Ferghana Valley

ideologicheskaia sistema, 
Moscow, 2004, pp. 7–22.
81. Ibid., p. 212.
82. A. Morabia, La notion de gihad dans l’Islam médiéval: Dès origines à al-Gazali, 
Lille, 1975.
83. A major part of this material came from the archives of the Carnegie Endowment for 
International Peace in Washington, DC.
84. The text appears on one of the IMU’s leaflets. The top of the page shows the IMU 
emblem, andthe inscription is set in capital letters.
85. That is, “we will be ready to become suicide bombers.”
86. Abi Zakariya Ahmad ibn Ibrahim ad-Dimashqi thumma ad-Dimyati (Ibn an-Nahhas), 
Mashari’ al-ashwaq ila masari’ al-’ushshaq (fi-1-jihad wa fada’iliha).
Beirut, 1410/1989. 
We have fragments of the Uzbek translation done by one of the IMU theologians who had 

---

366 BABADJANOV, MALIKOV, NAZAROV
left his signature at the end of the translation: “With the help of Allah the translation of 
this book was completed in 1422 AH, the 10th Muharram. 03.26.2001 by the hand of Abu 
Mansur Ahmad [Arabic script signature].” We do not know whether the translation was 
published. However, we found that in the abstracts of Mujahideen (from the archives of the 
Carnegie Endowment, Washington, DC) the fragments of this book were also used. It is safe 
to assumeAbu Mansur Ahmad’s lectures to mujahideen were based on this book.
87. Zubayr b. ‘Abd ar-Rakhim. Dar ul-khidzhrat “Islom ummati,” no. 1, 1999, May 
7.05.07.
88. For more see Bakhtiyar Babadzhanov, “Debates over Islam in Contemporary 
Uzbekistan: A View from Within,” in Devout Societies vs. Impious States? Transmissing 
Islamic Learning in Russia, Central Asia and China, Through the Twentieth Century,
ed. 
Stephane A. Dudoingon, Berlin 2004, pp. 39–60.
89. A typical example is the activity of the Ma’rifatchilar group (Margilan). Its leader, 
Mamajanov Bakhodir (b. 1950), concluded that the usual five prayers should be read by 
local Muslims in Uzbek (or Tajik), because a praying person not knowing Arabic should 
understand the words with which he appeals to Allah. This attitude soon gave birth to a 
conflict with the conservatives, who immediately labeled the group Wahhabi. After the 
conservatives rejected thr group, pressure followed from the state authorities, which sided 
with the conservatives and suspiciously treated any “non-standard” display of religious 
identity. As a result of this pressure, many members of the Ma’rifatchilar decided to leave 
the country and join the IMU. However, even here their ritual and theological positions 
were not accepted. As a result, most Ma’rifatchilar members left the IMU and returned to 
Margilan. Currently, the attitude of others toward them is more tolerant.
90. On this see Bakhtiyar M. Babadzhanov, Ashirbek K. Muminov, and Martha B. Olcott, 
“Muhammadjon Hindustani i religioznaia sreda ego epokhi,” Vostok, no. 5, 2005, pp. 19–33.
91. From the Carnegie Endowment archive.
92. Babadjanovconcludes this based on the speeches by local theologians at many 
international conferences and numerous publications on this topic.
93. Here, we use Nizom—the name of the Central Asian branch of the used in its statute, 
leaflets, and party literature published in Central Asia, Caucasus, and Ukraine. 
94. For details, see Suah Taji-Farouqi, A Fundamental Quest: Hizb al-Tahrir and the 
Search for the Islamic Caliphate,
London, 1996.
95. Most theologians affirm that there was a true caliphatethirty0 (twenty-nine solar) 
years after the death of the Prophet. Perhaps, then the community was able to maintain a 
certain level of social justice known as “pure religion.” We must not forget that three of 
the first four successors (caliphs) of the Prophet were killed in the course of governmental 
coups. That alone casts doubt onto the effort to idealize early Muslim history. Succeeding 
dynasties of caliphs were not elected but rather crowned.
96. Taji-Farouqi. A Fundamental Quest, pp. 27–28.
97. “Radikalnyi islam v Tsentralnoi Azii,” Analiticheskaia zapiska “International Crisis 
Research Group,” Bishkek, 2000, p. 10.
98. Taji-Farouqi, A Fundamental Quest, p. 104. See also “Radikalnyi islam v Tsentralnoi 
Azii,” p. 8.
99. However, Lenin and his followers, unlike the HT ideologues, indicated more clearly 
the need for extremely violent methods to deal with the tsar’s regime.
100. The education and nurturing of ideological party members; da’va, meaning 
propaganda (verbal and printed) to the members of the Ummah Party regarding their ideas 
and “mass education.”
101. “Radikalnyi islam v Tsentralnoi Azii,” p. 7.
102. Taji-Farouqi, A Fundamental Quest, p. 104; “Radikalnyi islam v Tsentralnoi Azii,” 
pp. 10–11.
103. Ibid., p. 8.

