A EURASIAN ISLAM? (A vision on the position and evolution of Islam and Islamism in former Soviet Central Asia and the Caspian)
Abstract
Scenarios of “balkanization,” “Talibanization” and “revolutionary contamination from Iran” of the southern Soviet rim were popular in the early 1990s. These concerns were understandable since they came at times when the world was simultaneously confronted with nationalist wars in the Balkans, the appearance of several newly independent states with Muslim majorities in the former Soviet space and the outbreak of a number of armed conflicts in this
part of the world (Tajikistan, Nagorno-Karabakh), the first Gulf war as well as Islamist movements turning seriously wrong in Afghanistan and Algeria. Reality turned out to be more complex. The purpose of this article is to tackle a number of conventional truths about Islam in the region and to point out certain sociological factors which, in my opinion, will determine the evolution of Islam and Islamism in former Soviet Central Asia and the Caspian
In this analysis, I define the region as a space with six states that emerged from the U.S.S.R. and where the majority of the population is, at least nominally or traditionally, of the Islamic faith: Ka zakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and, on the other side of the Caspian, Azerbaijan. In average, in 2004, 80 percent of the population in this region was or is at least considered to be Muslim.1 The large majority of the 52.3 million Muslims in the region, historically known as Turkistan, are of Hanafi Sunni tradition.2 Certains micro-regions and communities are of Chafii Sunni tradition (in some parts of Tajikistan and Azerbaijan notably) while there are Twelver Shi‘ites (a two-thirds majority in Azerbaijan, a substantial minority in Uzbekistan) as well as Ismaili Shi‘ites (in the eastern part of Tajikistan).3
The earlier use of the expression “nominally or traditionally of the Islamic faith” is not at random. This is a part of the Islamic world where the position and practice of Islam developed along different lines than those in “classical” Islamic countries. So what are the main characteristics of Islam in this space?
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This is an average calculated on figures ranging from 47 percent of Muslims in Kazakhstan to 93,4 percent in Azerbaijan.
Turkistan (“land of the Turks” in Farsi) and Mawara’un Nahr (“land between the rivers” in Arabic) are two historical names for Central Asia. Nowadays, the whole region is situated in the periphery of the Islamic world yet it was not always so. The Persian Samanid Emirate, for example, used to be a major cultural and economic center in the tenth century, just like the Turkic Ghaznavid Sultanate between 975 and 1187. On the other bank of the Caspian, Derbent, which is situated north of Azerbaijan, also used to be a regional religious center between the eight and tenth centuries.
The former Soviet Ummah is not limited to the 52.3 million Muslims in Central Asia and the Caspian but also in-cludes about 16 million people of Muslim background in Russia (the Northern Caucasus, Moscow and other urban centers and the Volga-Ural region). The number of Muslims in Russia differs according to the source and census criteria and var-ies from 9 to 20 million (see: J. Radvani, “Neskolko otvetov na nepostavlenniy vopros: islam i perepis naseleniia 2002 goda v Rossii,” Kazanskii Federalist, KIF-IFEAC, No. 1 (13), Winter 2005, pp. 82-90). Islam and the Muslim communities in Russia are also in a flux, for part of the Muslims are assimilated into maintream Russian culture. Moreover, Islam in Rus-sia is no longer a matter among the country’s traditionally Muslim ethnic groups (Tatars, Bashkirs and North Caucasians in particular) but also of the hundreds of thousands of migrant workers from Central Asia and the Caspian.
