ReportingAfter loosening control over religious practice, believing in this way to strengthen its popularity, Uzbek President Chavkat Mirziyoyev is taking a new turn in the face of the Afghan example.
250 km north of Afghanistan, the fabulous city of Samarkand, Uzbekistan, offers visitors the tourist and moderate face of an Islam at odds with that of the Taliban. An Islam that the Uzbek power strives to calibrate for its population, 94% Sunni Muslim. “A Taliban leader visited Samarkand two years ago. He was a religious leader, but he absolutely did not want to listen to what we had to say, he was only there for politics, grumbled Komilbek Kayumov, 64, who presents himself as an imam. Our Islam has nothing to do with their obscurantism, it is an Islam drawing on a long tradition and an erudition which has also influenced Arab culture. “
Typical representative of the older generation imbued with the Soviet period, he is little said about his religious training. Dressed in the West, shaved cheeks, the man said he was vice-director of the scientific department of the mausoleum of Kusam ibn Abbas (cousin of the Prophet, according to legend). “You have to speak with the younger generation”, he encourages, pointing to the imam who has just finished the afternoon prayer at the Davlet Kouchbegi mosque.
Samarriddin Mirzaev, 43, is dressed in the traditional Muslim costume, still inconspicuous despite the new law on religion that came into force this summer, which ended the ban on appearing in public to anyone not registered as a cleric. with the authorities. “Freedom is total, the state does not interfere in religious questions”, explains in a soft voice the imam, who does not speak Russian like his elders, but only Uzbek and Arabic.
Mr. Mirzaev would have liked to study abroad, but received his religious education in a madrasa in Bukhara, a nearby city. The imam praises the ” tolerance “ and the ” wisdom “ of the current president, Chavkat Mirziyoyev, and condemns political Islam. “We have already known four caliphates, it does not work. Religions are not made to rule. Sharia law is an internal law sent by the prophet, and the pious man must respect the rules of the State, especially since our country is today a democracy ”, seems to be reciting the religious.
“Catch-up effect”
Sincere or calculated, the imam’s prudence reflects that of a clergy who has gone through a turbulent history. During the time of dictator Islam Karimov (1989-2016), a former Communist Party apparatchik initially hostile to the dissolution of the Soviet Union, police arrested bearded men and forced them to shave. The suspects of Islamic radicalism were arbitrarily imprisoned by the political police and their number exceeded 13,500 in 2016, when Mr. Karimov died.
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