, a claim which the communities
themselves strongly disputed (see F18News 8 October 2008
http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=1200).
Mahmadulloev of the Religious Affairs Committee told Forum 18 that the
closure of the mosques was unrelated to the ban on the Islamic movement
of Salafiyya, handed down by Tajikistan's Supreme Court on 8 January
(see forthcoming F18News article).
Akbar Turajonzoda, Tajikistan's former Chief Mufti who is now a member
of the upper chamber of Tajikistan's Parliament, however, rejected
Mahmadulloev's claims. He reported that scores of people have complained
to him about the enforced closures. "People from many mosques even
collected documents and submitted them for registration, only to be
turned down by the Religious Affairs Committee," he told Forum 18 on 15
January.
Turajonzoda reported that the authorities have closed down hundreds of
Muslim places of worship since 2004. Asked why the authorities are
closing mosques, he said he believed there was "an instruction from
above" not to allow the number of mosques in the city to increase. He
would not state who the instruction came from.
The authorities' action to close mosques violates poeple's rights,
Turajonzoda said. "There are many old people who pray in these so-called
public places," he stressed to Forum 18. "These people are not able to
travel far, and the mosques are in their quarters or yards, usually next
to their houses."
Many mosques have also been demolished in recent years (see F18News 10
October 2007 http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=1032).
The enforced closure of mosques took place against the backdrop of
similar moves against minority faiths. The authorities bulldozed
Dushanbe's synagogue in summer 2008, leaving the community nowhere to
worship (see F18News 8 October 2008
http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=1200).
Grace Sunmin Protestant Church of Dushanbe is on the verge of losing its
building. Vladimir Kim of the Church complained that their attempts to
challenge the High Economic Court's decision overturning the ownership
of the church building have yielded no result. "We are still holding
church services in the building," he told Forum 18 on 19 January from
Dushanbe, "but within a couple of weeks we will probably be evicted."
On 29 August 2008 Tajikistan's High Economic Court made a decision to
nullify the original 1997 sales contract and ruled to transfer the
building to the City Hukumat (Executive Authority). Grace Sunmin members
told Forum 18 in October that they were very disappointed with the court
decision. After spending a large amount of money - which they calculate
in hundreds of thousands of US Dollars - and energy in restoring the
half-finished building they say it is hard for the church to accept this
(see F18News 8 October 2008
http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=1200).
On 16 October the Court had upheld its first decision from 29 August,
and rejected the Church's appeal. The Church lodged a further appeal,
but in a 2 December 2008 ruling, of which Forum 18 has seen a copy, the
High Economic Court rejected the Church's cassation appeal and upheld
its earlier decision.
Kim said they have one last chance to complain to the Supervisory Board
of the High Economic Court, which they will do. "This Court is the
highest possible instance dealing with property rights," he maintained.
"However, we have very slim hopes of getting anywhere."
The Jehovah's Witnesses had to stop meeting in the wake of an October
2007 Culture Ministry ban on their activity throughout the entire
country, a ban they are trying to challenge through the courts. Three
Protestant organisations were also given a "temporary" ban in September
2007 for "three months", which has still not been lifted (see F18News 8
October 2008 http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=1200).
Salafi Ban Reflects Tajik Officials' Growing Fear
by Farangis Najibullah
The government of Tajikistan has banned Salafism, saying the Sunni Islamic movement represents a potential threat to national security.
Tajikistan's Supreme Court on January 9 added Salafis to its list of extremist religious groups prohibited from operating in the country.
The movement claims to follow a strict and pure form of Islam, but Tajik clerics say the Salafis' radical stance is similar to that of the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Salafi leaders insist their movement has peaceful aims, with no political or extremist agenda.
"In order to prevent national, racial, and religious conflicts and damage to the nation's reputation and honor, Tajikistan's Supreme Court, as of January 8, 2009, bans the Salafi religious movement's activities in the country as an illegal group," Supreme Court spokesman Mahmadali Yusufov said, adding that the movement poses a security threat.
Sowing Division?
The Salafi movement, which has been active in Tajikistan for just over two years, claims to have recruited more than 20,000 believers there.
Local officials say the group has only a few hundred supporters.
Tajik authorities are worried the movement will gain traction as it focuses its efforts on the country's younger generations. Most of the movement's local leaders are themselves in their 20s and early 30s, and came to Tajikistan after graduating from Islamic schools in Pakistan or Arab countries.
I've never heard any Salafi follower say anything against the government
One Salafi activist, Hoji Nazirmat, protested the court's decision to ban the group, saying the Salafi movement in Tajikistan has always steered clear of politics.
"Any act of persecution and harassment of Salafi followers would violate Tajikistan's laws, because we live in a democratic, secular country with the rule of law," Nazirmat said. "I've never heard any Salafi follower say anything against the government."
Salafis claim to adhere to a pure form of Islam, and do not recognize other branches of the religion, particularly Shi'ism and Sufism.
A majority of Tajiks follow Hanafi, a relatively moderate branch of Sunni Islam. There are also more than 200,000 Ismaili Shi'a, most residing in an eastern province of the country.
Official Concern
Tajik authorities claim that computer discs and videotapes confiscated from Salafi members show the group's leaders expressing strong anti-Shi'ite and anti-Iranian sentiments.
Local clerics have also warned the group is intent upon creating sectarian divisions within Tajikistan's Islamic faithful.
The Salafis' focus on "pure" Islam and their campaign to recruit young madrasah graduates has prompted many Tajiks to compare the group to the Taliban.
In October, Tajikistan's Council of Islamic Ulema, a grouping of prominent Islamic scholars, demanded that the Salafis abandon their beliefs or stay away from local mosques.
The group's anti-Iran stance has prompted rumors that the group has been funded by Western countries to weaken Iran's influence in Tajikistan. U.S. officials have rejected the allegations as baseless.
Tajikistan has a history of tolerance for Islamic groups that is arguably unique in the region, although official curbs on some expressions of stricter Islamic tenets have emerged more recently.
Dushanbe has cracked down on the most radical Islamic groupings, including Hizb ut-Tahrir. Tajik authorities have arrested hundreds of Hizb ut-Tahrir members, whom they accuse of trying to overthrow the secular government in favor of an Islamic caliphate.
But it is also home to Central Asia's first -- and so far only -- officially registered Islamic political party.
The country's five-year civil war from 1992-97 had pitted supporters of the secular government against members of the Islamic Renaissance Party (IRP). The government that emerged from the eventual truce went on to make peace with the IRP.
Some Tajiks, however, worry that measures like the Supreme Court ban on Salafism will only serve to radicalize the country's outlawed Islamic groups and stir antigovernment resentment.
The IRP criticized the court decision, saying the ban violates people's right to peaceful assembly and association.
****
TAJIKISTAN: 'No rights to organise prayers'
By Mushfig Bayram ("Forum 18", January 20, 2009)
Dushanbe, Tajikistan - The authorities in the Tajik capital Dushanbe
have continued to close down places of worship in the city, Forum 18
News Service has learned. Mosques not registered with the Culture
Ministry's Religious Affairs Committee have been closed down by special
commissions of the city authorities. Defending the move, Shamsiddin
Nuriddinov of the City Executive Authority, who headed the commissions,
told Forum 18 on 15 January that the places they closed down were
so-called public halls, and people had "no rights to organise prayers"
there.
The country's only Jewish synagogue in Dushanbe has been confiscated and
bulldozed, while Protestants and Jehovah's Witnesses find it difficult
to use their places of worship (see F18News 8 October 2008
http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=1200). Members of
Dushanbe's Grace Sunmin Protestant Church told Forum 18 that if their
last-ditch appeal fails, they may be evicted from their building "within
a couple of weeks".
The Tajik parliament is still considering a new draft Religion Law. If
adopted, it would impose sweeping controls on religious activity and
religious associations, particularly on mosques. All registered
religious organisations will have to re-register by 1 July 2009. Those
that fail to do this or who no longer meet new more restrictive
registration criteria will lose their legal status (see F18News 17
December 2008 http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=1230)
Abdukayumi Kayumzod, a local journalist from Dushanbe, told Forum 18 on
15 January that a majority of the 147 mosques in the city's Sinai
district were closed down between 2006 and late 2008. In October to
December 2008 alone, he said, the special commissions closed down and
sealed several mosques in the district and sacked the imams. Kayumzod
said he has personally seen the seal placed by the authorities on some
of the buildings. He added that the special commissions warned imams of
some others not to hold prayers in their mosques, although they did not
seal their buildings.
Kayumzod told Forum 18 that the special commissions - established in
2006 by order of Mahmadsaid Uboydulloev, the Head of Dushanbe's
Executive Authority - include representatives from the City Executive
Authority and district police officers. "The commissions went around the
city and found that many places of worship used by Muslims in the city
did not have official registration," he said.
Kayumzod told Forum 18 he knows of several imams who, in the wake of the
mosque closures, were fined 50 to 150 Somonis (102 to 306 Norwegian
Kroner, 11 to 33 Euros or 14 to 43 US Dollars) for their religious
activity.
