298
BABADJANOV, MALIKOV,
NAZAROV
ethnic and linguistic diversity within the khanate and greatly weakened Islamic
rules and Islamic institutions there. It is no exaggeration to say that the internal
relationships and actual structures of government in Kokand were based more on
the traditions and principles of nomadic nations than on Islam.
When Russia invaded Central Asia to colonize it, generals Mikhail G. Cherniaev
and, later, Konstantin P. von Kaufman attacked Kokand. The
Kokand Khanate
lost a significant piece of territory, but inside Kokand a bloody struggle for power
continued. Rebellions were raised against Khudayar Khan, who was accused of
collaborating with the Russian infidels. These uprisings persisted from 1869 to
1876, and were mounted under the banner of
jihad (holy war). The succession
of revolts prompted the imperial government in February 1876 to eliminate the
Kokand Khanate as a state. Thereafter, the territory of Kokand was merged with
the already colonized parts of Turkestan, as Russians then referred to the main
part of Transoxiana.
Due to their dependence for funds on the government in Kokand, religious in-
stitutions, and especially schools, were gravely affected by the destruction of the
Kokand state. They lost state funding in the form of
waqf donations,
2
and that left
them fully dependent on donations from private individuals, which often led to
abuses. Overall, religious education declined precipitously, even though privately
supported religious training increased. As noted in earlier chapters, this private
tradition proved very useful during the Soviet era, for when almost all the institu-
tions of religious education (
maktabs and
madrassas)
3
were closed, citizens revived
teaching
in the so-called hujras (private religious study groups).
At the same time, the destruction of Kokand’s statehood led to a very different
phenomenon among Muslims of the Ferghana Valley. The regulations of sharia law
had not been closely observed under the Kokand Khanate,
4
but the elimination of the
khanate led to an immediate strengthening of the populace’s Islamic identity. The
frequent calls of theologians for the community to respect sharia law appeared as a
natural form of self-defense in the face of invasion by “aliens” and “infidels.” The
khanate and its officials had been perceived as political symbols and champions of
Islam, and their fall had led to confusion among most Muslims, the more so since
they had been destroyed by Russians who, of course, were perceived as invaders
and infidels.
5
This explains why the local
ummah, or religious community, whose
leaders called increasingly for a return to sharia law in the realm of private life,
searched out new ways of emphasizing local identities separate from association
with the infidels.
It is no coincidence that one of the most significant Turkestani uprisings against
the Russians occurred in May 1898, in the very
heart of the Ferghana Valley,
Andijan. Its leader, Madali Ishan (Dukchi-Ishan), advocated the re-establishment
of an Islamic state. In his secret letters he appealed to the spiritual symbol of a
single Islamic Caliphate to be established under the Turkish pasha Abdul Hamid II
(1876–1909), who claimed the title of Caliph of the Muslims.”
6
Both in the period
of the Russian Revolution and in the late-Soviet period and era of independence,
ISLAM IN THE FERGHANA VALLEY 299
this notion of a caliphate, an Islamic state, and other versions of Islamic autonomy
were to be reborn again and again. The majority of Muslims in the region did not
respond
to the calls for jihad, but Dukchi Ishan found strong support locally.
The February Revolution of 1917 gave rise to a transitional government in St.
Petersburg that had no desire to lose those territories in the Caucasus and Central
Asia that had been incorporated into the Russian Empire. In protest, the notion
of Islamic autonomy (
mukhtoriyat) blossomed once more in the Ferghana Valley.
In 1918 in the city of Kokand there was an attempt to establish an autonomous
state based on Islamic principles. Even though the Kokand Republic limited its
demands to religious and cultural autonomy and did not seek to secede from
Russia, the Bolsheviks brutally suppressed it.
7
The episode reminds us that the
idea of recovering a lost Islamic state and reaffirming lost Islamic values has
been imprinted on the minds of people in the Ferghana Valley for a long time.
To the faithful, such diverse events as the declaration of Kokand’s autonomy
or the Andijan uprising of 1898 appeared as stages in the struggle not only for
independence but for Islam as well, and as symbols of the assertion of an Islamic
self-identity.
Soviet rule divided the Ferghana Valley among three Soviet republics. The main
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