Civil Society:
UZBEKISTAN: ISLAM AND KARIMOV
Igor Rotar: 3/11/05
A EurasiaNet Partner Post from TOL

Over the past half-year, the Uzbek authorities have brought at least three court cases against Uzbek members of the Tabligh Jamaat movement. The nature of the group lies in the name, literally a “society disseminating the faith.” That faith is Islam. Tabligh’s origins lie a long way from modern-day Uzbekistan, in 1920s colonial India, where its founder, Mohammed Ilyas, set himself the task of returning stray Muslims back to the fold and shepherding them away from the influence of the Hindu majority. Starting in the 1970s, the group began to spread throughout the world, reaching Central Asia in the 1990s.

The re-emergence of Tablighs in Uzbekistan is one more piece of convincing proof that the Uzbek authorities, for all their efforts over the past 14 years, have been unable to control religious life in the country and that new organizations are emerging. The authorities believes Tablighs are a political threat and in December 2004 claimed that the group was to lead a holy war, or jihad, against the government. Traditionally, though, the Tablighs have eschewed politics and Uzbek Tablighs insist they are interested only in teaching the Koran. That claim did little to help their case in Uzbek courts: Uzbek law bans missionary work. The three trials ended in imprisonment.

Since the mid-1990s, President Islam Karimov has in effect been trying to turn Islamic religious organizations into branch offices of the president’s ideological department. Funding for new mosques from, for example, Saudi Arabia is not allowed. All mosques have to be registered with various branches of the justice system; all of them are overseen by the Spiritual Directorate of Uzbek Muslims, effectively the right hand of the secular authorities in the religious arena. Teaching religion in private is a criminal offence in Uzbekistan. But would-be students of official schools, or madrasahs, immediately learn that they will be learning politics as well as studying the Koran. Mir Arab Kobiljon Sodyqov, director of the largest madrasah in Central Asia, in Bukhara, says that students are asked their political views in the admissions interview. A typical question, he says, might be the date of the Uzbek president’s birthday and a would-be student might, for example, be asked to recite the lyrics of the anthem of Uzbekistan.

Unofficial Islam persists despite state controls. Some groups, such as the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan and whoever was responsible for a spate of bombings in spring 2004, would be commonly accepted as terrorist organizations. In addition there are three important groups, including the Tablighs, that fall outside state control and are seen as subversive and militant political forces. A fourth, the Sufis, command great influence. Together, they provide a sense of the spectrum of unofficial Islamic thought in Uzbekistan and of the challenge that the authorities face.

SALVATION IN A CALIPHATE: HIZB UT-TAHRIR

The group most frequently mentioned as an example of informal Islam is Hizb ut-Tahrir, an international movement whose aim is to unite the world’s Muslims into one state, or caliphate. In the eyes of the Uzbek authorities, they are terrorists. Merely carrying Hizb ut-Tahrir leaflets is punishable by several years in prison. To Western ears as well, the group’s ideology might seem odious. Hizb ut-Tahrir says Western democracy is unacceptable for Muslims and views countries such as the United States, Britain, and Israel as scions of the devil. Its rhetoric is typically and openly anti-Semitic. The group’s leaflets, distributed illegally in Uzbekistan, call Karimov a “Jewish kafir,” or infidel. An Uzbek member of Hizb ut-Tahrir interviewed by TOL expressed regret that Hitler had not exterminated all Jews.

But it would be wrong to label Hizb ut-Tahrir a terrorist organization or to say that it advocates terrorism, at least if we judge by their history, tradition, and stated beliefs and by the lack of evidence that they have planned any terrorist attacks. Uzbek members of Hizb ut-Tahrir interviewed by TOL emphasize their denunciation of violent struggle. A caliphate can be established only when the majority of Muslims in Uzbekistan are ready for one, they argue. Members of Hizb ut-Tahrir see their main task as spreading their ideas among the population.

For Muhammad Sodyq Muhammad Yusuf, the former chief mufti of Uzbekistan, the way to deal with Hizb ut-Tahrir is through argument, not punishment. The government’s punitive policy is a fundamental mistake, he asserts. “Such a policy creates a halo of great martyrdom around the members of Hizb ut-Tahrir. The right way would be to have discussions with the members of Hizb ut-Tahrir. Competent theologians would be able to prove how untenable their views are.”

The group finds the overwhelming majority of its supporters among relatively young men (the average member is probably aged around 30) from traditional sections of Uzbek society, among market traders and peasants. Remarkably, most of those TOL spoke to knew little or no Russian; practically all educated Uzbeks speak Russian fluently, a legacy of the Soviet era.

The success of Hizb ut-Tahrir feeds off political discontent. And anti-Western sentiment is largely a reflection of that. A large majority of Uzbeks consider contemporary Uzbekistan to be the embodiment of Western democratic standards (a characterization of Karimov’s authoritarian regime that few, if any Westerners would accept). Uzbeks can often be overheard saying that the Western model of development has brought poverty, corruption, and prostitution to the country.

