Josh Foust and I are here at the 10th Annual Central Eurasian Studies Society (CESS) shindig and the serendipitously timed Trudeau Center Peace and Conflict Society annual international conference, which is on Afghanistan and Central Asia this year.
There have been a number of interesting panels and the usual conference stuff–some of the most interesting are still to come tomorrow, I’ll be at Muslim institutions in Central Asia and the Diversity of Islam in CA, both great panels and much more is left.
What’s most interesting to me so far is that at both of these conferences it seems like just about every other new person I’ve met knows Registan.net. Granted, I knew the readership was pretty wide and still growing, but I’m hearing a lot more often this year professors say “oh yeah, I know Registan.net, I recommend it to my students,’ or “yeah, we discussed some of the articles in class.”
So, kudos to everybody who makes this blog tick and of course Maddest Props to The Founder.
This post was written by...
Noah Tucker – author of 27 posts on Registan.net.
Noah has an MA in Russian, Eastern European and Central Asian Studies from Harvard, where he studied under John Schoeberlein and specialized in Central Asian religious issues. He lived in Tashkent from 2002-2005 and returned most recently to Central Asia in 2007. He's lived in Russia as well, and traveled throughout much (but by no means all) of the former Soviet Union. He speaks Russian fluently and reads Uzbek and French, though admittedly not all that often and almost never at the same time. He and his family live at this particular moment near the ocean in a place that's supposed to be warm.
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Oh and Nathan you really should have come–there’s a Church of Scientology just a few blocks from the campus. You could have gotten a free stress test! FREE!
P’shaw. Soon enough I’ll be able to go directly to the Flag Service Organization to get my free stress tests. And if I’m lucky, they’ll even let me watch their free movie!
Here is the living proof that what we have as taliban, al qaeda, imu is manufactured, Graham Fuller, the keynote speaker who will talk about the ‘New Face of Eurasianism”
http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=graham_fuller
CESS putting any papers online in one place?
Thanks for the CESS coverage, and Ahad, thanks for posting the link to the Graham Fuller history website…One problem is that the US government (and a fortiori CESS) appears married to the Islamist tendency–despite 9/11, London bombings, resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan, fundamentalism in Iraq, Mumbai bombings, Iranian nuclear threats, et al.–as Noah’s comment, “Muslim institutions in Central Asia and the Diversity of Islam in CA, both great panels,” indicates. When you find yourself in a hole–stop digging. Perhaps alternatives to Islam in Central Asia might prove productive for the region as well as the US, in future? Looking at everything in Central Asia through the lens of Islam produces a highly selective, and IMHO distorted, picture.
“Perhaps alternatives to Islam in Central Asia might prove productive”
Yes. For a start, brothers and sisters, let us gather and concentrate on the pious and committed study of http://mfa.uz/eng/press_and_media_service/dates/book_president/
And, of course, let us not neglect the classic of classics: http://www.turkmenistan.gov.tm/ruhnama/ruhnama-index.html
IMHO the link to the Karimov book on the international financial crisis looks interesting, especially statements like these:
“Second, the broken out global financial crisis has demonstrated serious shortcomings and necessity to radically reform existing world financial and banking system, proved the lack of a due control over the operations of banks, which mainly served their own corporate interests, being carried away by various speculative operations at the credit and securities markets.”
Interesting perhaps, but not particularly unique or insightful. It’s a good argument for state control of the economy, I suppose.
“not particularly unique or insightful. It’s a good argument for state control of the economy, I suppose.”
Indeed, a way to internationally justify the grip of himself, his daughter and their cronies on the economy which is what ‘state control’ in Uzbekistan and other parts of Southern Eurasia comes to.
Others do it better.
http://www.newcivilisation.com/index.php/main/newciv/views/essay_virtual_economy_root_cause_analysis_of_the_current_financial_crisis/147/P0
http://www.newcivilisation.com/index.php/main/newciv/views/introducing_the_islamic_alternative_to_capitalism/145/P0
Thank you, as well, for the link to the Rukhnama, which I had heard about for years but never got a chance to read. It seems interesting that a claim is being made for Turkmen as descendants of Noah, which is a significant claim in that part of the world, with Armenians claiming Mt. Ararat…and so, perhaps, Turkmenbashi was only crazy like a fox. He certainly managed to keep the Iranian revolution at bay while the oil and gas have been pumping away…
You can’t very well understand Central Asian history or informal social institutions without looking at it through the lens of Islam, though.
