Islam, Society, and Politics in Central Asia

Islam, Society, and Politics in Central Asia
Author: Pauline Jones
Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press
Total Pages: 341
Release: 2017-07-20
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0822981963

During the 1990s, there was a general consensus that Central Asia was witnessing an Islamic revival after independence, and that this occurrence would follow similar events throughout the Islamic world in the prior two decades, which had negative effects on both social and political development. Twenty years later, we are still struggling to fully understand the transformation of Islam in a region that's evolved through a complex and dynamic process, involving diversity in belief and practice, religious authority, and political intervention. This volume seeks to shed light on these crucial questions by bringing together an international group of scholars to offer a fresh perspective on Central Asian states and societies. The chapters provide analysis through four distinct categories: the everyday practice of Islam across local communities; state policies toward Islam, focusing on attempts to regulate public and private practice through cultural, legal, and political institutions and how these differ from Soviet policies; how religious actors influence communities in the practice of Islam, state policies towards the religion, and subsequent communal responses to state regulations; and how knowledge of and interaction with the larger Islamic world is shaping Central Asia's current Islamic revival and state responses. The contributors, a multidisciplinary and international group of leading scholars, develop fresh insights that both corroborate and contradict findings from previous research, while also highlighting the problem of making any generalizations about Islam in individual states or the region. As such, this volume provides new and impactful analysis for scholars, students, and policy makers concerned with Central Asia.

Muslim Communities Reemerge

Muslim Communities Reemerge
Author: Edward Allworth
Publisher: Duke University Press
Total Pages: 386
Release: 1994
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780822314905

The terrible events afflicting Muslims in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Tajikistan fill the news, commanding the world's attention. This timely volume offers rare insight into the background of these catastrophic conflicts. First published in German on the eve of the breakup of the Yugoslav and Soviet republics, it is one of the few books in any language to analyze, in detail and in depth, the historical and contemporary situation of Muslims in former communist states and thus clarifies the sources, development, and implications of the events that dominate today's foreign news. In fourteen chapters and an updated introduction, European and North American specialists examine the recent evolution of Islamic expression and practice in these former Communist regions, as well as its political significance within officially atheistic regimes. Representing a wide range of disciplines and perspectives, the authors detail how the modern ethno-religious situation developed and matured in hostile circumstances, the degree of latitude the local Muslims achieved in religious expression, and what prospect the future seemed to offer just before the breakup of the Soviet Union and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Overall, the book provides a thorough analysis of the coincidence and tension between ethnic and religious identity in two countries officially devoted to the separation of ethnic groups in domestic cultural arrangements but not in the social or political realm. Contributors. Edward Allworth, Hans Bräker, Marie Broxup, Georg Brunner, Bert G. Fragner, Uwe Halbach, Wolfgang Höpken, Andreas Kappeler, Edward J. Lazzerini, Richard Lorenz, Alexandre Popovi´c, Sabrina Petra Ramet, Azade-Ayse Rorlich, Gerhard Simon, Tadeusz Swietochowski

Nationalism and Identity Construction in Central Asia

Nationalism and Identity Construction in Central Asia
Author: Mariya Y. Omelicheva
Publisher: Lexington Books
Total Pages: 199
Release: 2014-12-17
Genre: History
ISBN: 0739181351

More than two decades after the break-up of the Soviet Union, Central Asian republics—Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan—continue to reexamine and debate whom and what they represent. Nationalism and Identity Construction in Central Asia explores the complex and controversial process of identity formation in the region using a “3D” framework, which stands for “Dimensions”, “Dynamics,” and “Directions” of nation building. The first part of the framework—dimensions—underscores the new and complex ways in which nationalisms and identities manifest themselves in Central Asia. The second part—dynamics—is premised on the idea that nationalisms and identity construction in the Central Asian republics may indicate some continuities with the past, but are more concerned with legitimation of the present power politics in these states. It calls for the identification of the main actors, strategies, tactics, interests, and reactions to the processes of nationalism and identity construction. The third part of the framework—directions—addresses implications of nationalisms and identity construction in Central Asia for regional and international peace and cooperation. Jointly, the chapters of the volume address domestic and international-level dimensions, dynamics, and directions of identity formation in Central Asia. What unites these works is their shared modern and post-modern understanding of nations, nationalisms, and identities as discursive, strategic, and tactical formations. They are viewed as “constructed” and “imagined” and therefore continuously changing, but also fragmented and contested.