One imam of a closed mosque in Sinai's 33rd micro-district (suburban
area) confirmed to Forum 18 on 15 January that he had been fined, but
refused to discuss the fine and closure for fear of the authorities. His
mosque had been closed and sealed in late October 2008 and he was sacked
as imam.
Another imam in Sinai district told Forum 18 that city officials warned
him in late December that people should stop gathering in their mosque.
"They did not seal our mosque but warned us that we should not meet
there," the imam - who asked not to be identified - complained to Forum
18 on 15 January. Despite the warning they have continued their prayers
in the mosque, the imam added. "Our mosque has existed since Soviet
times," he said. "The people built it with their own funds, and I don't
understand why we shouldn't use the building for our prayers."
Nuriddinov of the City Executive Authority - who headed the special
commissions until December 2008 - told Forum 18 that he does not
remember how many imams were fined or their names. Yet he insisted the
imams were fined for "illegal" activity as the "public halls" were not
authorised for worship but were designed for recreation and games for
the public.
Local journalist Kayumzod disagreed, explaining that although these
places were registered during Soviet times as public halls and had not
received official registration from the Religious Affairs Committee
since Tajikistan's independence in 1991, it was "clear" to everyone that
people used them as mosques. "The commissions gave permission only to
some of the halls to continue as mosques for prayers five times a day
but closed most of them down," he told Forum 18.
Nuriddinov rejected criticism of the closures, pointing to the 57
cathedral mosques as well as many other mosques in Dushanbe where
prayers are recited five times a day. "I cannot say how many praying
Muslims there are," he told Forum 18, "but I believe those mosques could
accommodate all the Muslims wishing to attend for prayer."
Saidbeg Mahmadulloev of the Religious Affairs Committee likewise
insisted that there are plenty of mosques for Muslims in the city. "No
one has complained to us about their mosques being closed down," he told
Forum 18 from Dushanbe on 14 January. "People attending public halls for
worship do not necessarily need registration from the Committee but they
must get the consent of the local administrations."
The government strenuously denied to an Organisation for Security and
Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) that it had closed religious communities
and demolished places of worship, a claim which the communities
themselves strongly disputed (see F18News 8 October 2008
http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=1200).
Mahmadulloev of the Religious Affairs Committee told Forum 18 that the
closure of the mosques was unrelated to the ban on the Islamic movement
of Salafiyya, handed down by Tajikistan's Supreme Court on 8 January
(see forthcoming F18News article).
Akbar Turajonzoda, Tajikistan's former Chief Mufti who is now a member
of the upper chamber of Tajikistan's Parliament, however, rejected
Mahmadulloev's claims. He reported that scores of people have complained
to him about the enforced closures. "People from many mosques even
collected documents and submitted them for registration, only to be
turned down by the Religious Affairs Committee," he told Forum 18 on 15
January.
Turajonzoda reported that the authorities have closed down hundreds of
Muslim places of worship since 2004. Asked why the authorities are
closing mosques, he said he believed there was "an instruction from
above" not to allow the number of mosques in the city to increase. He
would not state who the instruction came from.
The authorities' action to close mosques violates poeple's rights,
Turajonzoda said. "There are many old people who pray in these so-called
public places," he stressed to Forum 18. "These people are not able to
travel far, and the mosques are in their quarters or yards, usually next
to their houses."
Many mosques have also been demolished in recent years (see F18News 10
October 2007 http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=1032).
The enforced closure of mosques took place against the backdrop of
similar moves against minority faiths. The authorities bulldozed
Dushanbe's synagogue in summer 2008, leaving the community nowhere to
worship (see F18News 8 October 2008
http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=1200).
Grace Sunmin Protestant Church of Dushanbe is on the verge of losing its
building. Vladimir Kim of the Church complained that their attempts to
challenge the High Economic Court's decision overturning the ownership
of the church building have yielded no result. "We are still holding
church services in the building," he told Forum 18 on 19 January from
Dushanbe, "but within a couple of weeks we will probably be evicted."
On 29 August 2008 Tajikistan's High Economic Court made a decision to
nullify the original 1997 sales contract and ruled to transfer the
building to the City Hukumat (Executive Authority). Grace Sunmin members
told Forum 18 in October that they were very disappointed with the court
decision. After spending a large amount of money - which they calculate
in hundreds of thousands of US Dollars - and energy in restoring the
half-finished building they say it is hard for the church to accept this
(see F18News 8 October 2008
http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=1200).
On 16 October the Court had upheld its first decision from 29 August,
and rejected the Church's appeal. The Church lodged a further appeal,
but in a 2 December 2008 ruling, of which Forum 18 has seen a copy, the
High Economic Court rejected the Church's cassation appeal and upheld
its earlier decision.
Kim said they have one last chance to complain to the Supervisory Board
of the High Economic Court, which they will do. "This Court is the
highest possible instance dealing with property rights," he maintained.
"However, we have very slim hopes of getting anywhere."
The Jehovah's Witnesses had to stop meeting in the wake of an October
2007 Culture Ministry ban on their activity throughout the entire
country, a ban they are trying to challenge through the courts. Three
Protestant organisations were also given a "temporary" ban in September
2007 for "three months", which has still not been lifted (see F18News 8
October 2008 http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=1200).
Some of Russia’s Muslims Seeking to Define a Place between ‘Dar ul-Islam’ and ‘Dar ul-Harb’
20 April 2009
By Paul Goble / Special to The Moscow Times
About this blog
Window on Eurasia covers current events in Russia and the nations of the former Soviet Union, with a focus on issues of ethnicity and religion. The issues covered are often not those written about on the front pages of newspapers. Instead, the articles in the Windows series focus on those issues that either have not been much discussed or provide an approach to stories that have been. Frequent topics include civil rights, radicalism, Russian Islam, the Russian Orthodox Church, and events in the North Caucasus, among others.
Author Paul Goble is a longtime specialist on ethnic and religious questions in Eurasia. Most recently, he was director of research and publications at the Azerbaijan Diplomatic Academy. He has served in various capacities in the U.S. State Department, the Central Intelligence Agency and the International Broadcasting Bureau as well as at the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He writes frequently on ethnic and religious issues and has edited five volumes on ethnicity and religion in the former Soviet space.
Muslim theorists traditionally have divided the geography of the world between the dar ul-Islam, or “abode of peace,” in which Muslim governments rule over Muslim peoples, and the dar ul-harb, or “abode of war,” in which Muslims find themselves in places with non-Muslim governments and are urged to practice jihad to change that.
But some Muslim writers now argue that Muslims living in non-Muslim areas must make a distinction between countries where Muslims can practice their religion freely and whose governments have good relations with Muslim countries and those where Muslims remain subject to discrimination and whose governments are hostile to the world of Islam.
If Muslims in the latter must continue to view themselves as living in the dar ul-harb with all the religiously-based demands for struggle that entails, these writers say, Muslims living in the former need to revise that approach and recognize that they live in a third space, the dar ul-akhd, which might be rendered as “abode of coexistence.”
This idea has been at the margins of a broader discussion on Muslim minorities, and to this day, a large majority of the world’s Muslims appears to reject the whole idea either because it represents the kind of innovation of the faith that traditionalists reject or because it appears to be a tool by non-Muslims against the faithful.
That makes any treatment of the subject particularly important. The appearance of a sympathetic treatment of this idea by Ruslan Kurbanov, a leading Moscow expert, in an article on the Russian Federation’s largest Islamic web portal, and, even more, his promotion of such ideas on a Muslim Internet television channel, are thus especially intriguing.
Kurbanov, a senior specialist at the Moscow Institute of Oriental Studies, reviews the works of those Muslim writers who have suggested that modernity requires the unpacking of the concept of dar ul-harb, given the number of Muslims who live in states governed by non-Muslims and the diversity of those states.
Many of these authors, he notes, suggest that Koranic requirements for conducting jihad should be adjusted depending on whether these countries protect the rights of Muslims and seek friendly relations with Islamic countries or fail to protect the rights of the Islamic community and are hostile to the worldwide umma.
In the former category, Kurbanov suggests on the basis of the writings of these authors, are European countries, and there Muslims should work within the political system that protects them. In the latter category, the Moscow investigator says, is Israel, and there, these writers agree, the requirements for jihad remain unchanged.
But even more important perhaps than his article is Kurbanov’s more forceful presentation of it on Internet television. That broadcast is likely to reach a larger audience, simultaneously attracting support and generating opposition in the coming weeks and months.
This search for a middle ground between dar ul-Islam and dar ul-Harb may be a harbinger of further changes in the relationship between Russia’s Muslims and the Russian state, either prompting a strengthening of the traditional deference of that community to the authorities or alternatively sparking dissent to this reformist approach.
At the same time — and this is implicit in both Kurbanov’s article and his television presentation — at least some of the Muslims of the Russian Federation may use this argument to demand that Moscow protect their rights more than it has in the past or possibly face a more open challenge from the increasingly numerous community.