I agree, be it that besides the Islamic angle, assessing or explaining the modern history of and present situation in Southern Eurasia — which is what I eventually prefer to call the Crimea-Caucasus-Central Asia belt — has also to be done through the lens of Russian (neo-)imperialism and the USSR.
Also, Islam, like it or not, will unavoidably be part of the future of the region. The kafir compradore regimes in the region know that very well. That’s why they try to co-opt it, for instance.
Okay, so if like two of about 100 panels happen to have the word “Islam” in the title, that means that everyone at CESS is guilty of looking at CA through the “lens of Islam?” That’s really a pretty incredible conclusion.
Nathan… How Islamic is the Baikonur Cosmodrome?
IMHO What is precisely Central Asian about Central Asia is that which does not come from Arabia…To understand regional and geographic nuances and peculiarities, rather than fall for Islamism, or be blinded by Western prejudices that “all Muslims are alike” is absolutely the first step.
Honestly, if America is obsessed with promoting Islam, America has nothing to offer the people of Central Asia that they don’t already have, and they don’t need us to be there at all.
No one said anything about Islamism, Arabia, or promoting Islam. No one especially said anything about all Muslims being alike. I think that one of those panels Noah mentions is sufficiently explicit in noting intra-regional diversity of belief and practice.
I’d turn the Baikonur question around. How can something like Dukchi Ishon’s uprising be understood without putting it in the context of local Islamic practice and belief? Similarly, many of the informal institutions that have traditionally governed village or city life cannot be entirely divorced from Islam. Hell, plenty of Karimov’s mythologizing about Uzbeks and Uzbekistan has an Islamic component that makes more sense if one understands the experience of Islam during the Soviet period. Of course, there are other sources of belief and culture, and it’s very important to be aware of those. No one’s saying that Islam should be the only factor one studies by any means.
Perhaps it is worth noting that all the “stans” remember the greedy Clinton negotiations with the Taliban for a pipeline pass-through to the Pakistani coast. The SCO, after all, was organized as a big “keep out” sign to US interests and reinforced by DNI McConnell’s insistence that access to the cheap oil of others is our “security right” only made it stronger and bigger. Is it so hard to see how religion, nationalism and anti-Americanism can mix? This is not like brain surgery where you can microscopically tease apart the brain tissue, vessels and supportive elements; everything is intertwined, inseparable in space and time, complicated by Americans passing around suitcases of $$ that soon will be worth little. Having lived some seven decades, I came to see, over and over again, how “well” America deals with such issues as Islam and material interests intertwined. The embedded correspondent from FRONTLINE’s “Obama’s War” filmed quite well how little our Marines grasped of the local flavor and it’s not fair to expect some farm boy from Ohio to sacrifice personal safety to avoid humiliating Afghans when some American kid telling Afghans what to do or making insolent demands on Afghan local elders or family heads. Have we learned nothing from Iraq? There’s an unbalanced equation upon us: Taliban want to die and we want to kill. That’s not how pacification works. Afghanistan is not Vietnam where “things” caused peasants to switch and stand up to Hanoi.
The Taliban has played our occupation as well as the Iraqi insurgents had. Are we just going to go for another “surge” before we find out how failed was the last one? How many men must we lose before we recognize that our “kinetic” generals just don’t have the answer to the complex and ever-reshuffling Central Asian relations? Only we forget our blatant interventions, our dead and our “kinetic” liberation, not them. They will all at some point take big risks for revenge against insult and injury. Talk to Russian vets and see what they will tell you about Islam vs. material things.
“Talk to Russian vets and see what they will tell you about Islam vs. material things.”
I like that. And maybe one has to face it: in the end, you can simply not win against Islam even not in the name of ‘Enlightment’, ‘Freedom’ and ‘Civilisation’ because, as many Muslims and non-Muslims alike experience each day, these have their utterly depraved reverse side as well.
Great warrior-thinkers like Hojahmed Nukhaev understood that.
I don’t think that Russian culture had or has no effect on Central Asia, but that Islam has a much more powerful effect, particularly among the non-elites in the area.
