Politicizing Islam In Central Asia

A sweeping history of Islamism in Central Asia from the Russian Revolution to the present through Soviet-era archival documents, oral histories, and a trove of interviews and focus groups. Few observers anticipated a surge of Islamism in Central Asia, after seventy years of forced communist atheism. Muslims do not inevitably support Islamism, a modern political ideology of Islam. Yet, Islamism became the dominant form of political opposition in post-Soviet Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. In Politicizing Islam in Central Asia, Kathleen Collins explores the causes, dynamics, and variation in Islamist movements-first within the USSR, and then in the post-Soviet states of Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan. Drawing upon extensive ethnographic and historical research on Islamist mobilization, she explains the strategies and relative success of each Central Asian Islamist movement. Collins argues that in each case, state repression of Islam, by Soviet and post-Soviet regimes, together with the diffusion of religious ideologies, motivated Islamist mobilization. Sweeping in scope, this book traces the dynamics of Central Asian Islamist movements from the Soviet era through the Tajik civil war, the Afghan jihad against the US, and the foreign fighter movement joining the Syrian jihad.

Political Islam and Democracy in Central Asia is a study of moderation of political Islam in Central Asia. It analyses the only Islamic political party that was ever allowed to participate in elections in Central Asia and contributes to the debate on the radicalization or moderation of Islamic political parties. The book examines the Islamic Revival Party of Tajikistan (IRPT), which has been the only legal Islamic party in post-Soviet Central Asia until 2015 and has been recognizing by many observers as moderate. Studying the ideological change of the party, which happened after its inclusion into political process, the book identifies their moderation as either tactical or ideological. The author examines and describes the main factors that led the IRPT toward moderation, with a focus on the inclusion-moderation hypothesis, which concludes that inclusion can lead to moderation. Based on extensive analytical data, the author provides reasons for the moderation of the Tajik Islamists. It also challenges the ideological moderation of the Tajik Islamists by examining their attitudes towards the conventions of the modern democratic political system. A detailed analysis of moderate Islamism and its controversial challenges for the modern world, this book will be of interest to researchers in the fields of Political Science, electoral politics, Islamic studies and Area Studies, with particular reference to Central Asia.

"The introduction sets forth the two sets of questions that motivate this book. First, under what conditions does Islam become the language and the defining character of political opposition movements? Why has this Islamist mobilization taken place in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, whereas in Kyrgyzstan, civil Islam-rather than Islamism-has predominated? And why have three distinct waves of Islamist organizations and movements emerged and mobilized from the 1980s through the 2010s? Second, why do some Islamist organizations achieve relatively high mobilization, attracting a mass following, whereas many others remain fringe groups, or disappear altogether? What strategies do Islamists employ to win a social base? Are ordinary people attracted to any of the multiple Islamist movements that have surfaced? The chapter also reviews the book's country cases and the Islamist movements within each country, as well as the research methodology"--

First Published in 2001. This volume contains the proceedings of the international colloquium held by the IAS Project in October 1999. These papers deal with the modem and contemporary history of Central Eurasia, for a comprehensive reflection on various phenomena that led to a political valuation of Islam under non-Muslim domination, whether Russian or Chinese, since the beginning of the 18th century. A comparative approach to the current situations in the Russian Federation and the newly independent states of Central Asia has allowed us to study the various modes of the political instrumentalization of Islam, by both political power and opposition, in such various areas as the Ferghana Valley in Uzbekistan and the Volga-Urals region of Russia.

The assumption that the Central Asian states would, on independence, fall under the sway of fanatical Muslim clergy subject to the dictates of neighbouring Iran has so far proved less than accurate. In fact, there has been a far greater religious diversity in the region than was first anticipated. This apparent misconception as to the monolithic nature of Islam in Central Asia has been largely due to the scarcity of information under the closed Soviet system, and the peripheral status of the region of the geo-political calculations of the West. Mehrdad Haghayeghi's book offers a more sophisticated understanding of the dynamics of Islam in these loosely interrelated republics.

Political Islam and Democracy in Central Asia is a study of moderation of political Islam in Central Asia. It analyses the only Islamic political party that was ever allowed to participate in elections in Central Asia and contributes to the debate on the radicalization or moderation of Islamic political parties. The book examines the Islamic Revival Party of Tajikistan (IRPT), which has been the only legal Islamic party in post-Soviet Central Asia until 2015 and has been recognizing by many observers as moderate. Studying the ideological change of the party, which happened after its inclusion into political process, the book identifies their moderation as either tactical or ideological. The author examines and describes the main factors that led the IRPT toward moderation, with a focus on the inclusion-moderation hypothesis, which concludes that inclusion can lead to moderation. Based on extensive analytical data, the author provides reasons for the moderation of the Tajik Islamists. It also challenges the ideological moderation of the Tajik Islamists by examining their attitudes towards the conventions of the modern democratic political system. A detailed analysis of moderate Islamism and its controversial challenges for the modern world, this book will be of interest to researchers in the fields of Political Science, electoral politics, Islamic studies and Area Studies, with particular reference to Central Asia"--

During the 1990s, there was a general consensus that Central Asia was witnessing an Islamic revival after independence, and that this occurrence would follow similar events throughout the Islamic world in the prior two decades, which had negative effects on both social and political development. Twenty years later, we are still struggling to fully understand the transformation of Islam in a region that’s evolved through a complex and dynamic process, involving diversity in belief and practice, religious authority, and political intervention. This volume seeks to shed light on these crucial questions by bringing together an international group of scholars to offer a new perspective on Central Asian states and societies. The chapters provide analysis through four distinct categories: the everyday practice of Islam across local communities; state policies toward Islam, focusing on attempts to regulate public and private practice through cultural, legal, and political institutions and how these differ from Soviet policies; how religious actors influence communities in the practice of Islam, state policies towards the religion, and subsequent communal responses to state regulations; and how knowledge of and interaction with the larger Islamic world is shaping Central Asia’s current Islamic revival and state responses. The contributors, a multidisciplinary and international group of leading scholars, develop fresh insights that both corroborate and contradict findings from previous research, while also highlighting the problem of making any generalizations about Islam in individual states or the region. As such, this volume provides new and impactful analysis for scholars, students, and policy makers concerned with Central Asia.

Adeeb Khalid combines insights from the study of both Islam and Soviet history in this sophisticated analysis of the ways that Muslim societies in Central Asia have been transformed by the Soviet presence in the region. Arguing that the utopian Bolshevik project of remaking the world featured a sustained assault on Islam that destroyed patterns of Islamic learning and thoroughly de-Islamized public life, Khalid demonstrates that Islam became synonymous with tradition and was subordinated to powerful ethnonational identities that crystallized during the Soviet period. He shows how this legacy endures today and how, for the vast majority of the population, a return to Islam means the recovery of traditions destroyed under Communism.