ADVOCATES OF A PURE ISLAM: THE WAHHABIS

There is one form of Islam that most Uzbek Muslims are united in disliking. “The moment two imams quarrel, they immediately start calling each other Wahhabis,” says Muhammad Sodyq Muhammad Yusuf. But, he continues, “In reality, here in Uzbekistan, the word ‘Wahhabi’ is nothing but a label that Muslims apply to any believer whom, for some or other reason, they do not like.”

The label is also used in another generic way: it is applied in Uzbekistan to pious believers who do not attend officially registered mosques. Such believers prefer not to communicate with official imams; for them, these imams are merely ordinary state officials. This does not make them Wahhabis, proponents of an austere version of Islam popular in Saudi Arabia. But the distinction makes little difference to the authorities: suspected Wahhabis are ensnared by planted drugs or weapons and sentenced to long prison terms.

There are a small number of Muslims in Uzbekistan who could be considered adherents of the Hanabali school of Sunni Islam. (The predominant school in Uzbekistan is Hanafi.) Although Wahhabis also come under the Hanabali umbrella, it is probably more correct to refer to Uzbek adherents of the Hanabali school as Salafites, supporters of Islam as it was at the time of the Prophet Mohammed. In Uzbekistan, the Salafites have made their austere presence felt most publicly in their opposition, for example, to the opulent funerals and weddings popular among Uzbeks. “Those customs were established under the Soviet regime: an Uzbek has to invite hundreds of guests to his wedding. Such customs bring ruin to the already poor population of Uzbekistan!” I often heard among the Salafites. They also oppose the veneration of holy places and expensive gravestones, practices they believe are idolatrous cults. Wahhabis were blamed in the mid-1990s for the destruction of several grandiose tombstones, but to date there is no compelling evidence that Uzbek Salafites (or Wahhabis) advocate the violent overthrow of the Uzbek government.

ISLAM’S MYSTICS: THE SUFIS

By contrast with the Wahhabi-Salafites and members of Hizb ut-Tahrir, Uzbekistan’s Sufis feel safe. “We have no problems with the authorities,” insists Sheikh Ibrahim, informal leader of the country’s Sufi adherents. “We are poets and mystics who are not interested in the political issues. Anyone who shows an interest in politics is not a Sufi. The state understands that we are of no danger to it and does not disturb us.”

Sheikh Ibrahim’s standpoint is partially true. Tashkent is primarily afraid of Islamic fundamentalists who call for a return to original Islam stripped of local customs. In this respect, Sufism, which has incorporated many local customs, is an effective alternative to fundamentalism. For example, according to one popular belief, a visitor to the mausoleum of Bahauddin Naqshbandi, the founder of the most important Sufi order (tarikat) in Uzbekistan, should enter with his left foot first. Near the mausoleum, there is a tree believed to date back to Naqshbandi’s lifetime. If you walk round it three times, it is said, your wishes will come true.

But Sheikh Ibrahim is also partially wrong. “At least 25 percent of Muslims in Uzbekistan use elements of Naqshbandi [teaching] in their religious practice,” says Gulchekhra Navruzova, a doctoral candidate in Bukhara specializing in Sufism. Sufism is, then, a potent cultural force, and the authorities are monitoring its development. Followers of Naqshbandi Sufism report (on condition of anonymity) that members of the National Security Service (SNB), the Uzbek successor to the KGB, sometimes monitor their meetings and have warned believers not to hold meetings in private apartments. The SNB is particularly suspicious of muridism, seeing this form of Islamic discipleship as the potential core of a terrorist organization. If so, Sheikh Ibrahim himself must be a major suspect: he has founded a khanaka, a Sufi monastery, near Kokand where he teaches his murids. According to Muhammad Sodyq Muhammad Yusuf, Sheikh Ibrahim has some 3,000 disciples, all of them ready to fulfil his will without demur. After a number of terrorist acts in spring 2004 the SNB hauled in many sheikhs and pirs (mystics) for interrogation.

These are but three of the main unofficial Islamic groups in Uzbekistan. Increasingly, it seems, religious belief and practice in the country is becoming mosaic-like in quality, despite all the efforts exerted by the Uzbek authorities against these groups and others, like Akramiya, whose leader is serving a 15-year prison sentence for terrorism. Repression of unofficial Islam has not led to its suppression.

Faced with this reality, the authorities face a series of tough questions. Would it be better to adopt a more liberal religious policy? That would bring these groups into the open, allowing the authorities to gain a truer sense of their character, influence, and size. It might also possibly enable them to infiltrate and control the groups with greater ease. By repressing unofficial Islam, the authorities are creating religious groups that have to behave conspiratorially. Might they, one day, begin to think conspiratorially? Ultimately, the question for the authorities is therefore whether they risk becoming a victim of their own policy.