A VERY PEACEFUL JIHAD

PABLO ESCOBAR
CENTRAL ASIA'S ISLAMISTS ARE NO TERRORISTS;
ALL THEY WANT IS A MUSLIM UTOPIA WORLDWIDE
AND PEACE AND PROSPERITY IN THE REGION.
NOT QUITE HOW THE RULERS SEE IT

A constant smirk is imprinted on his face. In his black-padded traditional Uzbek

cloak, black boots, white skullcap and sporting an incipient beard, Alisher (not his
real name), a young man in his mid-20s, is either despondent, extremely selt-
assured, or both. He is not rural madrassa fodder: he is college-educated, and had
no need for a religious school education. But he is unemployed nevertheless. In
many ways, just by the power of his faith, he is more lethal than a suicide bomber.
Alisher is a member of the Islamic movement Hizb ut-Tahrir (HUT). From the
point of view of a repressive Central Asian regime like Uzbekistan's, he's a
terrorist. If that is the case, he is the mode! of the terrorist of the future.
After Li tortuous negotiation via a Kyrgyz interpreter, Alisher agrees to speak
about HUT at a chaykhana (tea house) in the middle of Osh's legendary'Jayma
bazaar, bursting with Kyrgyz, Uzbek and Tajiks buying and selling everything
under the sun, or snow. With winter fast approaching and drizzle and snow falling
almost every day, Osh can be a pretty grim place. Not only merchants congregate
in the bazaar, but a cast of desperate characters selling the usual broken dolls and
cheap socks - peasants who have come to the city dreaming of paradise.
The streets are totally dark at night, the pavement is cmmbling, there's not
much else apart from a kiosk economy and no evidence of a central state's
presence. RougMy half of Osh's population is Uzbek - with no political
representation whatsoever in the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek. Their eyes are focused
on Uzbekistan and the adjacent, fertile Fergana Valley. But Osh is cut off from the
valley by Joseph Stalin's demented geography; and the absurd border, less than
half an hour away, has been further solidified by the hardline Uzbek regime of
President Islam Karimov.
Most HUT members are, like Alisher, ethnic Uzbeks, living in the country
itself or in neighbouring Central Asian republics. Karimov simply does not
tolerate what he views as radical Islam. His war against the Islamic Movement of
Uzbekistan (IMU) - affiliated with the Taliban - has been merciless, and vice-
versa. HUT is not the same thing as the IMU: IMU supporters are basically
impoverished farmers living in the Fergana Valley in Uzbekistan, a densely
populated area including the cities of Namangan, Andijan, Kokand and Fergana.
HUT appeals to what passes as the urban intelligentsia in Central Asia: students
who have finished college and who are unable to find a decent job. But thousands

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ot HUT militants now languish in Uzbek jails — HUT claims there are more than
100,000 — as well as in other parts of Central Asia.
HUT - whose underground headquarters is now prob;ibly in Jordan - has
defined itself in a conununique on its website as 'a political party that does not
undertake material actions'. It has been branded as an illegal Islamic movement all
over Central Asia. As configured by Alisher, it is above all a giant proselytising
machine that has not resorted to guerrilla warfare - at least not yet. Inside
Kyrgyzstan, the movement has been blamed for two recent bombings, on a
market in Bishkek and an exchange office in Osh. But no evidence has been
produced.
HUT is essentially a pan-Islamic secret society, founded in 1953 in
Saudi Arabia and Jordan by a Palestinian from the diaspora. Sheikh Taqiuddin
an-Nabham, who studied in the famous al-Azhar University in Cairo. Sheikh an-
Nabhani's writings remain very influential: they are the letter of the law as far as
HUT is concerned. The sheikh hates 'depraved democracies' imposed by the
West on Muslim nations and advocates 'a single state over the entire Muslim
world". He skilfully links Islam's great expansion through jihad in the seventh
century with a possible new wave of expansion in the twenty-first century now
that Muslims are under ^torture, internal and external propaganda and sanctions' —
the actUiU state of things in Central Asia. He clearly equates Islam with a
pennanent, global revolution: Leon Trotsky meets the holy Quran. Alisher
stresses: 'It will be a peaceful revolution that will make the regimes in Central Asia
crumble.'
In an analysis that could have been penned by Vladimir Lenin or Trotsky,
Alisher says that people in all Central Asian fonner Soviet republics are politically
ripe to rise against their unjust rulers. In the first phase, the Central Asian republics
plus Afghanistan and China's Xinjiang province would be uuited in a caJiphate:
then the caliphate - similar to the one that ruled Arabia between 632 (when
Mohammed died) until 661 — will take over the rest of the world.
Forget about democracy — as well as capitalism, socialism or nationalism, all of
them 'depraved Western notions'. Democracy as practised in the European
Union is considered 'a farce*. The US, the UK and Israel are 'the work of the
devil' - although they would be given the option of joining the caliphate. Forget
about cinema, music, modem art, rap videos, fast food and Internet chat rooms.
As for Jews, they will be invited to leave "because they do not belong in Central
Asia.'
As it's not the same thing as the IMU, HUT is also &rfrom^being the same
thing as al-Qaeda. Essentially, HUT wants to follow the peacefiji way to sitaria,
while the al-Qaeda virus has mutated into a total war against the West. In its early
days, HUT was very close to the Muslim iJrotherhood in Egypt, historically the
first group to devise a strategy of Islamic struggle against Westem colonialism, and
always in favour of the fomiation of modem Islamic states. The Jamiat-i-Islami in
Pakistan, as well as the late anti-Taliban Northern Alliance commander Ahmad