A whole lot is precisely Central Asian about Central Asian Islam…Sufis, Saints, Ismailis, and a lot more. Hanbali Islam, to say nothing of Salafi, to say nothing of Wahabi, just doesn’t apply to a lot of folks. Including, well, Mumbai bombers and IRIran.
The study of Islam in Central Asia is the study of its society and its people at a very basic level. Knowledge of society and people at a very basic level seems to be vital to whatever America ends up offering Central Asia.
Laurence, you seem to know very little about Central Asia and understand it even less. I formed that opinion right after reading your question:”How Islamic is Baikonur?”
Baikonur was designed, built and run by the Soviet Ministry of Defence as a top secret test site, strictly off limits to the local population. Today it’s rented and administered by Russia. Ergo, Baikonur has nothing to do with Central Asia. It reflects zero of the local culture, society, language, etc. Baikonur is like a surgical implant, a totally alien object.
It is really tragic that few Americans looked as Russian-Central Asian relations that led to their sovietization. The current state of affairs may have a lot of “Islamic” elements running around; but for Gov officials, the materialism of Marxism had deep impact. Uzbek-Afghan relations are a case in point. All in all, the real issue is that Obama splits the difference with McChrystal both do it self-servingly– the latter because he’s stuck with McCrystals because of Gates’s error of judgment and the latter because he needs someone to blame for his total inability to do anything since he took over. I expect soon a request for more troops until Obama finally says: NO NO MORE!!!! What most blows my mind is that McChrystal’s report is like the new “Petraeus COIN manual and the views of a lot of men who served: tactical and not in depth based on careful study of the recent past for lessons. All in all, the American people and their sons and daughters are as screwed in war as in banks bailout and healthcare reform by politics.
Interesting discussion is going on here. Lawrence, nice to see you online.
Of course, Islam is one of the pivotal aspects in understanding Turkistani (I prefer Turkistan over Central Asia) society. But it is not as important as it is in understanding Pakistan, Afghanistan, or Saudi Arabia. It matters slightly more than in Azerbaijan and less in Turkey.
But the Soviet past also plays a major role in Turkistani society. Religious leaders like Dukchi Eshon rose during the times when most of the population was illiterate and the socio-politico-economic situation was a flat failure (painfully resembling current Afghanistan!). However bad it was, the Soviet regime left emancipated women, well-developed governmental-bureaucratic system, industrial infrastructure, educational system, health system, etc.
Today’s problems in Turkistan are not because we are failing to look at the region through the lens of Islam, but because of the difficulty of transition due to enormous uncertainty, huge transaction costs and path-dependency issues.
Diverging (not diverse) Islam in Turkistan is just one of the outcomes of this transitional failure. Wahhabi petro-dollars and ideas will be attractive in Turkistan as long as this failure will continue. But Turkistan, obviously, has more hope than Afghanistan (it was the opposite in the case of wahhabi recipients such as IMU) because it has educated population and more or less well-shaped infrastructure and bureaucratic system. Here, Wahhabis cannot appeal to concepts of freedoms as they do in the case of Chechnya and East Turkistan.
States in Turkistan almost always were able to separate religion from state (that is not to say states did not manipulate religion for their own gains). Turkistanis have had monarchies and empires, not caliphates where the head of the state and religious leader was the same. In Turkistan religious leaders were always INFERIOR to heads of the state. So ‘state religion’ is not something came out of the blue during the Soviet times. Those ‘non-traditional’, ‘diverse’ ones are either less Islamic with more local shamanic influences or alien wahhabi ideas. Religion as a destructive, threatening political force in Turkistan is not a factor, but an outcome of the transitional failure.
Just curious, why do you prefer the term “Turkistan”? It seems more constricting than Central Asia, leaving out southern Central Asia, which seems to be why you use it. I’m honestly curious, it’s not a phrase I’ve heard too often outside of 19th century British anthropology textbooks.
Also, Wahabism isn’t the only “foreign” brand of Islam coming through Central Asia/Turkistan. The Fetilullahlicilar have just as much missionary zeal, for example. And, in my opinion, the only thing stopping a new Dukchi Eshon is the fact that he would be on the bad side of some dictator and jailed before he could start any revolution.
