Socio-political activism Muslim

Socio-political activism Muslim

Svetlana Peshkova

Published online: 12 August 2009 # Springer Science + Business Media B.V. 2009

Abstract In this article I argue that domestic space has to be theorized as an important center of religious practice and socio-political activism. Born-again and devout Muslim women in the Ferghana Valley (Uzbekistan) use domestic space as an important sacred place for religious observance and socialization equal to the mosques. This sacred place has a special meaning for born-again and devout Muslims as it carries a promise of personal and social change. In the context of religious and political persecution by the Uzbek state, domestic space is experienced as a politically safe place and as a critically important site of socio-political criticism and activism, as some intimate in-house discussions about religious, political, and social oppression take a form of public protest on the streets.

Keywords Islam . House . Socio-political activism .Muslim . Uzbekistan . The state

…we have a desire to go to the mosques, but in Uzbekistan only men go there. We [women] are not very upset because the Qur’an says that one needs to read within a group and we do just that at our meetings (interview, 2002).

Ugar used to be a street boy, you know, he was drinking, fighting, and smoking. In 1994 something happened, I do not know what, and he began to read namoz [ritual prayer],1 study Arabic, and his life has changed, one hundred per cent. But he suffered because of his faith. He was set up by the

Cont Islam (2009) 3:251–273 DOI 10.1007/s11562-009-0093-z

S. Peshkova (*) Department of Anthropology, University of New Hampshire, Huddleston Hall, # 310, 73 Main Street, Durham, NH 03824-3532, USA e-mail: speshko@gmail.com

1 Ritual prayer(s) performed five times a day (Uz. Namoz and Ar. salat) is one of “the five pillars” of Islam.

police when the government was fighting against Wahhabists2 here. They [police] planted drugs in his suitcase. He ended up in prison. Now he is out but still is a deep believer. You know, he was innocent. He was guilty of one thing: trying to change his life and live like true Muslim. Our system [government] does not want us to lead Muslim lives. If we do, they will stop making money…. We are all set up in this country. We have to steal and live criminal lives. Many people suffer innocently if they try to break away from this life. Our police officers do not know our rights. It [police] does not want us to know and does not respect these rights anyway. All it [police] needs is money. I used to be a driver. I know plenty. There were five young men in Margilon that were arrested as Wahhabists. There were no evidences against them. One of them was killed, beaten to death. They [police] threw his body in the canal and some people later fished his body out. Another one was raped…. When some people in Tashkent [capital of Uzbekistan] found out about it, they punished those officers who did it. But nothing has changed. Some Muslims in one zona [correctional facility] in Karakalpakistan, I know it for a fact, are political and religious prisoners who are tortured and live in inhuman conditions (personal communication, 2002).

In October 2002, a young man from the Ferghana Valley (Uzbekistan), 3 Ulugbek, told me this story. Like many other stories it demonstrates that consistent religious observance by some Muslims in Uzbekistan was suspect, read as a sign of political affiliation by the Uzbek government whose abuses of power and persecutions of devout Muslims are well documented4 (International Crisis 2007; McGlinchey 2007; Kandiyoti and Azimova 2004; Human Rights Watch 2005). This increased religious observance by some Muslims is a part of a religious renewal in post-Soviet Central Asia in which some locals transform from being culturally or secularly Muslim (celebrating some religious holidays or occasionally participating in religious rituals) to being devout. This transformation is expressed through consistent performance of ritual prayers, participation in communal religious rituals, observance of dietary restrictions, adoption of particular forms of covered dress,5 cultivation of piety through spiritual exercises (e.g. zikr)6 and religious education (cf. Mahmood 2005).

2 In my experience the term was used in the Valley in reference to those who (1) wanted to purify, to different degrees, existing religious practices from innovations; (2) were reported by the mass media (reflecting such government sources as the national security service [former KGB]) to desire an Islamic state by overthrowing existing government; and (3) to those in agreement with certain principles outlined in theKitab at-Tawhid by Abd al-Wahhab (reported by one interlocutor to be available in the Valley since late 1970s). The term was also used to slander one’s opponents and to justify the state’s authoritarianism by politicians and political commentators. Louw (2007:30–33) has a useful discussion about the state’s use of the term. Those referred to as “Wahhabists” were not, to my knowledge, the supporters or representatives of the Hanbali school (of jurisprudence) of Sunni Islam widespread in Saudi Arabia. For a detailed discussion of Wahhabism see Algar (2002). 3 My research was conducted in the part of the Ferghana Valley that belongs to Uzbekistan. The Valley is shared among Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. In light of the on-going persecution of devout and born-again Muslims in Uzbekistan, the names of the interlocutors have been changed. When quoting individuals I omit references to a particular city or village. 4 On the theory of oppression and violence perpetuated by states, see Rashid Omar’s dissertation “Religion, Violence & the State: A Dialogical Encounter between Activists and Scholars.” Doctoral Dissertation in Religious Studies, University of Cape Town, South Africa (December 2005). 5 For women it is usually a scarf that covers one’s hair and neck (two scarves for some) and a long, loose dress. 6 In this case a devotional practice that consists of repeating such phrases as la illaha illa’llah [Ar. there is no other God but Allah].