This idea could also have some international resonanceby providing the Russian government with a new argument in its campaign to join the Organization of the Islamic Conference and other institutions in the Muslim world — although in this case too, the argument could have exactly the opposite effect.
http://www.moscowtimes.ru/articles/detail.php?ID=376390
20 April 2009
By Paul Goble / Special to The Moscow Times
About this blog
Window on Eurasia covers current events in Russia and the nations of the former Soviet Union, with a focus on issues of ethnicity and religion. The issues covered are often not those written about on the front pages of newspapers. Instead, the articles in the Windows series focus on those issues that either have not been much discussed or provide an approach to stories that have been. Frequent topics include civil rights, radicalism, Russian Islam, the Russian Orthodox Church, and events in the North Caucasus, among others.
Author Paul Goble is a longtime specialist on ethnic and religious questions in Eurasia. Most recently, he was director of research and publications at the Azerbaijan Diplomatic Academy. He has served in various capacities in the U.S. State Department, the Central Intelligence Agency and the International Broadcasting Bureau as well as at the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He writes frequently on ethnic and religious issues and has edited five volumes on ethnicity and religion in the former Soviet space.
Muslim theorists traditionally have divided the geography of the world between the dar ul-Islam, or “abode of peace,” in which Muslim governments rule over Muslim peoples, and the dar ul-harb, or “abode of war,” in which Muslims find themselves in places with non-Muslim governments and are urged to practice jihad to change that.
But some Muslim writers now argue that Muslims living in non-Muslim areas must make a distinction between countries where Muslims can practice their religion freely and whose governments have good relations with Muslim countries and those where Muslims remain subject to discrimination and whose governments are hostile to the world of Islam.
If Muslims in the latter must continue to view themselves as living in the dar ul-harb with all the religiously-based demands for struggle that entails, these writers say, Muslims living in the former need to revise that approach and recognize that they live in a third space, the dar ul-akhd, which might be rendered as “abode of coexistence.”
This idea has been at the margins of a broader discussion on Muslim minorities, and to this day, a large majority of the world’s Muslims appears to reject the whole idea either because it represents the kind of innovation of the faith that traditionalists reject or because it appears to be a tool by non-Muslims against the faithful.
That makes any treatment of the subject particularly important. The appearance of a sympathetic treatment of this idea by Ruslan Kurbanov, a leading Moscow expert, in an article on the Russian Federation’s largest Islamic web portal, and, even more, his promotion of such ideas on a Muslim Internet television channel, are thus especially intriguing.
Kurbanov, a senior specialist at the Moscow Institute of Oriental Studies, reviews the works of those Muslim writers who have suggested that modernity requires the unpacking of the concept of dar ul-harb, given the number of Muslims who live in states governed by non-Muslims and the diversity of those states.
Many of these authors, he notes, suggest that Koranic requirements for conducting jihad should be adjusted depending on whether these countries protect the rights of Muslims and seek friendly relations with Islamic countries or fail to protect the rights of the Islamic community and are hostile to the worldwide umma.
In the former category, Kurbanov suggests on the basis of the writings of these authors, are European countries, and there Muslims should work within the political system that protects them. In the latter category, the Moscow investigator says, is Israel, and there, these writers agree, the requirements for jihad remain unchanged.
But even more important perhaps than his article is Kurbanov’s more forceful presentation of it on Internet television. That broadcast is likely to reach a larger audience, simultaneously attracting support and generating opposition in the coming weeks and months.
This search for a middle ground between dar ul-Islam and dar ul-Harb may be a harbinger of further changes in the relationship between Russia’s Muslims and the Russian state, either prompting a strengthening of the traditional deference of that community to the authorities or alternatively sparking dissent to this reformist approach.
At the same time — and this is implicit in both Kurbanov’s article and his television presentation — at least some of the Muslims of the Russian Federation may use this argument to demand that Moscow protect their rights more than it has in the past or possibly face a more open challenge from the increasingly numerous community.
This idea could also have some international resonanceby providing the Russian government with a new argument in its campaign to join the Organization of the Islamic Conference and other institutions in the Muslim world — although in this case too, the argument could have exactly the opposite effect.
http://www.moscowtimes.ru/articles/detail.php?ID=376390
Professor Schoeberlein Presents Paper on Post-Soviet Islam
June 2009
Professor John Schoeberlein gave a lecture on the Conceptual Challenges for the Study of Post-Soviet Islam at the IIS on 7 May 2009. Professor Schoeberlein is currently the Director for the Program on Central Asia and the Caucasus at Harvard University and has been studying and visiting Central Asia for over 20 years.
In his introductory remarks, Dr Najam Abbas, an IIS Research Fellow in the Central Asian Studies Unit, spoke of the desire to clarify the enormous information flow about Central Asian Islam in order to promote better understanding of Muslims in that region of the world. The conceptual challenges for the study of post-Soviet Islam are intrinsically linked to the study of Islam in Central Asia during the Soviet period. This was dominated by a scholarly discourse which saw Islam as a purely political actor, placed in opposition to the Soviet worldview. This conceptual framework was true both for Soviet and Western scholars, the former saw Islam as a “problem to be neutralised as a social and political mobilising force, if not eliminated altogether.” Western scholars during the Soviet era, however, believed that Islam was a “good political problem” as it was seen to challenge the Soviet state.
In his presentation, Professor Schoeberlein noted that, while there are regional differences between countries, there are stronger similarities which permit him to attempt a meaningful analysis of Central Asian Islam as a whole. Where primary fieldwork took place in Soviet Central Asia, often wide-ranging conclusions were based on very slight evidence. Professor Schoeberlein used the example of Sergei Poliyakov’s statement that “Central Asian mosques were powerful institutions which controlled every section of society”, when the only basis for his evidence was that the mosques owned massive cauldrons which were used to feed community members.
Professor Schoeberlein showed how certain axioms have been repeated thoughtlessly by generations of scholars with regards to Central Asia. This includes the Central Asian nomads being seen as ‘less Islamic’ than the settled peoples. Nomads were not seen as serious Muslims, as they had no mosques to pray in, forgetting, of course, that both the early Arabs and the Bedouins were nomadic tribes.
The conceptual legacy of these positions in post-Soviet times has continued to direct scholarly discourse. Islam is seen as working either to sustain political pluralism, or to destabilise friendly regimes, often purely depending on the scholar’s viewpoint. The scholarly analysis of the relationship between Islam and the state remains problematic. However, this differs from the view from the ground. Professor Schoeberlein shows that there were many Muslims in Central Asia whose adherence to Islam was not connected to defiance to the Soviet state. This is equally true today: Central Asian Muslims do not necessarily conceptualise their faith in political terms.
This lecture was second in the 2009 DARP Occasional Lecture series, the first presentation being The Druze ‘Epistles of Wisdom’ and Early Ismailism: A ‘neo-carmathian’ revolt against the Fatimids? by Professor Daniel de Smet, from the Institute of Philosophy, Katholieke Universiteit,
http://www.iis.ac.uk/view_article.asp?ContentID=110367
June 2009
Professor John Schoeberlein gave a lecture on the Conceptual Challenges for the Study of Post-Soviet Islam at the IIS on 7 May 2009. Professor Schoeberlein is currently the Director for the Program on Central Asia and the Caucasus at Harvard University and has been studying and visiting Central Asia for over 20 years.
In his introductory remarks, Dr Najam Abbas, an IIS Research Fellow in the Central Asian Studies Unit, spoke of the desire to clarify the enormous information flow about Central Asian Islam in order to promote better understanding of Muslims in that region of the world. The conceptual challenges for the study of post-Soviet Islam are intrinsically linked to the study of Islam in Central Asia during the Soviet period. This was dominated by a scholarly discourse which saw Islam as a purely political actor, placed in opposition to the Soviet worldview. This conceptual framework was true both for Soviet and Western scholars, the former saw Islam as a “problem to be neutralised as a social and political mobilising force, if not eliminated altogether.” Western scholars during the Soviet era, however, believed that Islam was a “good political problem” as it was seen to challenge the Soviet state.
In his presentation, Professor Schoeberlein noted that, while there are regional differences between countries, there are stronger similarities which permit him to attempt a meaningful analysis of Central Asian Islam as a whole. Where primary fieldwork took place in Soviet Central Asia, often wide-ranging conclusions were based on very slight evidence. Professor Schoeberlein used the example of Sergei Poliyakov’s statement that “Central Asian mosques were powerful institutions which controlled every section of society”, when the only basis for his evidence was that the mosques owned massive cauldrons which were used to feed community members.
Professor Schoeberlein showed how certain axioms have been repeated thoughtlessly by generations of scholars with regards to Central Asia. This includes the Central Asian nomads being seen as ‘less Islamic’ than the settled peoples. Nomads were not seen as serious Muslims, as they had no mosques to pray in, forgetting, of course, that both the early Arabs and the Bedouins were nomadic tribes.
The conceptual legacy of these positions in post-Soviet times has continued to direct scholarly discourse. Islam is seen as working either to sustain political pluralism, or to destabilise friendly regimes, often purely depending on the scholar’s viewpoint. The scholarly analysis of the relationship between Islam and the state remains problematic. However, this differs from the view from the ground. Professor Schoeberlein shows that there were many Muslims in Central Asia whose adherence to Islam was not connected to defiance to the Soviet state. This is equally true today: Central Asian Muslims do not necessarily conceptualise their faith in political terms.
