Customer Reviews

Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam in Central Asia

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Having spent my whole life up until very recently living and working in Central Asia for the US goverment working with aid agencies, I long ago gave up on finding a book I could share with friends that could explain the Byzantine politics of this region. Here we have countries rich in resources filled with hard working, good people and ruled by dictators that America has unwisely allied with. These dictators are fueling the hatred that will be turned against the US by our enemies.

In fact years ago Rashid warned the west about the Taliban in several articles and had to stay out of that country for years because of the danger to his life.

While the author and I have very different political philosophies, I cannot disparage his journalism. It is thorough and insightful. If you want to understand this region, don't read a book by some Western journalist who spends two weeks here and two months in a public library doing research. Read a book by a man who grew up here and has covered this region for years.

The only people who won't like this book are the despots in the Central Asian nations who are eager to rob that region of it's riches while the eyes of the world are on Afghanistan and Iraq.

It's time to head Rashid's warnings before we end up with a whole region filled with Afghanistans and Iraqs...

This book is as well-conceived, well-researched, and well-written as Rashid's earlier *Taliban*. It makes a convincing case for why Islamic terrorist groups are likely to base their operations in coming years out of central Asia's ex-Soviet states.

Two points in particular are worth considering. The first is that the collapse of the Soviet Union is still continuing to send out shock waves no one could've predicted. The USSR's abuse of the central Asian republics and their ensuing dismal economic and political status today have created a seedbed for discontent. This is sad confirmation of the destructive legacy of imperialism, regardless of whether the imperialism is practiced by the political right or left. The scond point is that the Islamic extremism that's growing in the central Asian republics isn't at all homegrown. It's imported, largely from Saudi Arabia and wahabism. The homegrown Islam of the Asian states tends to be contemplative and pietistic--Sufism. But the new imported brand, rule-bound, rigid, and obsessed with recreating an international Caliphate, is beginning to destroy the native Sufi orientation.

Rashid's "Jihad,*, just like the earlier *Taliban,* has at least one clear lesson: economic penury and Western overbearing creates material and psychological conditions that can be manipulated by terrorists. The western powers ought to take this lesson to heart. Rashid points out that, despite the growth of militant Islam in the central Asian republics, the natives there aren't particularly anti-American as yet. It remains to be seen whether they stay that way. A great deal of their attitude will surely depend on U.S. foreign policy in the months to come.

The question remains are we the Victor Frankenstein who has turned our back on the monster we created?

The Western perception of Jihad, influenced considerably by the crusades in the middle age is one of an Islamic holy was fought against the non-believers. Contrary to this concept the prophet of Islam Muhammad professed Greater Jihad which is one where each Muslim attempts to become a better person and struggles to improve one self, in doing so benefits the community and society in which they live. To him Jihad is an inner struggle of moral discipline. The lesser Jihad takes place to rebel against an unjust tyrant ruler, irrespective of the ruler's beliefs. Today the jihadi movement from Taliban to Osama Bin Ladens Al Qaeda to the movements in Central Asian sates have conveniently ignored the greater jihad and opted for the lesser one, this choice was a means to complete their self-indulgent political gains. These movements have assassinated the faith and hijacked the religion. Nowhere in the Muslim writings or traditions does Islam sanction the killings of the innocent.

At the heights of the Islamic civilization during, the crusades to moors to Ottoman times Muslims were tolerant and respectful for other cultures and beliefs. Our present times we witness the lows of intolerance, where fanatics measure the goodness of society by the length of a mans beard or the thickness of a woman's veil. These new Islamic fundamentalist are not interested in transforming a corrupt society into a just one, they are un-interested in providing jobs, education or social benefits, they have no viable economic agenda or a political manifesto for good governance.

The Beginning:
Before the 16th century Central Asian states were the envy of many, there economic might was drawn from trade routes connecting Europe to Asia widely known as silk route. With the opening of the sea-lanes and diversion of traffic they lost their glitter and revenues to this new competition. Unable to cope with huge armies and luxuries they obliterated into squabbling city based fiefdoms. In 1861 the American civil war, disrupted the cotton supply to Russian factories, besides the expanding British Empire gave Russians the pretense to conquer this territory. Afghanistan became the buffer between the two empires. The Russians drew a rebellious response from the Basmachi (Muslim) revolts. Stalin drove to isolate this area from the world and strictly prohibited practice of Islam. For the next seven decades they tried to dismember them from their traditions, religion and culture. The spirit lived within them and they practiced in hiding, the more the soviets tried to stamp out the more it spread.

