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Uzbekistan
The Issue of Fundamentalism
In light of the role that Islam has played throughout Uzbekistan's
history, many observers expected that Islamic fundamentalism would
gain a strong hold after independence brought the end of the Soviet
Union's official atheism. The expectation was that an Islamic
country long denied freedom of religious practice would undergo
a very rapid increase in the expression of its dominant faith.
President Karimov has justified authoritarian controls over the
populations of his and other Central Asian countries by the threat
of upheavals and instability caused by growing Islamic political
movements, and other Central Asian leaders also have cited this
danger.
In the early 1990s, however, Uzbekistan did not witness a surge
of Islamic fundamentalism as much as a search to recapture a history
and culture with which few Uzbeks were familiar. To be sure, Uzbekistan
is witnessing a vast increase in religious teaching and interest
in Islam. Since 1991, hundreds of mosques and religious schools
have been built or restored and reopened. And some of the Islamic
groups and parties that have emerged might give leaders pause.
Data as of March 1996
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