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Shah Masoud, and fomier Afghan prime minister and current US nemesis
Gulbuddin Hekniatyar iii Afghanistan have also shared the Muslim Brotherhood's
philosophy.
It's iiiir to say, though, that HUT is not so far from the Wahhabi worldview of
al-Qaeda; and as fer as Karimov's repressive police apparatus in Uzbekistan is
concerned, the HUT and the IMU are definitely the same thing: 'bandits' in
Russian President Vladimir Putin's terminology; 'thugs' in that of President
Ceorge W 13ush. Karimov may be fighting a movement whose platfomi is not
even relevant to the harsh daily lives of most people in Uzbekistan, not to
mention Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. But HUT is tremendously popular, not only
in Central Asia but also in Turkey, Egypt, Pakistan and the Maghreb. HUT is
now active in at least 40 countries around the world.
Alisher makes the point that HUT is also anti-Sliia: like Jews, all Shi'ites living
in Central Asia - substantial communities in southem Uzbekistan and eastem
Tajikistan - would have to leave. Bukhara and Samarkand, the great, mythical
Silk Road cities, have a strong Shia minority. This HUT notion totally clashes
with the history of tolerance of Islam in Central Asia. Sufism - the tolerant Islamic
mysticism - was born in Centra! Asia and Persia after the Arab invasions.
Salomon's throne, the 'stone tower' looming over Osh that has always greeted
voyagers on the Silk Road, is the second most important pilgrimage site in
Central Asia because the Prophet Mohammed may have prayed there. The most
important pilgrimage site is the tomb of Sufi mystic and saint Bahauddin
Naqshbandi outside Bukhara. HUT's intolerance proves its ideology is an Arabian
import that does not even bother to connect the Middle East with the real
problems of Central Asia. Any conversation in the Jayma bazaar in Osh reveals
that for anyone the real issues are not Sunni or Shia, but unemployment, inflation
and lack of education.

While southem Kyrgyzstan is being Islamicised. northern Kyrgyzstan is being

slowly Christianised. This nationwide split in the long run is working towards the
HUT's aims. Christians represent at least 17 per cent of the whole Kyrgyz
population of almost 5 million. Russian Orthodox followers are building
churches everywhere; Christian evangelists are active, profiting from Akayev's
drive to halt the exodus of skilled Russians. H U T views this situation as a total
disgrace.
Alisher is mum about HUT leadership. It may have been from T-ondonistan';
but according to European intelligence sources, Londonistan has been effectively
neutralised by Tony Blair's govemment via a couple of media-frenzy-inducing
arrests. Alisher confimis that HUT usually operates invisible five-man daira (cells
or circles) in Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. Uzbek secret police may
have arrested hundreds of cell members, but no leaders so far. HUT leadership
remains essentially invisible: no photos, no records, no addresses, just avalanches
of books, pamphlets and leaflets tran.slated from Arabic to Kyrgyz, Uzbek, Dari