The Spread:
With their independence came a strong desire for expression of speech, movement and religion. The government in turn became intolerant to religion, as most of the rulers were used to the ex-communists from the Soviet republic. This repression turned moderate muslims to radical movements. The growing popularity of militant islam in Central Asia is due to the repressiveness of the regimes. The government jealously guards their power and refuses to broaden their political base, refuse to institute the mildest of democratic reforms or allow political opposition. Whilst poverty and unemployment increase and economic opportunity decrease along with the misuse of power and blatant corruption adds to the ill. The people looking for an alternative solution find one in fundamentalists as no political opposition exists. The following is an observation quoted in Jihad by Ahmed Rashid from European based International Crisis Group.
" The situation is so dire for the vast majority of the population that the patience is beginning to evaporate and unrest to grow sharply. The likelihood is that dire poverty combined with despair and outrage over rampant corruption, repressive policies and government failure to address local needs could led to outbreaks of localized unrest with potential to spread into wider conflict"

There is an abundance of oil wealth in the region, which will bring economic prosperity to the region but may not tackle down to the people at grass roots due to corruption. With this there will be a greater disparity between the poor and the rich, will further cause de-stabilization to the region.

The Fix:
The world has witnessed the unjustified acts of September 2001. There is a moral responsibility for the nations to ensure that a smooth transition from soviet isolation to global engagement occurs in Central Asia. There is an immediate need for the regimes there to provide greater political and personal freedom, minimize corruption and provide economic opportunities to the people. There needs to be a greater interest by the nations to build the infrastructure that was laid to ruins by seven decades of soviet isolation.

On the whole this is an immensely enlightening book on the future hot spots. Ahmed Rashid has done a brilliant work again after his book `Taliban'. It is a must read for anyone who is looking for answers or generally trying to understand the area.

Jihad by Ahmed Rashid provides an explanation for the rise of militant Islam in Central Asia. I purchased this book because I enjoyed another of Rashid's works, Taliban, and because it was on sale. Within the first few pages, the significance of Rashid's book is obvious. For one, the author is an objective journalist (that term should be redundant but, sadly, it isn't) with first-hand experience in the region. And, more importantly, Jihad was largely written before 11 September 2001, before our national interest in religious extremism became colored by emotion and an agenda to support USA military efforts in the Middle East.

As argued by Rashid, the seeds of today's radical Islamic movement in Central Asia were planted by Stalin. The present borders of those republics -- Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan -- were drawn by that dictator explicitly to fragment ethnic allegiances, to try and force the local populations to become homogenized (but 2nd class) members of the Soviet empire. Collectivization caused further resentment, as did Bolshevik suppression of Islam. But all the latter accomplished was to push religious practice underground and give the people a rallying point to come together against the government.

When the Soviet Union collapsed in the early 1990s, leaving former Communist Party members as presidents of the five republics, the equilibrium changed. The government was still unpopular and oppressive, and Islam was still officially to be suppressed, but the governments had lost their power to achieve their objectives. With the repeal of Soviet control came the withdrawal of Soviet forces and resources. Militant Islamic groups, suddenly free(r) to seek their own agendas, rose up to divide and topple the reigning, impotent regimes. Rashid works systematically through various movements in the region and their histories, but he pays special attention to the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) and its connection with the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Jihad by Ahmed Rashid is a valuable and important book for anyone that wants to understand how the rise of militant Islam is not a new phenomenon but a continuation -- an effect -- of the Cold War.

Usually any book dealing with any aspect of Islam or other religions is either blatantly biased for or against that religion. Rashid manages to pull the attribution of all things to religion out of discussing Central Asia. He effectively demonstrates the impact of political economy and historical features on the regions lack of stability. Then he shows how religion--in this case Islam--aligns with these historical trends and impacts the country. The part I really appreciate about this book is how he resolves all these aspects into the "bigger picture" of how it affects Central Asia. Reading this book will also enable you to see how social movements occur transnationally in a smaller region (Central Asia comprises 5 countries). Very timely for today's events.

