Journal of Muslim Affairs, Vol. 24, No.

1, April 2004

Explaining Islam in Central Asia: An Anthropological Approach for Uzbekistan

RUSSELL ZANCA
Abstract The debate about religion in Central Asia, and specically Uzbekistan, revolves either around the need to combat extremism as terrorism or the necessity for the state to stop oppressing ordinary believers in fear of a religious takeover of the society. This paper shall demonstrate that neither of these hypothetical axes is necessarily bad or wrong, but they leave out crucial factors explaining the rise in religious behavior and practice in Uzbekistan today. Using ethnography, my discussion will show how religious movements in Uzbekistan can be seen as part youth rebellion and part opposition to the current monolithic Uzbek political system. The paper will demonstrate that religion in Central Asia operates as a force reaching beyond its politicization to the social fabric of daily life. It will highlight the legacy of Central Asian Islam, especially the Islam of the various schools of thought that characterize Uzbekistans cities as well as the population-dense Ferghana Valley. In concluding, I will argue that people, whether religious or not, are not simply prey to extremists and that ignoring contemporary culture and history as a Muslim Uzbek people makes broad comparisons to countries such as Pakistan and Afghanistan ill-informed.

Introduction Unless we contemporary scholars are theologians or historians of religion, it is very rare these days to discuss Islam in any terms other than those bespeaking totalizing, crisis-driven, introductory, or a damage-control-type discourse.1 Actually, this has pretty much characterized mainstream Western social science about Islam since the early 1990s and continues so a fortiori since 2001.2 As an anthropologist with more than a decades worth of Central Asian eld research experience, mainly in Uzbekistan, it recently struck me that those of us who work closely with and share our lives with ordinary people do not usually have much to say about any of this. Of course, we read the ofcial reports from governments and NGOs, and we pay attention to the press and its coverage of Central Asia.3 We try to keep up with all manner of scholarly and semi-scholarly advice that colleagues peddle to governments and interested parties about how likely Uzbekistan is to fall prey to Muslim zealots,4 and how vital explanations are, if we are to avoid the rise of another totalitarian, theocratic state or some increasingly powerful movement that seems hell-bent on destroying the kind of Central Asian society that we wish to see at least partly erected or created in our own image. Today I address the limitations of an approach that forever tries to explain Islam in Uzbekistan by dichotomizing the bad, violence-prone zealotsthe IMUers and Hizbut-Tahriritesand the good people of traditional Central Asian Islam, long established
ISSN 1360-2004 print/ISSN 1469-9591 online/04/010099-09 2004 Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs DOI: 10.1080/1360200042000212142

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adherents of the liberal Hana madhab and Sustic ordersthe least ofcial and orthodox wing of the faith5even if we admit that obviously there are such things as good and bad Muslims as well as good and bad Christians, policemen, hairdressers, dog groomers, etc. Instead, I claim that we are going to have a hard time accounting for the growth or decline of religious tendencies and movements in Central Asia if we keep looking only at (1) structures, such as secretive cells and militaries, (2) agents, such as political leaders and key oppositionist or terrorist personalities, (3) policies, such as state persecution of religion, or (4) the economics of prosperity and poverty. Rather, we also need to include culture (I dare say) in the sense of the transmission of religious values and the kinds of habitual practices and beliefs that inform and guide the everyday lives of millions of Uzbeks. It is the sustained effect of such cultural norms and values that I think will play the greatest role in maintaining a heterogeneous outlook toward religious beliefs and practices in Uzbekistan, and that will militate against radical schools of Islamic thought and action. Culture itself, more than good or bad policies, key individuals, or economic growth or decline, will serve as the greatest impediment to extremist success.