---

ISLAM IN THE FERGHANA VALLEY 367
104. This is based on many interviews with the region’s religious leaders.
105. An interview of Bakhtiar M. Babadjanov with Muhammad-Sadiq Muhammad-Yusuf, 
the famous theologian of Central Asia.
106. For example, Narodnaya Volya (People’s Will) orginization in Russia went on a 
similar path, starting their activities in the middle of the nineteenth century with a number of 
attempts to participate in educating Russian people politically. The movement, as is known, 
was later transformed into political nihilism and afterward resorted to become individual 
terror against government officials.
107. More often, theologians appeal to the famous hadith, in which the Prophet foresaw 
the division of his community into seventy-three communities (firqa). Only one of those 
would be placed in paradise. As a reaction to such a division, some purist theologians 
have long been struggling to impose the removal of inter-community (mazhab) variations. 
However, as some theologians noted, those who fought against the separation of communities 
created their own communities, parties, and other groups, further contributing to the divisions 
among Muslims. It happened so with the followers of Ahmad ibn Hanbal. The followers of 
Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab went down the same path and in the heat of the struggle against mazhabs 
in general created a new mazhab, shocking the Muslim world with their intolerance to all 
forms of legitimate existence of Islam in other regions.
108. Around the same time, Kosimov attracts a prominent leader of another religious 
group into the ranks of HT, Akrom Yo’ldoshev. Quitting the HT, Y’oldoshev founded his 
own group—Akromiya, which is responsible for the events in Andijan on May 13, 2005.
109. In 1999, Kosimov was arrested and sentenced to twelve years of imprisonment on 
the charge of forming an illegal religious organization. He was released in January 2004 
based on the act of amnesty and penitential letter to the president. From an interview with 
A. Kosimov, July 2006.
110. New edition published in 2002.
111. From undated HT leaflets.
112. Mu’tamad—literally, “helper.”
113. Mas’ul yordamchisi translate party literature from the Arabic language, compiling 
and distributing leaflets to the lower layers of the party structure.
114. By the way, the ideas of HT were not supported and still are not supported by the 
IRPT.
115. Recently the party has created many problems in a number European countries, 
including England—the location of its main office. Excessive zeal in the promotion of 
assistance to Iraq in resisting the allied forces, direct calls for jihad among the Muslim youth 
of Europe, and other activities predetermined a number of repressive actions against the 
Hizb ut-Tahrir al-Islami in Germany, England, Spain, and other countries.
116. This report, known as the “method of updating the Hizb ut-Tahrir,” was subsequently 
published and translated into many languages, including Uzbek.
117. See www.al-waie.org.
118. al-Wa’y, no. 204, February 2004, p. 40.
119. This was confirmed in the interview by A. Kosimov, who, referring to the 
instructions received from the management of the parent party, insisted that HT did 
not try to legitimize its legal status in any of the countries in the region, even though in 
some of them (for instance, in Kyrgyzstan) in the early 1990s this could have been done. 
Conversely, the instruction on behavior of the young party members at a time of arrest 
was developed by Kosimov, who taught them that from the moment they were in jihad and 
had to “without any fear condemn the satrapy [the police—B.B.] and unfaithful tyrants, 
explicitly telling them that they served Jews and infidels.” In other words, the provocative 
behavior of inexperienced young people was stimulated with instructions to intentionally 
flaunt the principle “anything you say will be used against you.” Moreover, it suggested 
to the young members of HT that violence during the jihad automatically converted the 