According to previous research, this ranges from 8 to 10 percent in Kazakhstan to 34 percent in Uzbekistan. For more data on the religious practice among former Soviet Muslims see: S. Kushkumbaev, “Islam v Kazakhstane i etnicheskaia identichnost,” Kazanskii Federalist, KIF-IFEAC, No. 1 (13), Winter 2005, p. 99 for Muslims in Kazakhstan; T. Dadabaev,
How does Transition Work in Central Asia? Coping with Ideological, Economic and Value System Changes in Central Asia,” Central Asian Survey, No. 26 (3), September 2007, p. 414 for Uzbekistan; T. Faradov, “Religiosity and Civic Cul-ture in Post-Soviet Azerbaijan: A Sociological Perspective,” in: A.B. Sajoo, Civil Society in the Muslim World: Contempo-rary Perspectives, Institute for Ismaili Studies and IB Tauris, London, 2002, pp. 194-214 for Azerbaijan; and J. Radvani,op. cit. (cf. note 3), p. 89, for data on the Tatars in Russia.
For a discussion of some characteristics of the “ex-Soviet Ummah,” see: G. Yemelianova, “The Rise of Islam in Muslim Eurasia: Internal Determinants and Potential Consequences,” China and Eurasia Forum Quarterly, Vol. 5, No. 2,2007, pp. 75-76 as well as M. Laruelle, S. Peyrouse, “Globalnie protsessi transformatsii identichnosti i religioznosti: posts-ovietskii islam,” Kazanskii Federalist, KIF-IFEAC, No. 1 (13), Winter 2005, pp. 7-27.
Despite the official atheism and the anti-religious campaigns in the U.S.S.R., religion including Islam was co-opt-ed by the state in the 1940s in the form of so-called Spiritual Directorates. These were founded to coopt potentially restive Soviet Muslims and for internal as well as international propaganda purposes (see: O. Roy, La nouvelle Asie centrale ou la fabrication des nations, Seuil, Paris, 1997, pp. 96-97). Most states in the region have taken over the Soviet system of “gov-ernmental Islam” in the form of a muftiate or a religious affairs bureau in order to keep maximum control over Islam and the clergy. In certain cases, a “tamed,” politically correct Islam and state clergy have become outright channels for the re-gime’s ideology (Uzbekistan, to a lesser extent Tajikistan) or for the personal glorification and even outright canonization of the president (Turkmenistan under Saparmurad Niyazov). Note that “governmental Islam” is not a Soviet invention but was a concept inspired by republican Turkey.
An example of the use of Islam to legitimate a secular power elite were billboards with quotes from the Tajik pres-ident Emomali Rakhmon that I saw right near the entrance of the mausoleum of Zain-Ul-Abdin in Jilikul when I was there in late 2006.
The regular appearance of the transnational Hizb-ut-Tahrir movement, which is said to be present everywhere in the region except Turkmenistan but of which noone knows the real strength and capacity, is one example of such instru-mentalization. Other examples include: the shady role of the Russian expeditionary Border Guards in Tajikistan during the incursions of guerrilla fighters of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan in Batken and Uzbekistan in 1999 and 2000; sev-eral blasts and violent incidents in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan between 2002 and 2007 which were never claimed or eluci-dated and showed to be of nonpolitical criminal nature, yet quickly attributed to “Islamic radicals” and in many cases fol-lowed-up by official restrictive measures against Islam.
For Uzbekistan and Turkey, see: The Pew Global Attitudes Project, Views of a Changing World. How Global Pub-lics View the War in Iraq, Democracy, Islam and Governance, and Globalization, and Project No. 44 Final Topline Results,The Pew Research Center, June 2003, available at [www.people-press.org], pp. 39 and 115. From the same project, Among Wealthy Nations, the US Stands Alone in its Embrace of Religion, The Pew Research Center, Washington DC, December 2002, available at [www.people-press.org] and Global Gender Gaps, May 2004, The Pew Research Center, available at [www.pewglobal.org]. For Azerbaijan, see: T. Faradov, op. cit. (cf. note 4), pp. 194-214.
In mid-2006, an ethnic Kyrgyz policeman from the area of Tokmaq, where there is a Dungan community, told me:
Our Dungan neighbors are more Muslim than we Kyrgyz. Look what happens. They drink less, work better and we have less problems with narcotics with their youth than with ours. That’s why they live better than us.”
