Politicizing Islam in Central Asia

Description

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.

Reviews

"Remarkable in scope and depth, drawing on everything from interviews in the Ferghana Valley to jihadi propaganda in multiple languages, Collins' book is a contender for the definitive work on the rise of militant Islamism in Central Asia." - Thomas Hegghammer, Senior Research Fellow, Oxford University, and author of The Caravan: Abdallah Azzam and the Rise of Global Jihad and Jihad in Saudi Arabia

"A groundbreaking study of Islamism's evolution in Central Asia, Kathleen Collins' remarkable feat of scholarship should be required reading for all serious analysts and observers of this important region. Collins' book offers irrefutable evidence that religious freedom is the best counterterrorism policy." - Mike Croissant, US government counterterrorism officer (ret.)

"Politicizing Islam covers a lot of ground and is based on a massive amount of sustained original research. Collins traces three waves of Islamist mobilization, each one a response to state repression. Her use of interviews and focus groups allows her to bring society back in into the analysis. She makes a clearly thought-out argument on the basis of impressive research." - Adeeb Khalid, Jane and Raphael Bernstein Professor of Asian Studies and History, Carleton College, and author of Making Uzbekistan and Islam After Communism

"Collins achieves something extraordinary in this masterful and careful analysis of Islamism in Central Asia. Based on years of in-depth interviews, archival materials, and other sources, Collins traces the emergence of Islamist movements, from the moderate and democratic to the radical and militant in Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. Along the way, she reveals the lived experiences of many Kyrgyz, Tajik, and Uzbek religious believers. Without demonizing Islam or sensationalizing Islamism, Collins enriches our understanding of both Soviet and post-Soviet religious repression and its unintended consequences: making Islam more resilient and fostering a religious basis for political opposition. Anyone endeavoring to understand the fabric of modern-day Central Asia should closely read Collins' scholarship." - Steve Swerdlow, Associate Professor of the Practice of Human Rights, University of Southern California, and former Senior Central Asia researcher at Human Rights Watch

Table of contents

List of Figures
List of Images
List of Tables
List of Maps
Acknowledgements
Technical Note
List of Acronyms
PART I
Introduction
1: Secular Authoritarianism, Ideology, and Islamist Mobilization
PART II: The USSR Politicizes Islam
2: The Russian Revolution and Muslim Mobilization
3: The Atheist State: Repressing and Politicizing Islam
4: Muslim Belief and Everyday Resistance
PART III: Tajikistan: From Moderate Islamists to Muslim Democrats
5: The Islamic Revival Party Challenges Communism
6: A Democratic Islamic Party Confronts An Extremist Secular State
7: The Attraction and Limits of Islamist Ideas in Tajikistan
PART IV: Uzbekistan: From Salafists to Salafi-Jihadists
8: Seeking Justice and Purity: Islamists against Communism and Karimov
9: Making Extremists: The Uzbek Jihad Moves to Afghanistan
10: The Attraction and Limits of Islamist Ideas in Uzbekistan
PART V: Kyrgyzstan: Civil Islam and Emergent Islamists
11: Religious Liberalization and Civil Islam in Kyrgyzstan
12: Emergent Islamism in Kyrgyzstan
13: The Attraction and Limits of Islamist Ideas in Kyrgyzstan
PART VI: From Central Asia to Syria: Transnational Salafi-Jihadists
14: Central Asians Join the Syrian Jihad
15: From Central Asia to Afghanistan, Syria, and Beyond
Appendix
Glossary
Index