This lecture was second in the 2009 DARP Occasional Lecture series, the first presentation being The Druze ‘Epistles of Wisdom’ and Early Ismailism: A ‘neo-carmathian’ revolt against the Fatimids? by Professor Daniel de Smet, from the Institute of Philosophy, Katholieke Universiteit,
http://www.iis.ac.uk/view_article.asp?ContentID=110367
July 16, 2011
On the Rise in Tajikistan, Islam Worries an Authoritarian Government
By MICHAEL SCHWIRTZ
DUSHANBE, Tajikistan — Islam is blossoming in Tajikistan. Beards are in style. Headscarves, too. Bazaars are doing a booming trade in prayer rugs, religious audio recordings and gaudy clocks featuring Muslim holy sites.
After decades of enforced secularism, the people of this impoverished former Soviet republic have been flocking to their traditional religion with all the zeal of born-again movements anywhere in the world.
The authoritarian government here could not be more worried. Spooked by the specter of Islamic radicalism and the challenges posed by increasingly influential religious leaders, the Tajik authorities have been working fervently to curb religious expression.
Bearded men have been detained at random, and women barred from religious services. This year, the government demanded that students studying religion at universities in places like Egypt, Syria and Iran return home. The police have shuttered private mosques and Islamic Web sites, and government censors now monitor Friday sermons, stepping in when muftis stray from the government line.
Last month, lawmakers took what many here said was a drastic step further: they passed a law that would, among other things, bar children younger than 18 from attending religious services at mosques.
It is called the law “on parental responsibility for educating and raising children,” and the measure, according to officials, is meant to prevent children from skipping school to attend prayer services, and it would hold parents responsible if they do.
Government critics liken it to a Soviet-style attempt at reversing Islam’s spread. Many warn, however, that banning young people from mosques may have the opposite effect.
“After this law takes effect and the government and security services start applying pressure, youth could be drawn to illegal organizations,” said Mahmadali Hait, the deputy chairman of Tajikistan’s opposition Islamic Revival Party. “And it is possible that the level of radicalization in the country could increase.”
Growing religiosity in Tajikistan and in neighboring former Soviet republics is seen as a threat by the region’s entrenched authoritarian leaders, many of whom have been in power for decades. Unlike the political arena or the media, Islam is a potential font of dissent that, so far, they have been unable to monopolize.
The Taliban insurgency in neighboring Afghanistan has only compounded fears, especially now that the United States plans to withdraw its troops from the country. Clashes along Tajikistan’s extensive border with Afghanistan are not infrequent, and the authorities have linked foreign militants to several attacks on the police and military units in the last year. Travel between the two countries is relatively easy, and several Tajiks interviewed said they had visited Afghanistan for religious training.
“We have observed in recent years attempts by extremist movements to influence the world views of our children,” Tajikistan’s president, Emomali Rakhmon, said in a speech in April, arguing the need for the law on parental responsibility. “The leaders of various extremist groups and currents have started appearing in academic institutions, recruiting inexperienced youth.”
Independent experts say there is little evidence that militant Islamist groups have found much of a following in Tajikistan. Rather, they say, regional leaders often use the threat of Islamic extremism as a pretext to crack down on political opponents and their supporters.
Mr. Rakhmon and his circle, most of whom are secular former Soviet apparatchiks, fought and won a brutal civil war against a loose coalition of Muslim and secular opposition groups in the 1990s. Though former opposition field commanders were promised places in the government after the war, many have been jailed, exiled or murdered.
“We have secular extremism here,” said Khodzhi Akbar Turadzhonzoda , a prominent Islamic leader and a former member of Tajikistan’s Parliament. Talk of Islamic radicalism in Tajikistan, he said, “is a lie.”
“This is only to deceive the people, strengthen dictatorships, and spend more money on weapons and the secret services.”
The law barring children from mosques has not gone into effect. Mr. Rakhmon, who proposed the measure, must still sign it. But government critics and religious figures say the authorities have begun to enforce it in some places, raiding mosques, removing young people and fining adults accused of teaching religion without government permission.
After the law is signed, parents could face steep fines and even jail time for defying it.
The law would not prevent children or anyone else from praying, said Mavlon Mukhtorov, the deputy chairman of the Religious Affairs Committee, a government body that is promoting the measure. But he insisted that Tajiks, many of whom are newly religious, needed guidance — and restraint.
“This law was passed so that the parents of these children fulfill their responsibilities for raising them,” Mr. Mukhtorov said. “Schoolchildren should be in school. If they all go to the mosques for prayers and cast aside their schoolwork they will not be able to learn.”
The law would not prevent students from studying Islam at one of Tajikistan’s government-run religious schools or in theology departments at universities, he said. There are only about 20 such schools in Tajikistan, a country of 7.6 million people, though Mr. Mukhtorov said the government planned to open more. All children, he said, would be allowed to attend holiday services at mosques.
Western governments, including the United States, have condemned the measure, as well as what one American diplomat described recently as the Tajik government’s “systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations of religious freedom.”
But fears of Islamic extremism are acute enough that many Tajiks, including practicing Muslims, support the law.
“The government is working to ensure that foreign terrorist structures do not influence the young people by distorting their impressions of Islam,” said Zaur Chilayev, 32, an engineer, who was part of an overflow crowd at Dushanbe’s central mosque for Friday Prayer recently. “The threats are always present, especially given our neighbors.”
Others criticized the government’s campaign as misguided. Whether effective or not at stifling religious fanatics, such laws, these critics said, would do little to address extremism’s root causes. Poverty in Tajikistan, along with all the problems associated with it, is endemic, and the authorities have done little to alleviate it.
Such problems were on display recently at the central mosque, where a gang of bedraggled boys, oblivious to the booming calls of the muezzin, begged for pocket change in the courtyard. Asked why they did not enter the mosque for prayers, one of the boys answered sheepishly, “We are too young.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/17/world ... &emc=tha22
On the Rise in Tajikistan, Islam Worries an Authoritarian Government
By MICHAEL SCHWIRTZ
DUSHANBE, Tajikistan — Islam is blossoming in Tajikistan. Beards are in style. Headscarves, too. Bazaars are doing a booming trade in prayer rugs, religious audio recordings and gaudy clocks featuring Muslim holy sites.
After decades of enforced secularism, the people of this impoverished former Soviet republic have been flocking to their traditional religion with all the zeal of born-again movements anywhere in the world.
The authoritarian government here could not be more worried. Spooked by the specter of Islamic radicalism and the challenges posed by increasingly influential religious leaders, the Tajik authorities have been working fervently to curb religious expression.
Bearded men have been detained at random, and women barred from religious services. This year, the government demanded that students studying religion at universities in places like Egypt, Syria and Iran return home. The police have shuttered private mosques and Islamic Web sites, and government censors now monitor Friday sermons, stepping in when muftis stray from the government line.
Last month, lawmakers took what many here said was a drastic step further: they passed a law that would, among other things, bar children younger than 18 from attending religious services at mosques.
It is called the law “on parental responsibility for educating and raising children,” and the measure, according to officials, is meant to prevent children from skipping school to attend prayer services, and it would hold parents responsible if they do.
Government critics liken it to a Soviet-style attempt at reversing Islam’s spread. Many warn, however, that banning young people from mosques may have the opposite effect.
“After this law takes effect and the government and security services start applying pressure, youth could be drawn to illegal organizations,” said Mahmadali Hait, the deputy chairman of Tajikistan’s opposition Islamic Revival Party. “And it is possible that the level of radicalization in the country could increase.”
Growing religiosity in Tajikistan and in neighboring former Soviet republics is seen as a threat by the region’s entrenched authoritarian leaders, many of whom have been in power for decades. Unlike the political arena or the media, Islam is a potential font of dissent that, so far, they have been unable to monopolize.
The Taliban insurgency in neighboring Afghanistan has only compounded fears, especially now that the United States plans to withdraw its troops from the country. Clashes along Tajikistan’s extensive border with Afghanistan are not infrequent, and the authorities have linked foreign militants to several attacks on the police and military units in the last year. Travel between the two countries is relatively easy, and several Tajiks interviewed said they had visited Afghanistan for religious training.
“We have observed in recent years attempts by extremist movements to influence the world views of our children,” Tajikistan’s president, Emomali Rakhmon, said in a speech in April, arguing the need for the law on parental responsibility. “The leaders of various extremist groups and currents have started appearing in academic institutions, recruiting inexperienced youth.”
Independent experts say there is little evidence that militant Islamist groups have found much of a following in Tajikistan. Rather, they say, regional leaders often use the threat of Islamic extremism as a pretext to crack down on political opponents and their supporters.
Mr. Rakhmon and his circle, most of whom are secular former Soviet apparatchiks, fought and won a brutal civil war against a loose coalition of Muslim and secular opposition groups in the 1990s. Though former opposition field commanders were promised places in the government after the war, many have been jailed, exiled or murdered.