Clearly the people are starving for a post. Somebody post something so we can have a discussion of substance rather than arguing about the whole field based on the titles of a couple of panels
Nathan–When I was in Tashkent, I met a couple of Central Asian scientists who said they had worked at the Cosmodrome. So, I don’t know how “alien” an implant it is. You could make the case that Islam is an “alien” implant, over an animist, Buddhist, Zoroastrian, and Nestorian Christian tradition, among others. Not to mention all the ethnic Koreans, Russians, Ukrainians, Volga Germans, Armenians, Georgians, Jews, and other non-Muslims living in Central Asia to this day. So far as the Dukchi Ishon uprising against the Tsar…well, last time I checked the Russians were pretty successful in Central Asia–there was considerable nostalgia for the Soviet Union among the people I met when I lived in Tashkent. I don’t think it was just the result of propaganda, but of a lived experience of modernity and progress, participation in the larger world, and yes, being part of a superpower. That is the history of Central Asia which would be natural for Americans to relate to, and could provide the basis for mutually beneficial relations of all kinds, on the basis of some sort of equality–however, it is “off limits” to so-called “scholars” who denounce successful local elites as the province of “dictators” and “madmen”–while consistently failing to provide an attractive alternative to the population…and ignoring totalitarianism, corruption, hostility to human rights, and medievalism in Islamist parties to which European and American academics show surprisingly sentimentalist and unintellectual sympathy…
The sheer mass living in the region today or *used* to live in the region? 62% of the ethnic Germans in Kazakhstan and 96% of those in Tajikistan, to name but two examples, are gone.
Yes, Central Asia is a rich tapestry composed of many varied threads. No one is saying anything different, and no one is saying that Islam is the only thing that should be studied. Were they, it would be as silly as saying it should be ignored.
The point I was making by bringing up Dukchi Ishon — the one that seemingly sailed right on past you — is that there are some things in Central Asia that cannot be understood without reference to Islam. You can’t exterminate Islam from analysis of Central Asia as you seem to advocate.
Be careful about generalizing experience in Tashkent to the rest of Central Asia. I’m sure every person who reads this site who has spent time in Central Asia knows plenty of people who are nostalgic for the USSR. I’m sure they also know plenty who are happy to see it gone.
There’s no academic conspiracy. Over the past several years during which I’ve been much more engaged with Afghanistan studies, I’ve seen multiple articles and chapters that are neutral to supportive of post-Soviet Central Asian policy decisions.
BTW, I’d add that Graham Fuller is objectively pro-Islamist, and his role as a keynote speaker represents an endorsement of Islamism by CESS. From an article in the Vancouver Sun:
SOURCE: http://www2.canada.com/components/print.aspx?id=3cf3a401-1e9a-4da0-ae51-71a260ce9cb4
Come on. Can we call you “objectively pro-Soviet” or “objectively Marxist-Leninist?”
Substantively, there’s an enormous amount of realism in that statement. Islam is an important part of politics in many parts of the world, and there are in fact moderate and pro-democratic Islamist parties out there.
AJK ,
Turkistan is a geographical term and it was used widely, as you correctly observed, up until 19th century. It continued to survive within the Soviet Union too. For example the southernmost branch of the Soviet military was called Turkistan regional command.
Lately some English-speaking magazines like Economist, Foreign Policy, etc starting to use Turkistan interchangeably with Central Asia.
Wahhabism may not be the only foreign twists of Islam, but Nurculuk’s way is the same as the traditional Islam in Central Asia Sunni-Hanafi. It is just a politicized movement, it does not aspire to militarize Islam and turn believers into suicide-killers.
All these different schools can go the spectrum from a spiritual crutch to a Jihadi mobilizer. Politics too can, as usual, take on a Muslim cover…at times even justification. The Salafi- Sufi distinction, I would agree with Olivier Roy stresses terribly the relations. But gradations in between have also come into being. An Israeli who made it into US Gov as a Senate Staffer named Bodansky wrote a very interesting piece about how the Bush Administration failed to see the Iranian Khomeini dynamics in linked Jihadis Sunnis and Shias, insisting that binLaden was brought into it while in Sudan. This has matched my experiences in the region. But what’s the case for intellectuals exposed to Western technical education may not apply at the ground level. How much sway does Iran have in the region and can Russia and China mobilize both government and local “stan” forces and interests to fill the vacuum if US pulls out? Would that bring more order or more tribal and sectarian feuds? Lastly, for many reasons the “Turkistan” label fascinates me, could you please elaborate. The geographic term, at least in theory, should over time expand into some more fictional and adaptive coagulation. Lastly, Fuller is indeed a pro-Islamist but not a propagandist as a lot of these web-sites are for DoD bureaucrats wanna-bes. His insights are highly respected. Our motives in the region and the blocks formed to fight them, as well as out current capitulation to Israel on settlements are reverberating throughout the area.. So does he not have a point that it’s time for us to leave them all alone so they can see others as devils and us, eventually, as angels?