Where is Islam in the Explanations? While the analysis of a social scientist is possible (about IslamRZ) and valid, it should be undertaken only if based on reliable knowledge and an understanding of the phenomenon or movement, especially in a sphere related to religion.6 First of all, one of the most popular misconceptions of non-specialists (including neighbors and university colleagues) as a result of the War on Terror is the idea that traveling and working in a country such as Uzbekistan puts an American in serious danger. This way of thinking is guided not by any interest in why theres a growing interest and turn toward religion. Rather, its now simply about the dangers of an Islamic resurgence in the consciousness of tens of thousands of Central Asians and the supposed fact that at the very least each one of these people is a potential terrorist. Is there a danger of radical and violent Islamism in Central Asia? Of course there is, but is it fair to see every devout Muslim as (1) a more or less criminally insane individual who uses his/her understanding of Gods Word to smite each non-Muslim who crosses his/her path, (2) a hostile person of the too righteously offended camp, or (3) as a Palestinian-type shaheed (martyr)/suicide bomber? Most likely not. If before we had to question how it came to be that Westernization and free market activity were simply matters or processes to be described whereas the return to Islamic traditions and practices had to be explained because one was simply normal and right and the other backward and extremist, now we have to probe how a return to a religious tradition can only be the source for hatred and violence. Talal Asad pointed to this egregious double standard in the analysis of Muslim societies more than ten years ago.7 He meant that the underlying assumption was that a return to Islamic values and traditions had to be analyzed as something aberrant because the Western model was so self-evidently better, or at least self-evidently more progressive. Of course, not all Western and secular scholars are guilty of this, but some have been.8 How likely would it be to nd anyone applauding a return to values that focus on hard work, clean living, family togetherness, empathy toward others, material sharing with the poor, reconciliation with abused or mistreated spouses, and a life dedicated to ending addictions to

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alcohol and drugs? Not very many, if these values are those promoted by ordinary Muslims of modern Central Asia. One of the great shortcomings that so many of us have who wish to engage Islamic movements and activities on the part of individuals, myself included, is our lack of depth of Islam itself. Students of Islamic rebirth in Central Asia continue to talk around religion itself, preferring mainly to focus on political aspects of religious organizations, or on their allegedly violent activities and recruitment strategies. This point was recently brought home by Bruce Grant, when he said that the time has come for all of us wishing to make meaningful contributions about religion and society or religion and culture in Central Asia and the Caucasus to engage religion itselfmeaning the specic textual understandings and behavioral activities that guide peoples lives and give them meaning.9 It is really up to us to begin to conduct the kind of eldwork that engages people about their beliefs and understandings of the places they live in as well as to examine the texts that guide their lives and that impart inspiration and action to Central Asians. In fact, a better kind of explanation really has to be our goal in looking at religious thought, practice, and activity in Central Asia today. This strikes me as especially important in anthropology, a eld where practitioners work very closely with people in ordinary life conditions seeking to make someone elses common sense sensible to those with rather different senses of common sense. Not long ago Eric Wolf urged anthropologists to desist shying away from knowing anything because of all the complexities and mysteries associated with the ways by which others reckon and speak reality.10 It strikes me as scholarly irresponsible not to try to explain the worlds of others with the mindfulness that you will make mistakes and write inaccuracies here and there, according to any number of indigenous and non-indigenous people. Valid but Partial Explanations Often, the two prominent reasons for a return to Islam and the taking up of extremist banners relate to the ideological void left in the wake of Soviet power and the grinding poverty that affects nearly all areas of Central Asia, and to some extent these may be partly just and functional reasons.11 But I would like to add a third, and that is independence itself in the form of competing nationalist ideologies and newly independent state histories. In the past dozen years, Central Asia has become a much more divisive inter-ethnic area than was true throughout the Soviet period. Governments demonize one another and ordinary citizens are made to fear outsiders to such an extent that neighboring Central Asians face discrimination in extraterritorial circumstancesbusiness travel, weddings, scholarship, etc.hitherto unimaginable for most who grew up under the Soviet system12. What better way out than Islam is proposed? A politicized Islam that opposes current Central Asian state ideologies naturally eschews ethnic difference and calls upon all faithful people to come together as a community of believers who share so much through Islamic dogma and teachings. The substance of this type of argument is hardly original, but we should not underestimate the loss of pride and prestige associated with the former Soviet Union.13 Coming together through religion is not simply a matter of lling an ideological or spiritual void; to manyyouth includedit has become a practical strategy for asserting an almost dormant identity that contains the power of history, the power of greatness.14 If, as we have long argued, the Soviet system unofcially discriminated against and disparaged the cultures of Central Asians, then why should people,

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especially youth, turn to new nationalist rhetoric that only serves to support newer forms of chauvinism in the name of ethnic pride and when the results only seem to serve increasing isolation, decreased economic opportunities, and outright antagonism among newly forming states?