“We have secular extremism here,” said Khodzhi Akbar Turadzhonzoda , a prominent Islamic leader and a former member of Tajikistan’s Parliament. Talk of Islamic radicalism in Tajikistan, he said, “is a lie.”
“This is only to deceive the people, strengthen dictatorships, and spend more money on weapons and the secret services.”
The law barring children from mosques has not gone into effect. Mr. Rakhmon, who proposed the measure, must still sign it. But government critics and religious figures say the authorities have begun to enforce it in some places, raiding mosques, removing young people and fining adults accused of teaching religion without government permission.
After the law is signed, parents could face steep fines and even jail time for defying it.
The law would not prevent children or anyone else from praying, said Mavlon Mukhtorov, the deputy chairman of the Religious Affairs Committee, a government body that is promoting the measure. But he insisted that Tajiks, many of whom are newly religious, needed guidance — and restraint.
“This law was passed so that the parents of these children fulfill their responsibilities for raising them,” Mr. Mukhtorov said. “Schoolchildren should be in school. If they all go to the mosques for prayers and cast aside their schoolwork they will not be able to learn.”
The law would not prevent students from studying Islam at one of Tajikistan’s government-run religious schools or in theology departments at universities, he said. There are only about 20 such schools in Tajikistan, a country of 7.6 million people, though Mr. Mukhtorov said the government planned to open more. All children, he said, would be allowed to attend holiday services at mosques.
Western governments, including the United States, have condemned the measure, as well as what one American diplomat described recently as the Tajik government’s “systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations of religious freedom.”
But fears of Islamic extremism are acute enough that many Tajiks, including practicing Muslims, support the law.
“The government is working to ensure that foreign terrorist structures do not influence the young people by distorting their impressions of Islam,” said Zaur Chilayev, 32, an engineer, who was part of an overflow crowd at Dushanbe’s central mosque for Friday Prayer recently. “The threats are always present, especially given our neighbors.”
Others criticized the government’s campaign as misguided. Whether effective or not at stifling religious fanatics, such laws, these critics said, would do little to address extremism’s root causes. Poverty in Tajikistan, along with all the problems associated with it, is endemic, and the authorities have done little to alleviate it.
Such problems were on display recently at the central mosque, where a gang of bedraggled boys, oblivious to the booming calls of the muezzin, begged for pocket change in the courtyard. Asked why they did not enter the mosque for prayers, one of the boys answered sheepishly, “We are too young.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/17/world ... &emc=tha22
Muslims in Moscow Work to Break a Stereotype
MOSCOW — Dozens of women dressed in colorful hijabs and floral dresses gathered under gray skies recently in the garden of a four-star hotel here for a charity fashion bazaar. They tried on styles from local designers and sampled new cosmetics, posing for selfies and dropping sunny filters on the images before posting them to Instagram and Facebook.
“We’re making Muslims the trendsetters,” said Natalia Narmin Ichaeva, a public relations specialist who organized the charity event in May. Ms. Ichaeva, who converted to Islam two years ago, is among a small group of young Moscovite Muslims who are trying to help redefine the image of Islam in Russia.
In recent decades, Islam here has been associated largely with terrorist attacks, two wars against separatists in Chechnya and a continuing insurgency in the North Caucasus. Muslim women in particular have been stigmatized because of so-called black widows, women who become suicide bombers to avenge the deaths of their fathers, brothers and husbands. Russian tabloids and television have reinforced that stereotype.
But in the last year and a half, as turmoil in Ukraine has dominated the news media’s attention, Ms. Ichaeva and others like her saw a new window of opportunity to change perceptions.
The Russian government’s strained relations with the United States and Europe have the Kremlin looking to strengthen ties with other parts of the world, notably China and countries in the Middle East with large Muslim populations. Muslims in Russia have also received a public relations boost from President Vladimir V. Putin’s recent emphasis on conservative values, including religion.
“I noticed Muslims moved out of the spotlight,” said Rezeda Suleyman, a 23-year-old fashion designer. Ms. Suleyman said it had become easier to go out covered and sell her modest clothing to non-Muslim women.
This short documentary shows Muslim activists like Ms. Suleyman and Ms. Ichaeva, as they try to improve the public perception of Islam and raise the the social status of other Muslim women.
As Zulfiya Raupova, a composer who calls herself a secular Muslim, put it, “It’s always a good time to break stereotypes.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/28/world ... otype.html
MOSCOW — Dozens of women dressed in colorful hijabs and floral dresses gathered under gray skies recently in the garden of a four-star hotel here for a charity fashion bazaar. They tried on styles from local designers and sampled new cosmetics, posing for selfies and dropping sunny filters on the images before posting them to Instagram and Facebook.
“We’re making Muslims the trendsetters,” said Natalia Narmin Ichaeva, a public relations specialist who organized the charity event in May. Ms. Ichaeva, who converted to Islam two years ago, is among a small group of young Moscovite Muslims who are trying to help redefine the image of Islam in Russia.
In recent decades, Islam here has been associated largely with terrorist attacks, two wars against separatists in Chechnya and a continuing insurgency in the North Caucasus. Muslim women in particular have been stigmatized because of so-called black widows, women who become suicide bombers to avenge the deaths of their fathers, brothers and husbands. Russian tabloids and television have reinforced that stereotype.
But in the last year and a half, as turmoil in Ukraine has dominated the news media’s attention, Ms. Ichaeva and others like her saw a new window of opportunity to change perceptions.
The Russian government’s strained relations with the United States and Europe have the Kremlin looking to strengthen ties with other parts of the world, notably China and countries in the Middle East with large Muslim populations. Muslims in Russia have also received a public relations boost from President Vladimir V. Putin’s recent emphasis on conservative values, including religion.
“I noticed Muslims moved out of the spotlight,” said Rezeda Suleyman, a 23-year-old fashion designer. Ms. Suleyman said it had become easier to go out covered and sell her modest clothing to non-Muslim women.
This short documentary shows Muslim activists like Ms. Suleyman and Ms. Ichaeva, as they try to improve the public perception of Islam and raise the the social status of other Muslim women.
As Zulfiya Raupova, a composer who calls herself a secular Muslim, put it, “It’s always a good time to break stereotypes.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/28/world ... otype.html
Tajikistan shaves 13,000 men's beards to end radicalism
Police in Tajikistan have shaved nearly 13,000 men's beards and closed more than 160 shops selling traditional Muslim clothing last year as part of the country's fight against what it calls "foreign" influences.
Bahrom Sharifzoda, the head of the south-west Khathlon region's police, said at a press conference on Wednesday that the law enforcement services convinced more than 1,700 women and girls to stop wearing headscarves in the Muslim-majority Central Asian country.
The move is seen as an effort to battle radicalism. Tajikistan's secular leadership has long sought to prevent a spillover of radical traditions from neighbouring Afghanistan.
According to unofficial estimates, there are more than 2,000 Tajiks fighting in Syria.
Last week, the country's parliament voted to ban Arabic-sounding "foreign" names as well as marriages between first cousins.
The legislation is expected to be approved by President Emomali Rahmon, who has taken steps to promote secularism and discourage beliefs and practices that he sees as foreign or a threat to stability of Tajikistan, Radio Liberty said.
© REUTERS/Francois Lenoir A barber shaves a man's beard In September, Tajikistan's Supreme Court banned the country's only registered Islamic political party, the Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan, after months of violence that the government blamed on radical Islamism.
Rahmon has ruled Tajikistan since 1994 and his current presidential term is expected to end in 2020.
In December, the parliament granted the president and his family life-long immunity from prosecution, giving Rahmon the title "Leader of the nation" and officially designating him "the founder of peace and national unity of Tajikistan".
The country of 7.1 million people has struggled with poverty and instability since independence from the Soviet Union more than two decades ago. It remains heavily dependent on Russia where majority of Tajik people go for work.
http://www.msn.com/en-au/news/world/taj ... spartandhp
Police in Tajikistan have shaved nearly 13,000 men's beards and closed more than 160 shops selling traditional Muslim clothing last year as part of the country's fight against what it calls "foreign" influences.
Bahrom Sharifzoda, the head of the south-west Khathlon region's police, said at a press conference on Wednesday that the law enforcement services convinced more than 1,700 women and girls to stop wearing headscarves in the Muslim-majority Central Asian country.
The move is seen as an effort to battle radicalism. Tajikistan's secular leadership has long sought to prevent a spillover of radical traditions from neighbouring Afghanistan.
According to unofficial estimates, there are more than 2,000 Tajiks fighting in Syria.
Last week, the country's parliament voted to ban Arabic-sounding "foreign" names as well as marriages between first cousins.
The legislation is expected to be approved by President Emomali Rahmon, who has taken steps to promote secularism and discourage beliefs and practices that he sees as foreign or a threat to stability of Tajikistan, Radio Liberty said.
© REUTERS/Francois Lenoir A barber shaves a man's beard In September, Tajikistan's Supreme Court banned the country's only registered Islamic political party, the Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan, after months of violence that the government blamed on radical Islamism.