Nathan: You can call me anything you like.
However, I’m sure my former colleagues at the Heritage Foundation, my former students in Tashkent, or in my former students in Moscow, would be surprised to hear that anyone considers me pro-Soviet.
Of course, I don’t believe the fact that I’m objectively not pro-Soviet means that I’m wrong about Fuller. But lets put this to an empirical test… According to the CESS website, Fuller gave his keynote address on October 9th. If Josh or Noah were there, it would be interesting to read a summary of his remarks on Registan, especially since I have googled them and so far cannot find his text online.
I think it would be interesting if Registan would convene an genuine online debate over whether Islamism is compatible with American-style democracy, allowing comment on both sides of the question, in a separate topic area. I would be interested to read opposing views and stand corrected should my understanding be deficient.
However, so far as I understand, at present any school of Islamism–so-called “democratic” or not–entails commitment to the supremacy of one religion over others, as well as commitment to Sha’aria law. This commitment entails violations of at least three of FDR’s Four Freedoms: Freedom of Speech (blasphemy laws); Freedom of Religion (apostasy laws); and Freedom from Fear (public floggings, amputations, executions).
I agree, a debate on Islamism and American-style Democracy, and whether they’re compatible, would be interesting to read/be a part of. But the first thing you would have to do is define “Islamism” and “American-style Democracy”. Before that happens, all we have is a shouting match.
Ah yes, freedom from fear and freedom from want… Like in Gaza, Uzbekistan and Srebrenica, you mean?
“whether Islamism is compatible with American-style democracy”
Who needs ‘American-style democracy’ in parts of the world that sufficiently paid a dire price for ‘American-style democracy’, including the disastrous social consequences of neo-liberal economic policies advocated by wackos like the Heritage Foundation and similar outfits?
You are all objectively pro-Islamist unless you drop this inane comment thread.
Nathan–Look at Ian’s call for censorship, and see in microcosm the intellectual predicament facing the American academy when it comes to dealing with Central Asia…Islamism is not off-limits to criticism, certainly not in a free society, or among supporters of academic freedom…Indeed, if it cannot be criticized, it cannot be validated, either–rather accepted only as a matter of faith, not reason.
Yes, look at my call for censorship; hold it in your hand and turn it slowly, examining all its sparkling facets; see in each facet of that call a smaller call, a microcosm of the greater call for censorship, simultaneously reflecting all the tiny calls adjacent to it; and then, under a lens, note that beneath all these calls is an image of objective pro-Islamism entire, a diamond-hard core that I, right here, ask you to accept as a matter of faith, not reason. Are you nuts?
Yes, look at my call for censorship; hold it in your hand and turn it slowly, examining all its sparkling facets; see in each facet of that call a smaller call, a microcosm of the greater call for censorship, simultaneously reflecting all the tiny calls adjacent to it; and then, under a lens, note that beneath all these calls is an image of objective pro-Islamism entire, a diamond-hard core that I, right here, ask you to accept as a matter of faith, not reason. Are you nuts?
Ian,
You ask: Am I nuts?
We might test this question emprically.
In this regard, take a look at Graham Fuller’s 1996 RAND Corporation study: “Algeria: The Next Fundamentalist State?”
In it, Fuller argued for bringing Algeria’s Islamic Salvation Front into the political system, even it it meant bringing Islamists to power.
Apparently Algerian military leaders and their French supporters disagreed. They pursued an alternative strategy. It worked. 13 years later, Algeria is not a fundamentalist state.
So, who’s nuts? IMHO: CESS Keynote speaker Graham Fuller.
I guess I was asking if you were nuts with regard to your accusing me of “calling for censorship.” You can, however, continue to blithely accuse people of being “objectively pro-Islamist,” and all I’ll do is ignore you.
I would just add that any government that has an embassy in Riyadh is objectively pro-Islamist.
“13 years later, Algeria is not a fundamentalist state.”
You have to be complete: 13 years and >150,000 dead later.