Ethnography Can Explain Islam Too Much like Franz Boas in a general context and Clifford Geertz with reference to Islam, I tend to privilege the local and particular cases of cultural expression, not because of sui generis color so much as the breaking apart of stereotypes and the provisioning of confounding data.15 Precisely what we younger scholars have been able to show in our work in Central Asia over the past dozen years is why Uzbeks and others do not do things and do not believe in things just like neighboring Afghans, Pakistanis, and Iranians. Yes, there are dangers across nearby borders, and there are forces of extreme intolerance and orthodoxy who move across borders and would like to take political power, but I will wager my reputation as a scholar that boundaries, armies, and weapons are not going to function nearly as well as the tool of culture, which includes the history of Muslim heterodoxy, Muslim conformism (twentieth century recognition and endorsement of the Hana Spiritual Directorate), personal religious experience, and three generations worth of Communist militancy. These inuences that are a part of the fabric of everyday life and experience are not going to be wiped away in a few years or a few decades. What really motivated me to address this body and take on this topic concerns my sojourns in places such as Namangan, Andijan, and Osh provinces of Uzbekistans and Kyrgyzstans Ferghana Valley (FV). After all, since the late 1980s we have been beaten over the head with the idea that this overcrowded and largely poor region is about to boil over with seething masses of white skull capped men who are forever on the verge of slaughtering one another (Uzbeks and Kyrgyz, for one), and then taking state power. Yes, we know that violent types have come from the FV, that Uzbekistans president is not exactly a popular fellow in Namangan and Andijan,16 and that FV men happily participate among Bin Ladens forces and those of the now deceased eponymous warrior from Namangan. Space and time limit my exploration of FV tropes, of course, so I will stop here, but I will address some of my encounters with Islam, if you will, in order to show that there is another way to explain it. I preface my ethnographic examples by saying that I had nearly completely positive experiences in learning the little bit that I know of Islam a la Uzbek from men and women and boys and girls. I was never made to feel ashamed or embarrassed of my own positions about religion, and I almost always felt comfortable discussing religious matters whether or not I had initiated such chats. Now I provide a few examples of what I call living Islam in Uzbekistan, and I hope that maybe we as scholars can begin to think about more serious and formal ways to address these kinds of experiences and everyday life realities in our research.

Living Islam: Personal Narratives I never knew how to pray, but now I come to the mosque almost every morning when Im home. It really makes me feel very peaceful and relaxed. I like that. (50-year-old truck driver from a small village near Andijan)

Explaining Islam in Central Asia Youre a Christian right? Thats good because you know our two religions share about 90% of our views in common. (Elderly school principal in a Namangan village) YMN: Arent you going to come with us to pray? RZ: Are you sure its o.k.? Im a Christian, you know. YMN: It doesnt matter to me. You believe in God. Dont you want to know how we pray? (Young man from Namangan, YMN) Islam has helped me put my life back together. You remember the way I was, running around chasing women, smoking and drinking, and neglecting my family back in Ferghana. My faith has given me a totally new orientation toward life. Islam is the only answer. I feel that I have a lot more control over myself and my actions now. (Nursery school teacher now living in Tashkent) I really dont know the dogma like a learned person, but I try to read a lot now. Im able to say prayers for commemorations and parties, so I think I really help out people in our village. Many young people they dont know about proper behavior, taking care of your neighborhood, and treating people properly. Now I see that this is my role as an elder. I try to council young married people because we have so much divorce, and thats a terrible thing for children. I dont say you cant have a drink, but dont drink to excess, Islam provides us the right model to live. (Retired Soviet naval ofcer in a Namangan village) They call me a mullo, but I really have no religious training. I know some things about Islam and God gives me strength to help people and provide good advice. This country has gotten so bad, so corrupt. Everything coming from the state is practically a lie. If I didnt have my belief in God, Im sure Id go crazy. Religion could help us create a better society. (Village exterminator in his early 40s, who was arrested and forced to serve ve years in prison shortly after I left in 1996. Drugs and a pistol were found in his house, and he was alternately labeled a Wahabist and a member of Hizb-ut-Tahrir; see Table 1 for a contemporary piece of Uzbek humor on this very theme17)