---

368 BABADJANOV, MALIKOV, NAZAROV
arrested into suicide bombers and guaranteed them a place in paradise. Of course, such 
suggestions often stimulated irrational and openly provocative behavior on the part of 
young HT members during interrogations.
120. For example, relatively liberal laws related to this kind of religious organizations 
in Kyrgyzstan led to the activation of HT leadership in the south of the country (especially 
in the Osh and Jalalabad districts), moving there its clandestine printing, management of 
Web sites, and other party propaganda.
121. Given that the number of Muslims in the region is approximately 40 million, and 
the number of HT members, according to different estimates, is between 15,000 and 20,000, 
relative figures counting those involved in HT would be a number with many zeros—in other 
words the number of HT members is insignificant I regard to the Muslims in the region.
122. According to some experts, the current regional leadership of HT mainly resides in 
southern Kyrgyzstan, taking advantage of its liberal laws.
123. See two leaflets of the local branch of HT dated May 15 and 20, 2005 (personal 
archive of Bakhtiyar Babadjanov). In them, among other things, the local leadership of HT 
acknowledges that Akrom Yo’ldoshev was a former member of their organization, and talks 
with sympathy about the failed final attempt of armed rebellion in Andijan but still denies 
HT’s involvement in the actions of Akromiya.
124. Members of the organization were able to bribe officials and guards at the prison 
where A. Yo’ldoshev was under detention. The latter, thanks to generous bribes, remained 
in constant communication with his organization via cell phone and could write and send 
instructions to the members. 
125. From the criminal cases based on the testimony of organizers of Akromiya’s 
operation, among whom were citizens of Kyrgyzstan.
126. According to former members of Akromiya, Yo’ldoshev has recently renounced 
these ideas, claiming that he was misunderstood.
127. For translation and detailed analysis of Yimonga Yul
,
see Bakhtiyar Babadjanov’s 
publication: “Kto po tu storonu barrikad? (O sekte Akromiya i ey podobnykh),” Rasy i 
narody,
no. 32, 2006, pp. 82–100.
128. Ibid, 80–106.
129. The idea of a single Islamic state—in the form of a caliphate or a Union of 
Islamic States—is considered by many Islamists as itself a product of Western ideological 
influence.
130. See the detailed analysis in Bakhtiyar Babadjanov, “Kto po tu storonu barrikad”? (see 
note 128). Incidentally, A. Yo’ldoshev in his compositions often resorted to allegory, omissions, 
or direct abridgement of quotations from the Qur’an, in order to camouflage the calls to jihad. For 
example, in one place the author calls upon his followers to overcome their fear of “rendering 
charitable cause.” He justifies this with a reference to the Qur’an: “(truly) you can hate what 
you benefit from and love what is evil. Allah knows you do not” (“al-Baqara,” 216). This misty 
rationale becomes clear when we look into the beginning of a passage deliberately skipped by 
the author: “a struggle/Jihad is ordered for you (al-qattalu/qattal), but you hate it.”
131. Half of these weapons are still being sought.
132. The videotapes seized from Akromiya are not filmed complete, with the total time 
in the recorded video being approximately 1 hour and 24 minutes. Here and below we used 
the materials assembled for the criminal cases by the general prosecutor of Uzbekistan.
133. In the translation of those statements we have preserved the original (Andijan) 
dialect and slang.
134. According to the recorded telephone conversations between the terrorists and the 
headquarters for settlement of the conflict, around noon it was agreed that all the terrorists 
would be given buses and they would be allowed to go to camps prepared for them on the 
territory of Kyrgyzstan. The condition was that the hostages would be released at the neutral 
border post. However, K. Parpiev, after consulting with some hodja-aka, refused to accept 

---

ISLAM IN THE FERGHANA VALLEY 369
his offer, which led to the solution of the issue by force. Interestingly enough, that unknown