It is hard to imagine that America has anyhting to offer to anyone. As one drawn to it in a trek of over a decade, let me tell you that there ain’t nothing there to offer to anyone other than schematics and hyperbolic rhetoric. Our system was an inseparable political-economic one wherein democratic balance prevailed. The balance is gone and we face a revolution of utter rage. Imagine Obama confused for Louis XVI!!!!!
In seeing a unity of direction between politics and economics we held generocity and compassion as predomniant virtues. In that sense we were similar to Islamic world. But in fact, we both came to face globalization where economic at the micro level and politics at the macro level kind of runnig separately. Nevertheless, Islamic law still to this day kind of pushed economics like a dagger into the bellly of politics. But our Protestant Ethic continued to be anything goes until we literally eat our children and only now suddenly smell them on the breath of our long celebrated entrepreneurs (French for taker– cannibal– in-between). Looking at Wall Street today one notices an amoral madness for things. Too late Karl Marx, you had your time! In contrast, the Middle East was forced into a social conscience that only our power and corruption could convert into a sin. binLaden is not without merit and it is here than Fuller sees us having to backoff. We cannot deem, as DCI McConnell did, the oil of the Mideast as our “security right” and cheap. It is this model that has made the Shanghai Cooperative Accord a reality and makes it our replacement in Afghnaistan, should one be needed, as its members face Taliban long before we here at home would ever have to be concerned.
Ian, I answered your remarks with Fuller’s Algerian case study because when you ignore that Graham Fuller is obviously pro-Islamist, you ignore an obvious fact that is relevant to his track record as an analyst and forecaster. Fuller made essentially the same case for Algerian policy in the 1990s that he makes for Central Asian policy today.
And I discussed Fuller’s manifest prejudice to answer Noah’s question regarding my description of CESS’s pro-Islamist tendencies. The selection of a keynote speaker for an annual conference is an indicator of organizational perspective, therefore Fuller’s choice exemplifies the pro-Islamist tendency.
The idea that CESS is pro-Islamist is laughable. Even more so because you believe that’s the case based on the fact that some of the panels are about understanding Central Asian Islam.
Ian, You are free to believe whatever you like. As I said, I based my statement on the choice of keynote speaker by CESS. Should CESS even invite a serious critic of Islamism in Central Asia to be keynote speaker at an annual conference, I’d be delighted to revise my opinion of the organization’s pro-Islamist tendency.
PS I’ll evensuggest a critic of Islamism for next year’s keynote address:
Rein Mullerson,
Author of Central Asia: Chessboard and Player in the New Great Game
Hardcover: 256 pages
Publisher: Columbia University Press (January 8, 2007)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0710313160
ISBN-13: 978-0710313164
Let’s see what CESS does…
Fuller is an islamic apologist as are many in the US/Canada.These folks are actually more concerned and critical of their own governments dealings with islamic countries than having any real admiration for islam. Also central Asians are not Arabs and Islam is indeed a foreign import ,imposed by the sword of Arab armies.For an excellent history of this Arab invasion see:The Arab conquest of central Asia , by H.A.R Gibb 1923,The Royal Asiatic society,London.WHAT would Turkistan look like today had it not been transformed by the Soviets?? In all probabilities,it would have resembled most islamic countries of today,miserable,very miserable indeed!!
“WHAT would Turkistan look like today had it not been transformed by the Soviets??”
A fascinating question for ‘alternate history’ indeed.
It would have looked different, and whether that is positive or negative depends on ones ideological bias of course. Yet to claim that it would all by definition have looked like Mogadishu or Waziristan is nonsense. Azerbaijan, for example, had its own dynamics of Islamic and social modernisation before the Soviets put an end to it. So did Turkistan, but much of its native best and brightest were eliminated during Stalin’s Great Terror.
Then you get a self-fulfilling prophecy, of course.
As a reverse example, Uzbekistan did went through the Soviet transformation exercise yet is not less miserable thanks to the rapacious compradore elite that was created in the Soviet system and remained in power.
Make no mistake, Toryalay: most of those who blather all the time about ‘modernising’ and ‘enlighting’ the Islamic world do not want that but want to subjugate it and keep it to heel.