Imperial Identity in the Mughal Empire

Imperial Identity in the Mughal Empire
Author: Lisa Balabanlilar
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 256
Release: 2015-12-13
Genre: History
ISBN: 0857732463

Having monopolized Central Asian politics and culture for over a century, the Timurid ruling elite was forced from its ancestral homeland in Transoxiana at the turn of the sixteenth century by an invading Uzbek tribal confederation. The Timurids travelled south: establishing themselves as the new rulers of a region roughly comprising modern Afghanistan, Pakistan and northern India, and founding what would become the Mughal Empire (1526-1857). The last survivors of the House of Timur, the Mughals drew invaluable political capital from their lineage, which was recognized for its charismatic genealogy and court culture - the features of which are examined here. By identifying Mughal loyalty to Turco-Mongol institutions and traditions, Lisa Balabanlilar here positions the Mughal dynasty at the centre of the early modern Islamic world as the direct successors of a powerful political and religious tradition.

Regime Transition in Central Asia

Regime Transition in Central Asia
Author: Dagikhudo Dagiev
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 281
Release: 2013-10-30
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1134600763

Presenting a study of regime transition, political transformation, and the challenges that faced the post-Communist republics of Central Asia on independence, this book focuses on the process of transition in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, and the obstacles that these newly-independent states are facing in the post-Communist period. The book analyses how in the early stages of their independence, the governments of Central Asia declared that they would build democratic states, but that in practice, they demonstrated that they are more inclined towards authoritarianism. With the declaration of independence, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, like many other former Soviet national republics, were faced with the issues of nationalism, ethnicity, identity and territorial delimitation. This book looks at how the discourse of patrimonial nationalism in post-Communist Tajikistan and Uzbekistan has been the elites’ strategy to address all these issues: to maintain the stateness of their respective countries; to preserve the unity of their nation; to fill the ideological void of post-Communism; to prevent the rise of Islam; and to legitimize their authoritarian practice. Arguing against the claim that the Central Asian states have undergone divergent paths of transition, the book discusses how they are in fact all authoritarian, although exhibiting different degrees of authoritarianism. This book provides a useful contribution to studies on Central Asian Politics and International Relations.

The Politics of Muslim Cultural Reform

The Politics of Muslim Cultural Reform
Author: Adeeb Khalid
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 364
Release: 1999-01-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9780520920897

Adeeb Khalid offers the first extended examination of cultural debates in Central Asia during Russian rule. With the Russian conquest in the 1860s and 1870s the region came into contact with modernity. The Jadids, influential Muslim intellectuals, sought to safeguard the indigenous Islamic culture by adapting it to the modern state. Through education, literacy, use of the press and by maintaining close ties with Islamic intellectuals from the Ottoman empire to India, the Jadids established a place for their traditions not only within the changing culture of their own land but also within the larger modern Islamic world. Khalid uses previously untapped literary sources from Uzbek and Tajik as well as archival materials from Uzbekistan, Russia, Britain, and France to explore Russia's role as a colonial power and the politics of Islamic reform movements. He shows how Jadid efforts paralleled developments elsewhere in the world and at the same time provides a social history of the Jadid movement. By including a comparative study of Muslim societies, examining indigenous intellectual life under colonialism, and investigating how knowledge was disseminated in the early modern period, The Politics of Muslim Cultural Reform does much to remedy the dearth of scholarship on this important period. Interest in Central Asia is growing as a result of the breakup of the former Soviet Union, and Khalid's book will make an important contribution to current debates over political and cultural autonomy in the region.