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Although all of these examples are fairly supercial, they instantiate a desire and a willingness both to make me understand what Islam means in the lives of ordinary people as well as to try to make me feel that I am pretty much just like everybody else. I could go on at length about all of the ceremonies and rituals that I took part in without anyone ever questioning if they were appropriate for a non-Muslim. Because I never focused my research on religion per se, I never really thought many of these experiences through thoroughly, but now I am beginning to see how vastly different this way of relating to and explaining Islam is because of emphases now functional, now conciliatory. Before moving on to the nal substantive section of this essay, I wish to reiterate that I am not disparaging other approaches to explaining Islam in Central Asia, but merely pointing out that each has great limitations, and that some ignore what people think as well as avoid the substance of religion itself.

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TABLE 1. Contemporary Uzbek humor from the Ozod Ovoz website

Uzbek humor Toshkentning markaziy maydoni hisoblangan Mustaqillik maydonida onlab kishilar va bir nechta militsiya xodimining koz ongida bir kishi ayolni oldirib, beymalol maydondan chiqib ketdi va goyib boldi. Halq shovqin-suron kotarib, militsiya xodimlarini soka boshladi. Keyinroq Ichki Ishlar Vazirligiga qongiroq qilishdi. Voqea sodir bolgan joyga darhol general yetib keldi va militsiya xodimlariga tashlandi:

English translation On Tashkents Independence Square, a man murders a woman in cold blood before tens of people and a few cops. The murderer easily works his way out of the crowd and disappears. The crowd raises hell and begins to curse at the cops. A while later they call on the Ministry of Internal Affairs to intervene. Upon nding out what happened, a commanding ofcer from the said ministry immediately appears at the scene, and lashes out at the cops: You do-nothings, why didnt you detain the murderer? You sons-of-bitches! Ill re all of you. The cops then respond: Comrade General, were sorry, but the fact is that today we forgot to take narcotics and Hizb-ut-Tahrir leaets with us.

Bekorchilar, nega qotilni ushlamadinglar, hammangni ishdan xaydayman, itvachchalar! Militsionerlar generalga javoban: Aybdormiz, ortiq general, bugun ozimiz bilan narkotik v Hisbut-Tahrir varaqlarini olishni unutubmiz!

History and Legacies Inform Religious Commitments If we agree that people in Uzbekistan have become interested or become activists with regard to religion in great and increasing numbers since 1991 cutting across classes, regions, sexes, age groups, etc., then we must also admit that poverty, state oppression, the void left in the wake of Communism, and external governments and organizations taken together still cannot be the only factors accounting for the renewal in faith. What happened, instead, after 1991 was a process whereby people began to feel freer about behaving religiously in public, but also gradually began to sense the whiffs of oppression as orthodox practitioners began vying for political power. In many regions of Uzbekistan, including the east, Tashkent, southern areas and the west, Islam has rarely if ever been characterized by a single tradition, and the original texts of faith have always been challenged by pre-Islamic and non-Islamic beliefs that have been incorporated into mainstream Islam. In addition to a decentralized and synchronic nature, Islam in Uzbekistan has long become interwoven with the beliefs and practices of mountainous and steppe cultures for which Muslim beliefs were carefully selected and incorporated into polytheistic or deistic traditions. To Central Asians the tendencies have rarely proved immiscible, extending back to the eighth century. Whereas concerns with militant and anti-Semitic groups such as the IMU and Hizb-ut-Tahrir must be a cause of some concern, their arguments in favor of jihad and the recreation of the seventh century Caliphal power are very likely to fall mainly on deaf ears, save for those who are committed to radical change through violence toward the existing state and society in order to change the course of Uzbekistan for the better. Often there is a single source of participants for this kind of methodnamely, disaffected youth who seek to make a great difference in life. Many may come from the rural and large impoverished families of the hinterland, but many also hail from comfortable urban families. Far from desperation uniting these forces, it is the sincere

