Qibla and the Government House: The Islamist Networks

Abstract

�� he Islamic revival in Central Asia seems to have been as surprising as the collapse of the Soviet Union for Western scholars. The two are closely associated, for the dormant seeds of atavist identities could only grow in the rubble of the Soviet construction. The swift establishment of networks between local and international Islamic and Islamist organizations has provided the fertilizer for this revival. However, an unsophisticated look at Central Asia as another frontier of a clash of civilizations is wrong. Islamist movements have not spurred the appearance of broad, multi-ethnic, multinational identities, but have remained concerned with local politics. They are opposition movements with an Islamist twist. During the Soviet period, Central Asia was almost totally isolated from the rest of the Muslim world. 1 From 1924 to 1941, Moscow launched a direct offensive against all aspects of Muslim social life. Afterwards, limited religious freedom was allowed under the auspices of an official clergy (muftiyya) based in Tashkent, the current capital of Uzbekistan. Meanwhile, in the countryside, unofficial clerics maintained the basic tenets of Islam, even though all mosques were closed. The Muslims of Central Asia took advantage of perestroika to establish or re-establish links with the Muslim world very quickly. Foreign support strengthened this re-islamization trend upon the independence of the Central Asian republics in 1991. The bulk of these new contacts had little to do with Islamic political radicalism. Foreign-based religious movements, like the Pakistani Jamiat ut-Tabligh, sent teams of missionaries into Central Asia to