For theoretic approaches in this regard, see, amongst others: O. Roy, L’Islam mondialisé, Seuil, Paris, 2002,pp. 68-71; P. Beyer, Religion and Globalization, Sage Publications, London, 1994, pp. 71-73.
At the individual level, increasing horizontal mobility certainly influences the perception of Islam and its place in society. A Tajik Muslim and labor migrant from Kofarnigan told me, for example, that it was much easier for him to find diverse literature about Islam in Kazan, the Russian city where he works part of the year, than in Tajikistan itself. Likewise,others who travel outside of the former Soviet space see, for instance, that Islam in Turkey is something totally different than what happens in Afghanistan and conclude that Islam and modernity can coexist despite of what the conventional wisdoms and propaganda in their country of origin say.
E. Usubaliev, Etnitcheskaia kharakteristika i osobennosti identifikatsii musulman Kyrgyzstana, ISAP, Bishkek,available at [tazar.kg], 9 February, 2008, pp. 4-5; T. Dadabaev, op. cit. (cf. note 4), pp. 413-415.
International Crisis Group, Azerbaijan: Independent Islam and the State, ICG Europe Report No. 191, 25 March,2008, pp. 2, 10; B. Bakir, L. Fuller, “Azerbaijan: ‘Alternative Islam’ Takes Several Forms,” Eurasianet, available at [eurasianet.org], 16 August, 2007.
Attempts by several of the region’s governements to create national ideologies or identities around certain myths—
he cult of Timur in Uzbekistan and Manas in Kyrgyzstan, the Rukhnama in Turkmenistan and the pre-Islamic Persian-Aryan civilization in Tajikistan—and a folkloristic practice of what is presented as “national traditions” are, in my opinion, set to fail. The reason is that they are artificial, neo-Soviet (a cult of “national heroes” that is a carbon copy of the Lenin cult) and very top down concepts that are to minimize the role of Islam in people’s identities, but that touch little wood in society at large. Islam, by contrast, is historically present in the region even if it is in a flux and if observance is limited. It is also a part of a wider global cultural sphere in full motion.
The relevance of the discredit of “Western democracy” in the Islamic renewal process is also pointed out by Igor Rotar (“Zigzagi postsovetskogo islamizma. Musulmanskii renessans v stranakh SNG prinimaet protivorechivye formy,”Nezavisimaia gazeta, 5 March, 2008). Ironically, several presidential parties in countries with authoritarian regimes bear the term “democracy” in their names (Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan).
Some doubt this by pointing to the emergence of a politically indifferent and passive middle class in countries like Ka-zakhstan or Azerbaijan (e.g. R. Weitz, :Kazakhstan: The Emerging Middle Class Thinks Money, not Democracy,” Eurasianet,available at [eurasianet.org], 11 March, 2008). I have two remarks in that respect. First, what some analysts and observers con-sider to be the middle class are people whose material and outward lifestyle indeed much ressembles that of the American and European middle classes, but who are sociologically not a middle class (see also: A. Rasizade, “Azerbaijan Descending into the Third World after a Decade of Independence,” Journal of Third World Studies, No. 21 (1), Spring 2004, pp. 191-219 in this re-gard). Rather, they are part of the bureaucratic-economic elite and its entourage. Second, this is not to deny the appearance of proto-middle classes, primarly in the capitals and certain economic centers like Almaty, who are, at present, primarily focused on ma-terial and financial gain. Nevertheless, this does not mean that they will stay politically passive in the future.
H. Yavuz, “Is there a Turkish Islam?” Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, Vol. 24, No. 2, 2004, pp. 213-232.
For more detail on the coming into existence of a russophone Islam, see: S. Gradirovskii, “Kulturnoe pograniche:
usskii islam,” Kazanskii Federalist, KIF-IFEAC, No. 1 (13), Winter 2005, pp. 47-51; R. Muhametchin, “V poiskah reli-gioznoi identichnosti,” Kazanskii Federalist, KIF-IFEAC, No. 1 (13), Winter 2005, pp. 77-80; A. Malashenko, “Islam, the Way We See It,” Russia in Global Affairs, No. 4, October-December 2006.