Journalist Ahmed Rashid has the knack to identify those regions and religious movements that can destabilize the world. In his seminal book on the Taliban, Rashid wrote the definitive account of the bizarre fundamentalists who ruled and oppressed Afghanistan. In Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam in Central Asia, the author offers fresh insight into the Islamist tumult in the Central Asian republics of the former USSR.

Although not as strong as his previous book, Jihad nonetheless is the powerful story of the rise of militant Islam in an impoverished, politically troubled region. The author focuses on Islamist terrorists based in the Fergana Valley, a center of Muslim unrest since the Bolshevik Revolution. Rashid explores, compares and contrasts five Central Asian nations impacted by the valley: Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan.

These countries all differ but most continue to suffer the legacy of totalitarianism. After the Soviet Union imploded, Islam came out of the shadows in the Central Asian republics. The successor governments proved as eager as the Kremlin had been to repress religion, and this in turn led to the rise of Islamist terrorism. Rashid places this in a historical and cultural context for each nation. A correspondent long based in the region, Rashid is a reporter with impeccable sources and keen analytical abilities (he sometimes feels compelled to impart most of what he knows and has learned, and that can prove tedious).

The book is at its best when the author contrasts Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Tajikistan once sought to wipe out all Islamists. After a violent civil war, the country came to embrace democracy. As a result, Tajikistan is relatively stable today, and religious activists find outlets for expression through the electoral process. Uzbekistan, on the other hand, frowns on religion and has a national policy to suppress Islamists. Partially as a result, that government remains under constant attack from Muslim extremists, and in turn employs all means at the state's disposal to destroy its enemies. This civil war, centered in the Fergana Valley, spills across borders and threatens the region.

After Rashid details the violence in Uzbekistan, he introduces the reader to the secretive Juma Namagani, who often seems driven by narcissism more than religious concerns. The Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, the terror group Namagani heads, is presented here as a threat that rivals al-Qaeda in its fanaticism and violence.

Rashid concludes the actual problem isn't the insurgents, though. It's the repressive states that create them. Fortunately governments can change. The author documents why this holds some promise that Central Asia may not become the next Afghanistan.

The reviewers on this website who claim Rashid is the only journalist who knows Central Asia are clueless about journalism in Central Asia. There are many journalists who know Central Asia far better than Rashid - check out Eurasianet.org, for example.

Rashid's book about Afghanistan, Taliban, is excellent because he has spent many years living in the region and he knows some local languages and has seriously studied Afghanistan's history. Unfortunately, he relies on unreliable secondary sources for much of his knowledge of Central Asia and his book is filled with major and minor errors. He has an unsophisticated grasp of the Soviet era history of Central Asia and he makes wild speculations and overgeneralizations about the contemporary situation based on inadequate, hastily gathered information. Jihad is just Rashid capitalizing on his cachet and the publishers capitalizing on the public's hunger for quick and accessible information about this under-studied region.

I bought a copy of Ahmed Rashid's book Taliban on a whim, because it was on sale at a cheap price. The cover has a cheesy photo of a guy who looks like an American actor dressed up in Afghan attire to portray a Taliban type. I was so impressed with it, though, that not only did I give it a positive review, I went out and bought this second book of Rashid's, on the central Asian countries that were formerly part of the Soviet Union. The title of this book is somewhat sensational, but the point of the book is to trace the course of history, politically and socially, in the five former Soviet Republics, during the first decade or so of their existence.

The events that he records are frankly fascinating. Four of the five countries are run by dictators who were inherited by the nations involved from the old Soviet Union, which they served as Communist Party Chairs, or Presidents. Only Tajikistan has a coalition government with Islamist militants serving alongside secularists. The four dictatorships run personality cults to a lesser or greater extent, with Turkmenistan having one of the most elaborate of these in the world. The leader styles himself "Turkmenbashi" which means "Father of all Turkmen". Kazhakstan's president is apparently setting up his daughter (!) to succeed him in power. Uzbekistan's ruler isn't able to make his mind up about anything. Kyrgyzstan's ruler and his government are so weak they can't even prevent incursions from terrorists on their way to neighboring countries, and the Chinese claim about 30% of their country.