Rahmon has ruled Tajikistan since 1994 and his current presidential term is expected to end in 2020.
In December, the parliament granted the president and his family life-long immunity from prosecution, giving Rahmon the title "Leader of the nation" and officially designating him "the founder of peace and national unity of Tajikistan".
The country of 7.1 million people has struggled with poverty and instability since independence from the Soviet Union more than two decades ago. It remains heavily dependent on Russia where majority of Tajik people go for work.
http://www.msn.com/en-au/news/world/taj ... spartandhp
Dr. Daniel Beben to present at Rice University: Central Asian Islam: A Model of Ecumenicalism
Dr. Daniel Beben – Nazarbayev University – March 24, 2016 – 4 PM – Rice University, Dean of Humanities Conference Room

The practice of Islam in post-Soviet Central Asia has often been characterized in western scholarship as either a superficial phenomenon, lightly imposed upon and ill at ease with native religious and cultural traditions, or, alternatively, as a breeding ground for radicalism and fanaticism.
These dualist characterizations continue to inform many of the discussions concerning the place of Islam in the region today.
In this presentation I will offer an alternative perspective and will explore the critical role that conceptions of tolerance and inclusivity have performed in the history of Islam in Central Asia.
From an early period, the spread of Islam in Central Asia was facilitated by a consensus among religious scholars and officials concerning a broad and inclusive set of criteria for membership within the Muslim community which emphasized the primacy of communal affiliation over orthopraxy. While this history has often been mischaracterized as reflecting a superficial attachment to Islam among Central Asian peoples, I argue in contrast that this approach enabled the enduring presence of Islam in a region that is culturally, linguistically and geographically far removed from the Arab “core” of the Muslim world. I will examine how this emphasis is expressed in early theological writings produced within Central Asia on the topic of conversion, as well as in various hagiographical and “popular” conversion narratives that reflect broader social values concerning the question of membership in the Muslim community.
Finally, this talk will explore the ways in which developments in the region in recent centuries have challenged this older and more inclusive tradition, and will ask how this history of inclusiveness may offer a precedent for ecumenicalism within the Muslim world today.
About:
Daniel Beben’s research focuses on the religious and social history of Central Asia in the early-modern era.
His dissertation explores the history and hagiographical literature of the Ismaili Shia Muslim community of the Badakhshan district of eastern Tajikistan. More.
Source: 2016_0324_CentralAsianIslam : Rice University | Boniuk Institute
https://ismailimail.wordpress.com/2016/ ... enicalism/
Dr. Daniel Beben – Nazarbayev University – March 24, 2016 – 4 PM – Rice University, Dean of Humanities Conference Room

The practice of Islam in post-Soviet Central Asia has often been characterized in western scholarship as either a superficial phenomenon, lightly imposed upon and ill at ease with native religious and cultural traditions, or, alternatively, as a breeding ground for radicalism and fanaticism.
These dualist characterizations continue to inform many of the discussions concerning the place of Islam in the region today.
In this presentation I will offer an alternative perspective and will explore the critical role that conceptions of tolerance and inclusivity have performed in the history of Islam in Central Asia.
From an early period, the spread of Islam in Central Asia was facilitated by a consensus among religious scholars and officials concerning a broad and inclusive set of criteria for membership within the Muslim community which emphasized the primacy of communal affiliation over orthopraxy. While this history has often been mischaracterized as reflecting a superficial attachment to Islam among Central Asian peoples, I argue in contrast that this approach enabled the enduring presence of Islam in a region that is culturally, linguistically and geographically far removed from the Arab “core” of the Muslim world. I will examine how this emphasis is expressed in early theological writings produced within Central Asia on the topic of conversion, as well as in various hagiographical and “popular” conversion narratives that reflect broader social values concerning the question of membership in the Muslim community.
Finally, this talk will explore the ways in which developments in the region in recent centuries have challenged this older and more inclusive tradition, and will ask how this history of inclusiveness may offer a precedent for ecumenicalism within the Muslim world today.
About:
Daniel Beben’s research focuses on the religious and social history of Central Asia in the early-modern era.
His dissertation explores the history and hagiographical literature of the Ismaili Shia Muslim community of the Badakhshan district of eastern Tajikistan. More.
Source: 2016_0324_CentralAsianIslam : Rice University | Boniuk Institute
https://ismailimail.wordpress.com/2016/ ... enicalism/
Tajikistan to install metal detectors, cameras in mosques
DUSHANBE:
Ex-Soviet Tajikistan said Tuesday it plans to install metal detectors and surveillance cameras in more than 70 mosques in the capital Dushanbe over government fears of extremist attacks.
A government source speaking on condition of anonymity told AFP the measure was meant to “track the contingent praying at the mosque, to identify among believers potential followers of Salafism.”
The equipment will be installed at the expense of the mosques and their congregations, a spokesperson of the Dushanbe city administration said.
The secular government of this Central Asian country, which looks to former master Russia for security guarantees, is renowned for its anti-Islamic rhetoric and policies.
Tajikistan shaves beards off 13,000 men to tackle extremism
The government is currently trying members of the opposition Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan (IRPT) on an array of charges including attempting to overthrow the constitutional order and organising a criminal group.
Authorities have accused party members of fanning a wave of unrest that killed dozens of people last year.
A number of international organisations and Western countries have raised concerns that Tajikistan is using the threat of international terror as a pretext to clamp down on the opposition.
The Tajik parliament in January voted to ban “foreign names” for babies as the popularity of Arabic names in the Persian-speaking country has grown.
Tajikistan says more than a thousand of its citizens are fighting in the ranks of the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria, including women and children.
The interior ministry’s special forces chief last year made a shock defection to IS and appeared in a propaganda video criticising the government’s harsh anti-Islam policies.
http://tribune.com.pk/story/1075040/taj ... n-mosques/
DUSHANBE:
Ex-Soviet Tajikistan said Tuesday it plans to install metal detectors and surveillance cameras in more than 70 mosques in the capital Dushanbe over government fears of extremist attacks.
A government source speaking on condition of anonymity told AFP the measure was meant to “track the contingent praying at the mosque, to identify among believers potential followers of Salafism.”
The equipment will be installed at the expense of the mosques and their congregations, a spokesperson of the Dushanbe city administration said.
The secular government of this Central Asian country, which looks to former master Russia for security guarantees, is renowned for its anti-Islamic rhetoric and policies.
Tajikistan shaves beards off 13,000 men to tackle extremism
The government is currently trying members of the opposition Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan (IRPT) on an array of charges including attempting to overthrow the constitutional order and organising a criminal group.
Authorities have accused party members of fanning a wave of unrest that killed dozens of people last year.
A number of international organisations and Western countries have raised concerns that Tajikistan is using the threat of international terror as a pretext to clamp down on the opposition.
The Tajik parliament in January voted to ban “foreign names” for babies as the popularity of Arabic names in the Persian-speaking country has grown.
Tajikistan says more than a thousand of its citizens are fighting in the ranks of the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria, including women and children.
The interior ministry’s special forces chief last year made a shock defection to IS and appeared in a propaganda video criticising the government’s harsh anti-Islam policies.
http://tribune.com.pk/story/1075040/taj ... n-mosques/
Documentary: Dushanbe and the traditional music of Tajikistan
| by ismailimail
|Posted on May 16, 2016
Today, Itineris is taking you to Tajikistan in central Asia, a country bordered by Afghanistan, China, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, to discover its capital, Dushanbe, and the traditional music of Tajikistan.
The Tajiks are very attached to their traditional culture and to their family values and they live out their Muslim religion in open and colourful tranquillity. This gentle lifestyle seems to strike a calm balance between east and west.
https://ismailimail.wordpress.com/2016/ ... ajikistan/
| by ismailimail
|Posted on May 16, 2016
Today, Itineris is taking you to Tajikistan in central Asia, a country bordered by Afghanistan, China, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, to discover its capital, Dushanbe, and the traditional music of Tajikistan.
The Tajiks are very attached to their traditional culture and to their family values and they live out their Muslim religion in open and colourful tranquillity. This gentle lifestyle seems to strike a calm balance between east and west.
https://ismailimail.wordpress.com/2016/ ... ajikistan/
Putin’s Savage War Against Russia’s ‘New Muslims’
Today there are more than 2,000 fighters from Russia on the battlefields of Syria and Iraq fighting on behalf of the Islamic State.
A large number of these fighters are Muslims originating from the Northern Caucasus, a fact that feeds a narrative back in Russia that has been growing since the 1990s.
Many Russians now link the Muslim populations of the North Caucasus with extremism and terrorism. That perception is not entirely without basis: the North Caucasus region has been rent by war, terror and brutal state crackdowns for over two decades.
But the story of the territory is as much about rapid social change as it is about conflict. Russian state policies over the past two decades have done much to build today’s pipeline of radicalized extremists originating from the North Caucasus to spread across Russia and beyond to the battle zones of the Middle East.