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belief that only they may alter the course of society for the good of all under Gods watchful eye. Rebellious youth suffer only from the inability to see the vitality of past practice as well as the meaning with which people imbue old and well-respected practices. Therefore, it may well be as people such as Fuller argue that Islamist organizations greatly concern themselves with social services and inner city institutions, but in Uzbekistan their willingness to act as parastatal bodies, now regulating behavior and dress, now attacking shrine sites as un-Islamic, probably harms their ability to gain adherents more than charismatic and idealistic sermons. In essence, we see that actions not only speak louder than words but also make the heterodox Muslims of Uzbekistan realize that the activities afoot contravene long held cultural norms of tolerance and respect for hybridized belief systems. External religious inuences are also no mean matterMuslim activists of Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and the United States all have practices and orientations toward Islam that compete for popularity in Uzbekistan. However, the competitors are mistaken when they fail to acknowledge or respect indigenous Central Asian religious histories, too. Soviet power did not erase religious knowledge from all Central Asians. Many varieties of Islam have coexisted in Central Asia since the late seventh century, including Hana Sunnism, Ismaili Shiism, Naqshbandi and Yassawi branches (tariqat) of Susm, and the neglected importance of awliya (saint) worship. This last category is a ubiquitous form of Islamic worship in Central Asia today, and the work of Abramson and Karimov provides a cogent expose of how zealously orthodox people undermine their own efforts to deepen religious commitment in a vital area of daily and widely spread Islamic practice.18 The ideologues cannot seem to understand that the useless and enervating debates of correct and incorrect Islam will remain forever moot as well as prevent them from reaching their goal. In a recent study that I consider unique, empirical, and informed, a team of young Uzbek sociologists tapped into the attitudes of more than 700 youths (aged 1825) who are studying in all kinds of higher education institutes in Tashkent. While one may rightly argue that it is only a sample of a range of Uzbek youthsnamely, those pursuing education in the rst placethe results nevertheless reveal important facts about how youth learn about religion. Overall, 70% claim to have received their background in religious knowledge from parents and grandparents, not from peers or religious specialists. And to provide one more relevant example, over 40% claim afliation with mainstream and conformist Hana Sunnism, while another 40% claim little knowledge of madhabs overall.19 The study is the only one of its type, and what it shows is little in the way of a religious radicalization of youth during a time when more and more young people claim to believe in and rely on God as well as claim that religious belief and knowledge are important for the psychological well being of society on the whole. One must hope that this kind of study will be the shape of things to come as scholarship in Uzbekistan slowly recovers from the disintegration of the USSR. Conclusion Uzbekistan is not Afghanistan, and it is not Pakistan. In fact, to realize just how different its society and culture are, I advise those interested to read recent books by Edwards and Jaffrelot, respectively.20 What I have tried to demonstrate in this paper is that there are many ways to discuss and talk about religion or Islam in Uzbekistan that go beyond simple dichotomies, or that aim at grand sweeps of the religion or the idea

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of containing threats, reversing ominous trends, etc. At the same time, I am not unaware of some of the dangers posed to individuals and societies by violent organizations, repressive states, and their uncritical international supporting partners. Nevertheless, I have tried to show that an anthropological approach to religion in Uzbekistan should aim at engaging sources of religious knowledge and practice as a result of signicant and patient eldwork as well as focus on what people say religion means in their everyday lives, especially during a prolonged period of economic and social degradation. I conclude my essay with the words of Clifford Geertz on studying Islam: A descent into the swirl of particular incident, particular politics, particular voices, particular traditions, and particular arguments, a movement across the grain of difference and along the lines of dispute, is indeed disorienting and spoils the prospect of abiding order. But it may prove the surer path toward understanding Islamthat resonant name of so many things at once.21