There is a similar process in other parts of the Islamic world, like Pakistan for instance.
This being said, even if there are no homegrown regional equivalents of a Fetülla Gülen (though his movement is active in the region), Tariq Ramadan or Heydar Jemal, nor a tradition of faith-based social work and philanthropy like in Turkey, younger, independent and educated religious opinion leaders do appear in the region. Examples include Elgar Ibrag-imoglu and Azer Ramizoglu in Azerbaijan. Another example, though more ambiguous, is Mohammad Sadiq Yusuf, the former mufti of Uzbekistan who was in exile between 1993 and 2000, and amnestied after that. He maintains a certain au-thority and independence vis-à-vis the Tashkent regime and communicates amongst others through his portal site islam.uz.
Graphic created by the author.
See: I. Rotar, op. cit. (cf. note 16); A. Papas, “The Sufi and the President in post-Soviet Uzbekistan,”, ISIM Review,¹ 16, Fall 2005, pp. 38-39. A Tajik political scientsit who works on religious issues told me the following in this regard: “Sufism is indeed a historical given in this region. But nowadays, it especially tends to be idealized by certain sympathetic audi-ences in the West and in Russia. They tend to overestimate its importance. It is not a change factor, on the contrary. Much has degraded. Sufism here is by far not the dynamic movement that it is in Turkey or among Muslim immigrants in Europe, for example.” Besides that, among the hundreds of young clerics who got religious training outside of the former Soviet space,many have religious knowledges that are far more solid and contemporary than those of local Sufi sheikhs.
See: M. Laruelle, “Russo-Turkish Rapprochement through the Idea of Eurasia,” The Jamestown Foundation, Oc-casional Paper, April 2008, p. 4, T. Ataev, “Religionznoe obramlenie geopoliticheskoi borbi,” Islam v Rossiiskoi Feder-atsii, 13 May 2008.
See: I.K. Korostelev, “Povorot na Vostok,” Islam v sovremennom mire: vnutrigosudarstvennii i mezhdunarodno-politicheskii aspekti, No. 3-4 (9-10), 2007, available at [www.islamrf.ru/islammodern]; idem, “‘Islamskii vektor’ vo vneshnei politike sovremennoi Rossii: tekhnologiya proriva,” Islam v sovremennom mire: vnutrigosudarstvennii i mezhdunarodno-politicheskii aspekti, No. 2 (8), 2007; D.B. Malysheva, “Rossiya v poiskah novogo partnerstva na musulmanskom Blizh-nem Vostoke,” Islam v sovremennom mire: vnutrigosudarstvennii i mezhdunarodno-politicheskii aspekti, No. 1 (7), 2007.
This perception is fed by memories on the financial and military support given by the U.S. and, especially, by the intelligence services of U.S. allies like Pakistan and Saudi Arabia to extremist Sunni guerillas against the Soviet occupa-tion force and the Communist regime in Afghanistan during the 1980s. Of more recent date but along the same lines is the popular idea that the Salafist guerrillas in Chechenia and other parts of the Northern Caucacus receive various forms of support from Anglo-American intelligence services (see, for example: S. Yuriev, “Neft v obmen na detei: terroristy vypol-niaiut zakaz tekh, komu nuzhen ukhod Rossii s Kavkaza,” Komsomolskaia pravda, 3 September, 2004; M. Alexandrov,Rossiiu vydavlivaiut iz Zakavkaziya,” Krasnaya Zvezda, 6 September, 2004).
The evolution of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan and its leader Tahir Yuldosh since 2001 and 2002 is most interesting in this regard. Heavily reduced and based in the Pakistani tribal areas of Waziristan now, it seems that they no longer have a real agenda and strategy for Uzbekistan but that they were absorbed into a larger Taliban and al-Qa‘eda nexus that fights the Anglo-American and govermental forces in Afghanistan.
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