I am not very familiar with Mr. Fuller, but I had the impression that he suggests to take advantage of Islamic zealotry of certain groups for strategic gains. So, I find it difficult to call him ‘Islamist’. Dr. Mullerson is would be a great candidate to speak at any gathering related to Eurasia!
Islam is as foreign to Turkistan as Christianity was to Rome. But, what the Soviet Union did still does lack any due recognition even by the proponents of modernization theory.
Islam is a faith in turmoil much as is Catholicism. The essence, though, is to remember that for all faiths now the struggle is in becoming a part of every day life of people. Judiasm and Islam are highly ritualized religions that inject into one’s every day. Thus ritual-free forms have come into existence. These all show that religious dominiation of one’s behavior discipates without ritual infusion. Protestant/Catholic and even mystical Eastern Orthodox Christians face the same struggle. One should look at the current religious politics for all faith as a degenerating but well intentioned effort to infuse spiritual faith into morally collapsing modern life. Fuller is caught trying to explain negotiating the non-democratic moral precepts of ANY faith with the political liberties that modern society deems every human’s right, in his case political Islam.
What Ahad is saying doesn’t jibe with historical accounts.There is no comparison between the forceful imposition of islam on Turkistan by Arab Armies and embracing of christianity by Romans.The Romans embraced Christianity for their own reasons but it was not forced on them as islam was on Turkistan.
Toryalay, an ideology or religion that is enforced manu military on a society (like e.g. Communism in the Baltic states or in Poland) simply doesn’t hold for over 1300 years. Arab armies were not the only vector of Islam. You underestimate the role of Sufi networks and the influence of cultural centres like Balkh, Herat and Bukhara-i-Sharif.
Turgai,it’s understandable that you put down and condemn the Central Asian dictatorships and for good reasons.But you are wrong about the spread of islam and about defending this evil Arab ideology which was indeed forced on Turkistan by the bloodthirsty Arab armies with massacre of untold people of Turkistan.Everyone should know that The Sufi network are indeed islamic apologists of the first order,these foolish people greatly exaggerated and venerated islam to an extent that a lot of people in places like Iran,Afstan,and Turkistan were duped into believing the Arab-islamic lies.Also Balkh,Herat and Bukhara were brutally taken over by murderous Arab armies and Arabs settled in theses areas to brainwash the population with the support of the Arab military power.This went on for many generations until the locals were completely islamised and could no longer distinguish truth from falsehood which is the main objective of Arab-islam.
Wouldn’t you think that the heathen Mongol onslaught was much more devastating and dislocating for Turkistan/Central Asia than the Arabs?
Turgai, here is the great irony of history:huge armies of bloodthirsty and murderous Mongol hordes swept through Turkistan,Afstan,Iran,and etc ,committed major massacres and destruction of cities and villages.But they did not destroy the identity,the religion,the civilization and the culture of the conquered lands.They did not force their religion on us,they did not force their Mongol names on us,they did not foce their culture and customs on us.What most disgusting about the Arab invasions is that not only the Arab armies committed major massacres and took untold number of women and children into slavery,but they also destroyed our original religion,culture,civilization and customs.Today you see people in Turkistan,Afstan,Iran have Arabic names and yet they are not Arabs,how come?Because the Arab names were imposed on then by the sword as were the Arab-islam religion,culture,customs and habits.This is the most tragic trauma that was brought on us by the Arabs in the 7th century AD.Since it has been clearly demonstrated that progress and prosperity come from liberty and honest and free pursuit of knowledge,and since it is well known that islam is against liberty and free and honest pursuit of knowlege,this is why islamic coun tries have remained backward,corrupt,poverty and disease stricken and this is why many moslems flee their oppressive communities for places that are free and prosperous.And this is why the Arab invasions haves been far more destructive and more evil than those of the Mongols,by far ,Thus the legacy of the Arab invasions have been most devastating,and most evil!!!
“But they did not destroy the identity,the religion,the civilization and the culture of the conquered lands.”
They eliminated what there was of urban civilisations, which btw co-explains the predicament of the region up to this day. And by themselves, they did not installed new ones of the calibre of Al-Andalus, the Samanids and Mughal India (yes, the latter’s rulers were partially of Mongol descent but they had the power of Islam).
But again, Toryalay: do you believe that an ideology or religion enforced manu military without deeper of wide social need for it (as with Communism in the Baltics or Nazism in Western and Nordic Europe at the time) can hold out that long even after everything that happend?