When the Soviet Union collapsed 25 years ago, the population of almost the entire Islamic south of the post-Soviet space still lived in traditional rural communities. Chechnya, Dagestan, Ingushetia and other territories of the North Caucasus were among the last regions of Russia to urbanize. The urbanization processes that often take generations were compressed here into two short and violent decades.
This disruption has forced thousands of young men and women from rural mountain villages straight into a 21st century that conflicted with their traditional way of life in which little had changed since the Middle Ages.
Driven by need from the mountain villages of the Caucasus, many left for the big urban and industrial centers of Russia and elsewhere to become truckers, peddlers, marketers, builders, oilfield workers, gangsters, entrepreneurs, dentists, preachers and devout jihadists.
They formed largely unseen transnational networks of migrants who had abandoned their ancient homelands and ways of life, joining the modern age—and in some cases international centers or movements of jihad—in one fell swoop.
The events that drove—and continue to drive—these movements are poorly understood. Yet understand them we must if we are to comprehend the larger developments in that part of the world—including the growing number of fighters from this region prepared to strike within Russia and outside its borders.
I have spent seven years in the field, living among these populations—both those that left and those that stayed—while researching transformation and migration in the highly complex and ethnically diverse North Caucasus, as well as in some large Russian cities, the north of West Siberia (the principal oil-producing area of the country) and Turkey. This article is a summary of some of my findings.
More....
http://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/other/put ... ailsignout
Today there are more than 2,000 fighters from Russia on the battlefields of Syria and Iraq fighting on behalf of the Islamic State.
A large number of these fighters are Muslims originating from the Northern Caucasus, a fact that feeds a narrative back in Russia that has been growing since the 1990s.
Many Russians now link the Muslim populations of the North Caucasus with extremism and terrorism. That perception is not entirely without basis: the North Caucasus region has been rent by war, terror and brutal state crackdowns for over two decades.
But the story of the territory is as much about rapid social change as it is about conflict. Russian state policies over the past two decades have done much to build today’s pipeline of radicalized extremists originating from the North Caucasus to spread across Russia and beyond to the battle zones of the Middle East.
When the Soviet Union collapsed 25 years ago, the population of almost the entire Islamic south of the post-Soviet space still lived in traditional rural communities. Chechnya, Dagestan, Ingushetia and other territories of the North Caucasus were among the last regions of Russia to urbanize. The urbanization processes that often take generations were compressed here into two short and violent decades.
This disruption has forced thousands of young men and women from rural mountain villages straight into a 21st century that conflicted with their traditional way of life in which little had changed since the Middle Ages.
Driven by need from the mountain villages of the Caucasus, many left for the big urban and industrial centers of Russia and elsewhere to become truckers, peddlers, marketers, builders, oilfield workers, gangsters, entrepreneurs, dentists, preachers and devout jihadists.
They formed largely unseen transnational networks of migrants who had abandoned their ancient homelands and ways of life, joining the modern age—and in some cases international centers or movements of jihad—in one fell swoop.
The events that drove—and continue to drive—these movements are poorly understood. Yet understand them we must if we are to comprehend the larger developments in that part of the world—including the growing number of fighters from this region prepared to strike within Russia and outside its borders.
I have spent seven years in the field, living among these populations—both those that left and those that stayed—while researching transformation and migration in the highly complex and ethnically diverse North Caucasus, as well as in some large Russian cities, the north of West Siberia (the principal oil-producing area of the country) and Turkey. This article is a summary of some of my findings.
More....
http://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/other/put ... ailsignout
Vladimir Putin's speech - SHORTEST SPEECH EVER.
Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, addressed the Duma, (Russian Parliament), and gave a speech about the tensions with minorities in Russia:
"In Russia, live like Russians. Any minority, from anywhere, if it wants to live in Russia, to work and eat in Russia, it should speak Russian, and should respect the Russian laws. If they prefer Sharia Law, and live the life of Muslim's then we advise them to go to those places where that's the state law.
"Russia does not need Muslim minorities. Minorities need Russia, and we will not grant them special privileges, or try to change our laws to fit their desires, no matter how loud they yell 'discrimination'. We will not tolerate disrespect of our Russian culture. We better learn from the suicides of America, England, Holland, and France, if we are to survive as a nation. The Muslims are taking over those countries and they will not take over Russia. The Russian customs and traditions are not compatible with the lack of culture or the primitive ways of Sharia Law and Muslims.
"When this honorable legislative body thinks of creating new laws, it should have in mind the Russian national interest first, observing that the Muslims Minorities Are Not Russians."
The politicians in the Duma gave Putin a five minute standing ovation.
Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, addressed the Duma, (Russian Parliament), and gave a speech about the tensions with minorities in Russia:
"In Russia, live like Russians. Any minority, from anywhere, if it wants to live in Russia, to work and eat in Russia, it should speak Russian, and should respect the Russian laws. If they prefer Sharia Law, and live the life of Muslim's then we advise them to go to those places where that's the state law.
"Russia does not need Muslim minorities. Minorities need Russia, and we will not grant them special privileges, or try to change our laws to fit their desires, no matter how loud they yell 'discrimination'. We will not tolerate disrespect of our Russian culture. We better learn from the suicides of America, England, Holland, and France, if we are to survive as a nation. The Muslims are taking over those countries and they will not take over Russia. The Russian customs and traditions are not compatible with the lack of culture or the primitive ways of Sharia Law and Muslims.
"When this honorable legislative body thinks of creating new laws, it should have in mind the Russian national interest first, observing that the Muslims Minorities Are Not Russians."
The politicians in the Duma gave Putin a five minute standing ovation.
Re: ISLAM IN THE FORMER SOVIET UNION
Russian Muslims - Largest Muslim Populated Country in Europe
Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=N_ELRUvXLgI
How did Islam manage to spread in a nation that was famously known for its orthodox Christian values? Today, we'll be discussing how Russia became the country with the largest Muslim population in Europe.
Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=N_ELRUvXLgI
How did Islam manage to spread in a nation that was famously known for its orthodox Christian values? Today, we'll be discussing how Russia became the country with the largest Muslim population in Europe.
Tajikistan: Authorities intensify war on Ismailis, other Muslims
The only figure that the regime deems worthy of open adulation is President Emomali Rahmon.
The Central Mosque in Dushanbe. (Photo: leiris202 / Creative Commons)
Authorities in Tajikistan have within the space of a week forced the closure of two important religious institutions in the capital: a tariqa, or school, used by adherents of the Ismaili Shia faith and a bookshop trading in Islamic literature.
The broadside against the Ismailis, a splinter group of the Shia Muslim faith, fits within a broader pattern of repression of Pamiris, a roughly 230,000-strong minority whose historic homeland in what is known as the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region, have been subjected to a sustained security sweeps over recent months.
The Ismaili Tariqa and Religious Education Board was registered in 2012 at the same time as the opening of the first Ismaili Center in Dushanbe. The location was used by followers of Ismaili Shiism for both secular and religious education.
Sources at the center have told Eurasianet that they have been under pressure from the authorities since May to suspend their educational activities. It has been several weeks since the doors of the premises have been closed to the public.
The Ismaili Center, which houses, among other things, a jamatkhana, a place where followers of the faith gather to pray, remains open, although its future also looks bleak in light of the evolving situation.
The state’s religious affairs committee has made no public statement on the closure of the Ismaili Tariqa and Religious Education Board. Three years ago, however, the committee sent a letter to the organization expressing discomfiture at the fact that the portrait of the Ismaili faith leader, the Agha Khan, had been hung above that of the president, Emomali Rahmon.
In the eyes of the government of Tajikistan, no figure holds a more hallowed status than Rahmon.
Official intolerance toward religion extends further than just the Ismailis, however. The government has taken a hostile stance against Islamic education in general. A decade ago, all the country’s madrasas were shuttered under the pretext that the Education Ministry was drawing up a sanctioned religious curriculum. The doors of the country’s six madrasas never reopened, however.
This past week, the authorities forced the closure of the only bookstore in Dushanbe dealing in religious literature. A spokesman for the state religious committee said the closure was temporary, pending an inspection of the store’s catalogue.
All this has happened despite the fact that around 95 percent of Tajikistan’s population self-describes as Muslim.
The only remaining places for pursuing studies in religious matters is the Islamic Institute in Dushanbe, which lies close to the now-shuttered bookshop. Ninth-grade schoolchildren are also required to complete a History of Religion unit.
The clampdown on religion is even more extensive than that.
Children under the age of 18 are forbidden from visiting the mosque. People under 35 are ineligible to apply to perform the hajj to Mecca. Prayer is not allowed in government institutions and members of the public are in effect prohibited from entering government buildings while wearing a hijab or beards grown as a symbol of Islamic piety. There are no courses available for the study of Arabic. Young people pursuing religious studies have been forcibly repatriated over the past several years.
The only legally operating imams are appointed by the religious affairs committee, from whom they draw a salary. Their sermons are prepared in advance by the committee. Countless mosques have been closed. Little prayer rooms dotted around the country have often been dismantled.