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These transformed Muslims I refer to as “born-again.” Not every inhabitant of the Valley is Uzbek, not every Uzbek is a born-again, and not every born-again is Uzbek. Local communities include several ethnic groups such as Tajiks, Kyrgyz, Koreans, Russians, Roma and Jews; among these are Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Hare Krishna, and agnostics. There are also Muslims who continued to be devout before, during, and after the Soviet rule. There are atheist (born into Muslim families but lacking belief in God) Muslims as well.7 In this article I focus on the devout and born-again Muslims’ socially “active religiosity” that I, following Bayat (2005), take to include not only increased religious observance but also socio-political activism.

I have heard stories similar to Ulugbek’s recollection of persecution and abuse in private conversations with local people and at several social gatherings taking place in domestic spaces. These included ihsons (ceremonial gatherings and feasts to express one’s gratitude to God, to make special requests and to gain religious merit and blessing),8 life-cycle ceremonies, gap (gathering of one’s social network), mavlud (celebration of the Prophet’s birth) and dars (religious lesson) at local home-schools (cf. Kandiyoti and Azimova 2004). In some cases verbal criticism of contemporary life in the Ferghana Valley was preceded or followed by public protests outside domestic space. At least three public protests took place during the second part of my ethnographic fieldwork in 2002–2003. The participants in these protests suffered or feared various degrees of the Uzbek state’s disciplinary action against them.

Following Foucault (1978), I take the state to mean an aggregation of various administrative and law enforcement institutions, constituted by individuals behaving in patterned ways. This aggregation has an authority to make rules that govern people living within a particular territory (and beyond) and to enforce these rules through techniques of power at every level of social organization, such as the police, the mahalla (neighborhood) committee and the family. Despite on-going persecution by the state socio-political activism beyond domestic space continued to be vibrant in the Valley. In 2005, one of these protests culminated in the massacre of civilians by government forces in the Valley’s city of Andijan (Andijon) (Khalid 2007:192–198; Human Rights Watch 2005). In this context individual homes were safer environments than other public spaces, such as the streets or the mosques, for expressing one’s socially active religiosity through verbal criticism of the existing regime.9

7 These descriptive adjectives refer to various feelings about and ways of expressing in words and acting out one’s religiosity. 8 The definition I use is a direct translation of the local women’s definition of these occasions. By hosting such ceremony a household (not just its individual members) gains religious merit and blessing. Similar ceremonial occasions based on individuals sponsoring feasts in their homes or at the sacred sites take place in otherMuslim communities. For instance, in Malaysia, Bosnia, and Ajaria these occasions have been analyzed as a way of establishing and solidifying interpersonal connections and networks (see Bringa 1995, Being Muslim the Bosnian way: identity and community in a central Bosnian village. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, and Neuburger 2004, The Orient within: Muslim minorities and the negotiation of nationhood in modern Bulgaria, Cornell University Press). In Turkish villages Mevlud celebrations have similar elements (see Tapper and Tapper 1987, The Birth of the Prophet: ritual and gender in Turkish Islam. Man 22(1):69– 92). Abramson and Karimov (2007) translate ihson as “pilgrimage” (p. 320). 9 Although McGlinchey (2007) suggests that there are limits to the Uzbek state’s control of local mosques, during my research Ferghana and Margilan cities’ mosques were not only patrolled by the local militsia (police) but also were talked about as “unsafe” spaces where the government’s informants abound.

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Gradually, after Uzbekistan’s independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, the state’s inability to effectively control domestic space resulted in both secular and religious authorities’ criticism of social and religious gatherings as possible sites of conspicuous consumption and dissemination of not “politically correct and correctly political” versions of Islam (Kandiyoti and Azimova 2004:337; Papas 2005:39). The state was relentless. A number of interlocutors pointed out that its surveillance of domestic space was on the rise in 2002–2003. One mechanism actively involved in surveillance of domestic space was the mahalla committee (see Bogner and Human Rights Watch (Organization) 2003; Massicard and Trevisani 2003); its representa- tives made informal religious teachers sign statements promising not to teach minors and reported to the national security service office on various activities in their neighborhoods. In personal communications some of these teachers complained of government informants among their students.