Abstract
The Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), or O’zbekiston Islomiy Harakati as it is known locally (Harakat ul-Islamiyyah in Arabic),1 had its origin in the Islamic movement called Adolat (“Justice”), a faction of a larger group known as Islom lashkarlari (“Islamic Warriors”). This group arose in the city of Namangan in the Uzbekistani part of the Ferghana Valley in about 1990 as a response to what was perceived as widespread corruption and social injustice exposed by the liberal perestroika era as well as the resurgence in religious activities no longer prohibited by the Soviet government. The movement was reportedly founded, or at least inspired, by Abdulhakim Qori, the well-known preacher of radical Islam. Supported by imams and preachers such as Obidkhon Qori Nazarov from Tashkent, and Umarkhon Domla and Davudkhon Qori from Namangan, who also contributed funds from their mosques, the movement grew rapidly.
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Notes
The movement’s website, www.furqon.com; International Crisis Group (ICG), Central Asia: Islamist Mobilisation and Regional Security (Osh/Brussels: ICG Asia Report 14, March 1, 2001), p. 4. The present report is an updated and expanded version of the chapters on the IMU and IJU in Michael Fredholm, Islamic Extremism as a Political Force in Central Asia: A Comparative Study of Ceutral Asian Extremist Movements (Stockholm: Stockholm University, Asian Cultures and Modernity 12, October 2006).
Alexander Ignatenko, “Islamic Radicalism: A Cold War By-Product,” Central Asia and the Caucasus 1 (2001), 101–112. See also Fredholm, Islamic Extremism as a Political Force.
Michael Fredholm, Islam and Modernity in Contemporary Central Asia: Religious Faith versus Way of Life—A Story of Four Radical Disruptions (Stockholm: Stockholm University, Asian Cultures and Modernity 14, January 2007).
Ahmed Rashid, Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam in Central Asia (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002), p. 146. She publicly disowned her son in 1999.
Orozbek Moldaliev, “An Incongruous War in the Valley of Poison: The Religious Conflict in Southern Kyrgyzstan,” Central Asia and the Caucasus 1 (2000), 11–20; Rashid, “From Deobandism to Batken”; Washington Post, November 10, 2001; Rashid, Jihad, pp. 137–138. Some report his year of birth as 1968. Other reports indicate that Hojiyev was born in 1967 (Vitaly V. Naumkin, Militant Islam in Central Asia: The Case of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan [Berkeley: University of California, Berkeley Program in Soviet and Post-Soviet Studies, Working Paper, 2003], p. 22) or 1969 (Vitaly V. Naumkin, Radical Islam in Central Asia: Between Pen and R(e [Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2005], p. 68). He reportedly returned from Afghanistan in 1988, which would seem to suggest the earlier year as his year of birth. Hojiyev was later publicly disowned by his sister Makhbuba Ahmedova and his brother Nasyr Hojiyev (both arrested in 2000). Soon after, so did his mother. Rashid, Jihad, p. 147.
On the origin of the movement, see Mehrdad Haghayeghi, Islam and Politics in Central Asia (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1995), pp. 93–94;
William Fierman, “Political Development in Uzbekistan: Democratization?” in Karen Dawisha and Bruce Parrott (eds.), Conflict, Cleavage, and Change in Central Asia and the Caucasus (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), pp. 360–408, on p. 382;
Bakhtiar Babadzhanov [Babajanov], “Islam in Uzbekistan: From the Struggle for ‘Religious Purity’ to Political Activism,” in Boris Rumer (ed.), Central Asia: A Gathering Storm? (London: M. E. Sharpe, 2002), pp. 299–330, on pp. 315–316, 328 f.55; Rashid, Jihad, pp. 137–140; Naumkin, Radical Islam, pp. 66–67; Bahtijar Babadzanov [Babajanov], “Le jihad comme idéologie de l’Autre’ et de ‘I’Exilé’ à travers I‘étude de documents du Mouvement islamique d’Ouzbekistan,” Cahiers dÁsie centrale 15/16 (2007), 141–166. The words of Yo’ldosh are translated from Babadžanov, p. 150.
Ikbaldjon Mirsayitov, “The Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan: Development Stages and Its Present State,” Central Asia and the Caucasus 6 (42) (2006), 110–114. The video statements were issued on January 10, in August, and on September 11, 2006. The IMU maintains a website in Uzbek (www.furqon.com).
Thomas M. Sanderson, Daniel Kimmage, and David A. Gordon, From the Ferghana Valley to South Waziristan: The Evolving Threat of Central Asian Jihadists (Washington, DC: Center for Strategic and International Studies, March 2010), p. 12, citing www.sehadetzamani.com, October 22, 2009.
See, e.g., Marc Sageman, Leaderless Jihad: Terror Networks in the Twenty-First Century (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008).
Thomas Ruttig, “Loya Paktia’s Insurgency: The Haqqani Network as an Autonomous Entity,” in Antonio Giustozzi, Decoding the New Taliban: Insights from the Afghan Field (London: Hurst & Company, 2009), pp. 57–88.
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© 2014 Andrii Krawchuk and Thomas Bremer
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Fredholm, M. (2014). Uzbek Islamic Extremists in the Civil Wars of Tajikistan, Afghanistan, and Pakistan: From Radical Islamic Awakening in the Ferghana Valley to Terrorism with Islamic Vocabulary in Waziristan. In: Krawchuk, A., Bremer, T. (eds) Eastern Orthodox Encounters of Identity and Otherness. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137377388_21
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