Word: muslim
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...opening out of the former Soviet Union; Beishenov has heard about new economic reforms, and hopes to rent from a neighboring state farm the strip of stony pasture he uses for grazing. But he is unmoved by larger questions of politics and religion. He is the kind of Muslim, he says, "who prays to himself." He just wants a piece of land he can call...
Beishenov may soon get his wish. Since the Soviet Union collapsed five months ago, more dramatic changes have been taking place in Central Asia than the sheepherder could ever imagine. Freed from control by Moscow, a vast stretch of the Eurasian continent populated by more than 50 million predominantly Muslim, Turkic-speaking peoples has unfolded to the outside world. The former Soviet republics of Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan never agitated for the breakup of the union and even served as a passive but powerful prop for the communist regime. Once centralized Soviet control began to split apart, however...
When strict confessional differences are considered, the pull of Iranian- style fundamentalism appears to be greatly exaggerated. The overwhelming majority of Central Asian Muslims, including the ethnically Persian peoples of Tajikistan, follow the Sunni Islam observed in Saudi Arabia and most of the Muslim world. A true religious revival in Central Asia would probably produce an Islamic state more like Pakistan than Iran, which holds to the more extreme fundamentalist Shi'ite dogma...
...Muslim political aspirations have found a focus in the Islamic Renaissance Party, which held its founding congress in 1990 in the Russian city of Astrakhan, once the historic capital of a Muslim Tatar fiefdom. "Our party's goals are similar to those of the Iranian revolution," explains Moscow-based spokesman Vali-Akhmet Sadur. "We stand for tradition." Before the union broke apart, the party could operate openly only in Russia, but it now has chapters in Uzbekistan and Tajikistan that have emerged from the underground...
...movement has especially strong grass-roots support in Uzbekistan's Fergana Valley, a hotbed of Muslim resistance to communist rule. Angered by the new regime's failure to deal with corruption and a growing crime rate, local militants in the city of Namangan have organized local Islamic guard patrols, who punish offenders with religious indoctrination and the public pillory. Communist propaganda posters still decorate the streets, but the cry of "God is great!" echoing from the mosques has a more stirring effect on the local population. During afternoon prayers, the Islamic guards keep order among the steady stream...