ISLAM IN THE FERGHANA VALLEY 363
30. This mainly concerned theologians of Tashkent. See Bakhtiyar M. Babadzhanov, “The
Journal ‘
Haqiqat’ as a mirror of the religious dimension of the Jadids ideology,”
Islamic Area
Studies,
2007, pp. 54–56. See also
Kengash, “Islomning khozirgi kholati,” no. 2, 1924, p. 2.
31. “Islomning khozirgi kholati,” p. 2.
32. These directions were not valid at the time of Russian colonization, because the
majority of local intellectuals (especially theologians) concluded that during the Russian
reign the territory of Turkestan remained as Dar al-Islam (Land of Islam) or Dar al-Ahd
(Land of Unity). Moreover, the colonial administration did not impede the management of
religion and maintained the sharia courts, however dividing their proceedings into “sharia”
and “empire” crimes. Nor did it directly interfere in the system of denominational education.
See Babadzhanov, “Russian
Colonial Power,” p. 78.
33. In the early Soviet period, religious education in the Ferghana Valley was maintained
only inside families for security reasons. The organizers of such “classes” were called
Qori-
pochcho khujralari
(“Qori-pochcho” means “relative reading the Qur’an”). However, the
study was limited to reading prayers and selected chapters of the Qur’an
. Usually, this was
the first sura al-Fatiha, and the last four ayats of the Qur’an, Ayat ul-Kursi (Qur’an
, 2:251),
and some prayers (
du’a). These “domestic
hujra” have survived until now in towns and
villages of the Ferghana Valley.
34. See Babadzhanov et al., “Disputes on Muslim Authority,” pp. 10–16, as well as the
texts published in the volume of treatises by Hindustani.
35. Other meanings of the term
mudjaddid in modern Arabic are restoration, rebirth,
and renewal.
36. Recall, for example, that followers of the spiritual leader of the 1979 Iranian Revolution,
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, referred to him as the “reviver of the fifteenth Millennium.”
37. In a private library in Andijan we discovered the famous commentary on the Qur’an
by Sayid Qutb (
Fi zilal il-Qur’an [Under the shadow of the Qur’an] with a gift inscription
to Rahmatullaha-allam on behalf of Faysal al-Filastini.
38. Spiritual Administration of the Muslims of Central Asia (SADUM).
39. According to verbal communications from 1997 to 2004 with a number of theologians
in Tashkent and in the Ferghana Valley.
40. From Bakhtiyar Babadjanov’s archive (one of the authors of this chapter.)
41. These forms increase the adaptability and survival of
mazhab.
42. Scholarly studies, especially in the West, often use such terms as “official Islam”
and “parallel Islam, or “official mullah” [clergy] and “parallel mullah.” The first definition
means to the circle of imams and theologians who served
in the system approved by
authorities—organizations like SADUM and its mosques. At the dawn of Soviet power they
were also called “red” or “public” mullahs. “Parallel Islam,” according to the Soviet scholar
of Islam Alexander Bennigsen and his followers, was represented by those theologians who
covertly opposed the Soviet power. However, this characterization of Islam and the positions
of theologians in the Soviet period seemed too simplistic, and certainly did not reflect the
substance of debates that took place among religious scholars.
43. The exceptions are those religious and political groups that became part of the
well-known foreign organizations as Hizb ut-Tahrir and Tablighi Jaamat, as well as local
organizations (e.g., Ma’rifatchilar, Akromiya).
44. Courses on the history of the Communist Party of the USSR were mandatory
in all secondary schools and higher educational institutions,
including religious
institutions.
45. These and similar views appeared not without certain influence of the Muslim
religious and political literature.
46. Ibid.
47. During the entire period of re-Islamization, the majority of new mosques or madrassas
in Central Asian cities were built on the remains of old ones. This can be seen as a desire
364 BABADJANOV, MALIKOV,
NAZAROV
not only for spiritual but also for physical (tangible) continuity and the revival of public
religious symbols and paradigms of the past.
48. However, under this system, a constant problem was and remains to be the desire of
the majority of imams to hide a part of the donations, which are not monitored. In addition,
imams tend to have, so to say, “their
own income,” i.e., voluntary donations from the
organizers of various ritual meetings and ceremonies (
dzhanaza, amr-i ma’ruf, etc.).
49. In total, we discovered fourteen cases of kidnapping in Namangan on purportedly
religious grounds.
50. On the one hand, it can be seen as a reaction against the Soviet policy of atheism. On
the other hand, one should recall that in the late 1980s the liberalization of religious policy
led to the actual freedom of religious belief. But this fact did not stop the politicization of
Islam and, consequently, its radicalization.
51. The theory of interaction of Muslim principles and its regional forms received its
most complete justification in the works of Russian Islam scholar Stanislav M. Prozorov.
See his
Islam kak ideologicheskaia sistema, Moscow, 2004, esp. pp. 78–88, 375–380.
52. Ahmad ibn Taymiyyah. Madzhmu’a fatava shaykh al-islam Akhmad ibn Taymiyya.
Madzhmu’ bi-’Abd ar-Rakhman b. Mukhammad b. Kasim. Rabat: Maktaba al-ma’rif, dzhuz’
28. Ibn Taymiyyah (1263–1328) was an Arab-Muslim theologian, prominent representative of
the traditionalist wing of Muslim religious and legal thought—Hanbali. The sole sources of
religious truth he considered the Qur’an) and prophetic traditions (Sunnah), based on which
a true doctrine was created, expressing the unanimous opinion of the Prophet’s associates. In
his later studies, Ibn Taymiyya qualifies them as “deplored innovations.” See V.E. Makari,
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