This is all a boon to recruiters of underground groups professing radical forms of Islam. The most notorious of these, the Islamic State, has made the fact of the Rahmon regime’s repression of blameless Muslims a core pillar of its recruiting rhetoric.
https://eurasianet.org/tajikistan-autho ... er-muslims
The Central Mosque in Dushanbe. (Photo: leiris202 / Creative Commons)
Authorities in Tajikistan have within the space of a week forced the closure of two important religious institutions in the capital: a tariqa, or school, used by adherents of the Ismaili Shia faith and a bookshop trading in Islamic literature.
The broadside against the Ismailis, a splinter group of the Shia Muslim faith, fits within a broader pattern of repression of Pamiris, a roughly 230,000-strong minority whose historic homeland in what is known as the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region, have been subjected to a sustained security sweeps over recent months.
The Ismaili Tariqa and Religious Education Board was registered in 2012 at the same time as the opening of the first Ismaili Center in Dushanbe. The location was used by followers of Ismaili Shiism for both secular and religious education.
Sources at the center have told Eurasianet that they have been under pressure from the authorities since May to suspend their educational activities. It has been several weeks since the doors of the premises have been closed to the public.
The Ismaili Center, which houses, among other things, a jamatkhana, a place where followers of the faith gather to pray, remains open, although its future also looks bleak in light of the evolving situation.
The state’s religious affairs committee has made no public statement on the closure of the Ismaili Tariqa and Religious Education Board. Three years ago, however, the committee sent a letter to the organization expressing discomfiture at the fact that the portrait of the Ismaili faith leader, the Agha Khan, had been hung above that of the president, Emomali Rahmon.
In the eyes of the government of Tajikistan, no figure holds a more hallowed status than Rahmon.
Official intolerance toward religion extends further than just the Ismailis, however. The government has taken a hostile stance against Islamic education in general. A decade ago, all the country’s madrasas were shuttered under the pretext that the Education Ministry was drawing up a sanctioned religious curriculum. The doors of the country’s six madrasas never reopened, however.
This past week, the authorities forced the closure of the only bookstore in Dushanbe dealing in religious literature. A spokesman for the state religious committee said the closure was temporary, pending an inspection of the store’s catalogue.
All this has happened despite the fact that around 95 percent of Tajikistan’s population self-describes as Muslim.
The only remaining places for pursuing studies in religious matters is the Islamic Institute in Dushanbe, which lies close to the now-shuttered bookshop. Ninth-grade schoolchildren are also required to complete a History of Religion unit.
The clampdown on religion is even more extensive than that.
Children under the age of 18 are forbidden from visiting the mosque. People under 35 are ineligible to apply to perform the hajj to Mecca. Prayer is not allowed in government institutions and members of the public are in effect prohibited from entering government buildings while wearing a hijab or beards grown as a symbol of Islamic piety. There are no courses available for the study of Arabic. Young people pursuing religious studies have been forcibly repatriated over the past several years.
The only legally operating imams are appointed by the religious affairs committee, from whom they draw a salary. Their sermons are prepared in advance by the committee. Countless mosques have been closed. Little prayer rooms dotted around the country have often been dismantled.
This is all a boon to recruiters of underground groups professing radical forms of Islam. The most notorious of these, the Islamic State, has made the fact of the Rahmon regime’s repression of blameless Muslims a core pillar of its recruiting rhetoric.
https://eurasianet.org/tajikistan-autho ... er-muslims
Amid Crackdown In Restive Region, Tajikistan Targets Properties Linked To Aga Khan
A view of Khorugh, the provincial capital of Tajikistan's restive Gorno-Badakhshan region, where a Central Asia University campus funded by the Aga Khan Development Network is located.
Officials in Tajikistan have taken over several major properties, including a hotel, a lycee, and a city park that are linked to the influential spiritual leader Aga Khan in the country's restive Gorno-Badakhshan region.
Prosecutors this month sought to appropriate a land plot in the provincial capital, Khorugh, where a Central Asia University campus funded by the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN) is located. The land was purchased by the AKDN in the late 1990s, but officials now say the sales were illegal.
The AKDN is a private development agency funded by the Aga Khan, the imam of the Ismaili Shi'ite community. The majority of Gorno-Badakhshan's some 250,000 people identify as Ismailis.
The nationalization of the AKDN properties in Gorno-Badakhshan comes amid a crackdown in the remote, autonomous region that intensified in the wake of anti-government protests there in May 2022.
According to Tajik authorities, at least 10 people were killed, and 27 others were injured on both sides during clashes between protesters and security forces. Local activists, however, say security forces killed more than 50 people, ranging from unofficial local leaders to ordinary protesters.
The land for the Central Asia University campus in Khorugh was purchased by the AKDN in the late 1990s, but officials now say the sales were illegal.
Dozens of people in Gorno-Badakhshan -- including activists, journalists, and community leaders -- have since been arrested in connection with the protests, with many receiving lengthy prison sentences.
Soon after the protests were dispersed by security forces, authorities nationalized a hotel -- the Khorug Serena Inn -- that was built by the AKDN in Khorugh's picturesque Tem area.
The government went on to nationalize a recreational park in Khorugh in August. The AKDN had reportedly invested about $4 million in the remaking of the park between 2004 and 2005.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, sources close to the matter in Khorugh said the Aga Khan Medical Center was to be targeted next. The $25 million facility opened in 2018.
Last month, the government suspended the license of the Aga Khan Lycee that was established in Khorugh in September 1998.
It will be renamed the State Lycee for Gifted Students and operate under the auspices of the Education Ministry.
The Aga Khan Lycee was established in Khorugh in 1998.
Tajik authorities haven't publicly commented on the closure of the AKDN entities. There have been no official statements by the AKDN.
RFE/RL's Tajik Service contacted government officials but didn't receive a response to its queries. AKDN representatives in Khorugh declined to comment.
Dushanbe has struggled to assert control in Gorno-Badakhshan, where so-called informal local leaders enjoy more influence than government officials appointed by the central government.
Recurrent Protests
The region has been the scene of many anti-government protests that are met harshly by security forces over the years. Protest rallies are rare in the rest of the strictly controlled Central Asian nation where dissent is not tolerated.
Dozens of people were killed and wounded in Gorno-Badakhshan in 2012 in a clash between government forces and local militants sparked by the killing of a security official.
In 2014, at least three people were killed and several buildings set on fire in Khorugh in fighting between locals and security forces.
A new wave of protests erupted in Khorugh in November 2021 with up to 5,000 people attending daily rallies, according to local residents. At least one person was killed and several wounded in the protests that were sparked by the fatal shooting of a local man by police.
Anti-government rallies in Gorno-Badakhshan in 2022
The four-day demonstration ended after negotiations between government officials and representatives of the protesters.
The government agreed to protesters' demands that included dismantling police checkpoints and not opening criminal probes against the protest organizers.
But it launched a campaign against the informal leaders and other influential figures in the region -- including those who had left the country.
'Uneasy Relationship'
A longstanding mutual distrust between the government in Dushanbe and the people of Gorno-Badakhshan "is more palpable now than ever," a local political observer told RFE/RL's Tajik Service.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, the Khorugh native reiterated a relatively widespread sentiment that Dushanbe remains cautious of possible separatist ideas as well as the local population's loyalty to the Aga Khan. The majority of people in the rest of Tajikistan adhere to Sunni Islam.
The Aga Khan has visited Tajikistan several times.
Most of the people living in Gorno-Badakhshan, who are also called Pamiris, have their own local languages.
"Suspicions among government officials toward the Aga Khan organizations have particularly deepened since the 2022 protests. Some officials even seem to believe these agencies provide financial backing to those who nurture separatist ideas, but this is a baseless suspicion," the expert said. "The Aga Khan and his agencies don't need or seek instability here."
Edward Lemon, a Central Asia expert at Texas A&M University, says that "while the Aga Khan is their spiritual leader and Pamiris do have their own languages and religion, there is no viable pathway to independence or desire to be formally independent."
"What Pamiris are seeking is their right to live a dignified life autonomously from government interference and repression," he told RFE/RL. "But the government will not allow this."
Lemon described the relationship between the Aga Khan and the Tajik government as "uneasy."
Authorities in Tajikistan have never publicly alluded to any mistrust toward the AKDN presence in the country.
The Aga Khan addresses his followers in Tajikistan.
In the early 2000s, Tajik President Emomali Rahmon maintained what seemed to be a cordial relationship with the current Aga Khan -- Shah Karim al-Husseini -- who visited Tajikistan several times.
The Aga Khan, 86, last traveled to Tajikistan in 2012.
The AKDN first launched its projects in Tajikistan in the 1990s, providing humanitarian assistance to the country amid civil war.
The AKDN expanded its operation to other spheres, including education, finance, and health care, employing some 3,500 people across the country at its peak. It's not known how many jobs were affected by the recent appropriation of the agency's properties.
Written and reported by Farangis Najibullah with additional reporting by RFE/RL Tajik Service correspondent Mirzonabi Kholiqzod
https://www.rferl.org/a/tajikistan-crac ... 20966.html
Re: ISLAM IN THE FORMER SOVIET UNION
7 Russian States with a Majority Muslim Population
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_23SLaKDETo
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_23SLaKDETo