NOTES
1. Stephen Schwartz, Two Faces of Islam, New York: Doubleday, 2002; Vartan Gregorian, Islam: A Mosaic Not a Monolith, Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 2003; Bernard Lewis, What Went Wrong? The Clash Between Islam and Modernity in the Middle East, San Francisco: Perennial, 2003. 2. Daniel Pipes, Militant Islam Reaches America, New York: Norton, 2002. 3. International Crisis Group Report, Central Asia: Islam and the State, ICG Asia Report No. 59, Osh/Brussels, 2003. 4. Pauline Jones Long and Erika Weinthal, New Friends, New Fears in Central Asia, Foreign Affairs, March/April 2003, pp. 6170. 5. Evgeniy Abdullaev, The Central Asian Nexus: Islam and Politics, in ed. Boris Rumer, Central Asia: A Gathering Storm?, Armonk, NY and London: M. E. Sharpe, 2002, pp. 245298. 6. Bahtiar Babadzhanov, Islam in Uzbekistan: From the Struggle for Religious Purity to Political Activism, in Central Asia: A Gathering Storm?, op. cit., pp. 299330. 7. Talal Asad, From the History of Colonial Anthropology to the Anthropology of Western Hegemony, in ed. George Stocking, Colonial Situations: Essays on the Contextualization of Ethnographic Knowledge, Vol. 7 in History of Anthropology, Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1991, pp. 314324. 8. Leonard Binder, Islamic Liberalism, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988. 9. Personal communication in Cambridge, MA at the 2003 Central Eurasian Studies Society Annual Meeting. 10. Eric Wolf, Facing PowerOld Insights, New Questions, American Anthropologist, 1990, pp. 586 596. 11. Abdumannob Polat, The Islamic Revival in Uzbekistan: A Threat to Stability?, in eds Roald Sagdeev and Susan Eisenhower, Islam and Central Asia: An Enduring Legacy or an Evolving Threat?, Washington, DC: Eisenhower Institute, 2000, pp. 3957; Abdullaev, The Central Asian Nexus, op. cit.; Ahmed Rashid, Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam in Central Asia, New York: Penguin Books, 2003; Olivier Roy, The New Central Asia: The Creation of Nations, New York: New York University Press, 1997. 12. The Tajik anthropologist Zulaikho Usmanova makes a strong argument on such national mythologizing regarding the states attempt to counteract mahalgorai (communityism) or regionalism in Tajikistan. 13. Eric Sievers drives this point home in his recent book about the failure of Western aid in Central Asia. See Eric Sievers, Post-Soviet Decline of Central Asia: Sustainable Development and Comprehensive Capital, London: Routledge Curzon, 2003. 14. Ibid. 15. Franz Boas, A Franz Boas Reader: The Shaping of American Anthropology, 18831911, ed. George W. Stocking, Jr., Chicago: University of Chicago Press; Clifford Geertz, Which Way to Mecca?, New York Review of Books, 12 June 2003, pp. 2730.

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16. Of course, the anthropologist Morgan Liu points out the paradox of ethnic Uzbeks of Kyrgyzstans Osh who revere President Karimov, mainly because he is a co-ethnic and they live in the land of hostile neighbors. More to the point, Karimov is their symbol for retaining Uzbek values and characteristics that are not widely shared culturally throughout Kyrgyzstan, including patriarchal authority and almost complete deference to elders. 17. The point of the humor is to show that in Uzbekistan the state is only really interested in going after criminals if it can tie them to religious cum terrorist activity. In this instance, wanton murder is treated as a minor matter because the police have not taken the things they need to plant on the person to have him arrested and prosecuted as a religious extremist. That the subject matter of humor was altogether different during the Soviet period bespeaks a repression of religious people and their activities in ways far worse than that characterizing the past 50 years of Soviet power. 18. David Abramson and Elyor Karimov, Sacred Sites, Profane Ideologies: Religious Pilgrimage and the Uzbek State, unpublished essay, 2004. 19. E. E. Karimov and K. K. Kalonov, Yoshlarda Dunyoqarash Uighunligi (Revelations from Youth Worldviews), Toshkent: Islom Universiteti va Ozbekiston Yosh Olimlar Millii Jamiati, OzR FA Tarikh Instituti (Islam University and Uzbekistans Young Scholars National Society, Uz Republic Academy of Sciences), 2003. 20. David Edwards, Before Taliban: Genealogies of the Afghan Jihad, Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002; Christophe Jaffrelot, ed., Pakistan: Nationalism without a Nation?, London: Zed Books, 2002. 21. Clifford Geertz, Which Way to Mecca?, op. cit.