Ferghana Valley

Ibn Taymiyyah’s Ethics,
Berkeley, 1983.
53. It is interesting that in the library of the oldest theologian in Ferghana, Marghiloni, we 
saw several volumes of works by Ibn Taymiyyah that were brought to Margiloni by pilgrims 
in 1974. Abdulhakim Qori was teaching most of the Ferghana theologians of the new wave, 
which is why he is sometimes called “the father of neo-Wahhabism” of the valley.
54. In the hadith, it means the relocation (“exile,” “alienation”) of the Prophet from 
Mecca, when he settled in Medina, in 622.
55. Tohir Yuldosh was born in Namangan in 1960. After high school he worked as a baker. 
He received primary religious training from Qori-pochcho, then from Umar-khon domulla. 
Together with Juma Namangani established the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan in 1991.
56. This is especially evident from the IMU video “Ular” (They). The main idea of this 
movie is to expose the official position of the Uzbek government and of theologians who 
sharply criticized IMU actions. Abduvali-qori’s speeches were used to justify the jihad 
against the “unfaithful” government of Uzbekistan and those who supported it.
57. Publication of Dar ul-Khidzhrat (IMU), no. 25, Zu-1-ka’da, 1421/January 2001.
58. It was adopted at the first Congress of the party in Astrakhan, in 1989. This statute 
was copied by the party branches, including the one in Uzbekistan (Chairman A. Utaev).
59. Hereafter, we rely on our interviews with participants of the Namangan eventsWe I 
assume that this was the first time in Uzbekistan (and perhaps in the whole Soviet Central 
Asia), when the secretary of a Regional Committee participated in a prayer with other 
communists. In this episode, I also see the beginning of the Islamization of former members 
of the Communist Party. This meeting was recoded on videotape and is in the author’s 
possession (Bakhtiyar Babadjanov’s personal archive).
60. Voluntary People’s Druzhina (DND): a group of volunteers who helped the police, 
established in the days of Stalin. DND orcibly recruited among the workers in enterprises 
and other Soviet agencies, and in the evenings it patrolled the most populated parts of towns 
and villages, helped to arrest drunks, petty thieves, pickpocketers, etc.
61. According to our information, Adolat members did not work anywhere and received 
wages from Hakim Sattimov and later from Tohir Yuldosh.
62. Literally it means one-tenth of any income from different types of property or wage. 

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ISLAM IN THE FERGHANA VALLEY 365
See A. Grohmann. “Ushr,” in Encyclopedia of Islam, vol. 4, Leiden Leipzig, 1934, pp. 
1137–1139.
63. Almost all of our respondents said that Sattimov could not even perform prayers 
correctly.
64. From the text of bayat-namah, which was rewritten by an ex-member of Islom 
militsiyasi
into his notebook.
65. Based on the eyewitness account.
66. Yurish is a medieval term for “military campaign,” “hostage.” In general, the 
demonstrations of this kind became part of the religious revival and struggle for power 
among religious leaders.
67. According to R. Akramov’s estimates, the maximum number of Tohir Yuldosh’s 
fighters was 2,000. Namangan’s population in 1989 was about half a million people.
68. This meeting was recorded on videotape, which is in the author’s possession (personal 
archive of Bakhtiyar Babadjanov).
69. Almost all of our interviewees, former IMU fighters, commented ironically on 
Yuldosh’s notorious courage. The most frequently repeated and very illustrative story is 
that once he heard the sounds of shots he became severely scared; not even concealing 
his animal fear, he rushed to his Jeep, and took off. Later it was found out that these shots 
came from a training camp. When the young fighters found out that the topic of his planned 
speech was to be fearlessness of “real mujahideen,” this story—quickly spreading among 
the IMU militants from Tavildara to the Afghan camps—severely damaged the credibility 
of the hapless leader of the movement.
70. According to R. Akramov, this requirement was made under the undeclared order 
of Muhammad-Sadiq Muhammad-Yusuf, who was also in Namangan at that time but did 
not take part in the rally for reasons of safety. Muhammad-Sadiq Muhammad-Yusuf insists 
that this information is incorrect.
71. Ordinary citizens comprised approximately 92 percent to 95 percent of the 
approximately 20,000 people who assembled.
72. From an interview with rally participants.
73. By the early 1990s, according to former employees of the regional hokimiyat, the 
rate of youth unemployment in Namangan ranged from 35 percent to 50 percent.
74. Based on our interviews with former members of the organization.
75. From an interview with a former member of Islom Adolati. This story was confirmed 
by R. Akramov.
76. Here and below we use interviews with former members of the IMU collected 
together with M.B. Olcott.
77. In another version: “as if he is scraped by fingers without nails.”
78. The Qur’an refers to the “70 rooms” and “70 houries in them” (9: 36, 38, 72).
79. This confirmed by all the former IMU fighters we interviewed.
80. Stanislav M. Prozorov, “Pravoverie” i “zabluzhdenie” v rannem islame: Islam kak