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and Russian and churned out by a network of underground desktop publishing

presses all over Central Asia.
There are also posters and sliabnamas - night letters - surreptitiously appearing
in the morning under people's doors. Although HUT only started infiltrating
Uzbekistan in the niid-1990s, via a solitary Jordanian in Tashkent, Alisher swears
the HUT has spread like wildfire, or a vims, in the Kyrgyz and Tajik parts of the
Fergana Valley. There may be hundreds of thousands of memben in Uzbekistan
alone. The popularity of HUT in Kyrgyzstan is attributed by Alisher to a mix of
poverty, official corruption and the central govemment in Bishkek totally
ignoring the problems of the region.
Like al-Qaeda, the HUT makes massive use of the Internet and digital
technology to propagate its own version of globahsation: not neo-liberalisni, but
the one-system, worldwide sharia govemment. Urbanised Uzbeks in the capital
Tashkent say the model may be the Ottoman Empire, something that pan-Turkic
Uzbeks can easily relate to. Alisher, thougli, is vague on the economic and social
policies of this one-global-state caliphate.
Alisher vehemently denies HUT is affiliated in any way with al-Qaeda, the
Taliban or the IMU. But Osama bin Laden is undeniably a very popular figure in
the Fergana Valley 'because he supports all Lslamic movements in Central Asia'.
Alisher, though, reflects what may be the official HUT position: bin Laden
launched \m Jihad against the West too early and exposed militants of all shades
and colours to relentless Westem repression.
The key to the future is what will happen in the Fergana Valley. It is an
enonnous oasis, less than 3(10 kilometres long, with the best soil and chmate
anywhere in Central Asia, as the Greeks and the Persians knew more than two
millennia ago. It is also at the centre of silk production in Central Asia. The root
of the modem problem is the Soviet Union's decision to impose a monoculture
of cotton on the valley: the Fergana is still an endless succession of cotton fields
tringed by mulberry trees and orchards and scattered villages. Agro-industrial
collectives are still the norm. The eastem side of the valley around Namangan and
Andij.in in Uzbekistan and Osh and Jalalabad in Kyrgyzstan is ultra-conservative.
Andijan is also at the centre of Uzbekistan's oil production, and Karimov does
everything he can to make life in the valley more difficult.
Innumerable proposals for the development of the Fergana Valley have
stressed the same point: this is an integrated area, a single valley with more than 10
milhon people, not three regions from three different states. There's no way the
whole agricultural and industrial infrastructure of the valley can be modemised
with a bunker mentality. And the stalemate is all due to Karimov. HUT and IMU
view the valley as an organic whole and both trust that widespread economic
hardship will lead to Karimov's downfall.
Radicalisation is inevitable. For Russia H U T is a terrorist group; in Germany
it has been outlawed, because of its notorious anti-Semitic views. In Kyrgyzstan,
the Ulema Council has approved what amounts to de facto censorship of religious
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Return of the mullah, Boklimi, Uzhekistau

Credit: Ahhas/Magiium Photo.-:

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literature: the Kyrgyz security service, working alongside the Spiritual Directorate
of Muslims, is printing its own literature denouncing the HUT as 'extremists'. As
the tbremost US client in Central Asia. Karimov is playing the usual game; HUT
is equated with al-Qaeda and diis justifies the regime's brutal repression.
The HUT faithful are not suicide bombers. They are smiling idealists like
Alisher. In their peaceful jiluul - a war of conversion to an idealised world free of
all mundane problems — they are willing to wait 1,000 years to annex the West to
a caliphate. But recent pamphlets confiscated in Tajikistan already suggest a
change of tone. Apart from declaring the US a global threat that can only be cured
by the caliphate, they are more viscerally anti-US and call for a jihad against the
West.
There's no political life to speak of in Central Asia, and for the absolute
majority of its population the economic future is also bleak. HUT members know
time is on their side. With internal repression still at its peak, sooner or later the
peaceful jihadis may exchange the pamphlet for the bomb. •

Pabio Escobar is a correspondent for Asia Times Online

This article reproduced courtesy Courrier Intemational

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