The international political situation of the countries involved is seemingly unsolvable, and invites pity, to be frank. While a couple of them have extensive oil and gas reserves (Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan) and some others have other mineral resources, transportation routes are limited by the fact that the countries are landlocked, and the surrounding countries are at best neutral to their economic well-being, if not overtly hostile. The Russians, for instance, have exerted extensive pressure to keep all five nations from building pipelines to any of the other surrounding countries, so that they must rely on the old Soviet lines. These, of course, lead to Russia, and since that's the only outlet for the gas and oil, the Russians then insist on paying low prices for what they receive, when they pay at all. China, Iran, Afghanistan, and a route across the Caspian Sea to Azerbaijan and eventually Turkey, all have grave difficulties that could stand in the way of the countries involved getting their petroleum products out onto the open market.

This is a coherent, interesting, involving book that discusses every facet of the five nations. While it isn't exhaustive, it's probably the most accessible description of them available in English. Everything from politics to religion to trade is discussed in the book, and several subjects are covered rather thoroughly. The author is very interested in the one real terrorist group in the region, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. He devotes a whole chapter to this organization (whose leader was killed by an American bomb in Afghanistan in 2002) and their goals and methods. He also discusses the Islamic group Hizb al-Tahrir, which is ostensibly peaceful (at least for now) but seeks to exert sharia over the whole of the region, insisting that doing so will bring peace, prosperity, and stability to the region with no down side.

I enjoyed this book a great deal. I think I learned a great deal from it, and I think I'm looking forward to Mr. Rashid's next book.

Ahmed Rashid must be considered the most knowledgeable journalist of Central Asian affairs. Apart from books, his insightful writings have also appeared in reputable current-affairs magazines such as the 'Far Eastern Economic Review'.

In this latest book he once again provides a very detailed and balanced account of recent developments in one of the most tense regions in the world. During years of research and travel Rashid has not only sifted through a tremendous amount of literature and other documentary data, but also established what must be a unique network of informants throughout Central Asia. Such sources combined permit the author to penetrate deep into the murky world of Central Asian politics.

He is equally at home in the workings of the (former) Communist party and Soviet secret services apparatus as the emergence of radical Islamic resistance movements. The interesting and undoubtedly valuable information, which he presents on the less visible - yet very influential - Muslim activists in the region, is all the more important now that Osama bin Laden's portrayal as 'Evil Incarnate' has simultaneously turned him into a media star and the prime suspect for every terrorist act perpetrated.

Rashid's writing is characterized by a rare quality, which pairs unbiased analysis with empathy. The author is equally critical of the repression of the will of the people by current Central Asian leaders , the blind fanaticism of radical Muslims, and the one-sidedness of Western policy towards the region, which he blames on a lack of knowledge and appreciation of the complexities of Central Asian politics.

In his book Rashid does not shy away from giving his own view of what would constitute a more balanced policy towards Central Asia. By this he shows that an informed and critical stand does not preclude a sincere engagement, stemming from genuine sympathy for the tormented people of Central Asia.

Mr Rashid does a great job introducing this region to a reader who is only familiar with this area through the news reports. Central Asia covers an area nearly the size of the contiguous USA west of the Mississippi excluding Texas. Kazakhstan to the north comprises about 2/3s of this area. The remaining four "Stans" are squeezed between the Caspian Sea to the west with its vast oil reserves, China to the east and Iran and Afghanistan to the south.

Within these chapters is an adequate, short, understandable introduction to the history of the area from the Mongol invasions through their subjugation by the communists. You are introduced to the geography and the political boundaries, which were drawn by Stalin, and the state of affairs in each country between the downfall of the USSR and 2001. You learn that communist style dictators rule all but one of these countries and all the countries are both repressed and impoverished.

The meat of the story seems to begin with the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan and the USA's efforts to thwart that assault. Our work with the resistance fighters through Pakisitan brought the outside world into central Asia for the first time in 60 years. With the defeat of the USSR in Afghanistan and the USSR's collapse, these countries were plunged unprepared into the modern world. The continuing repressive natures of their governments coupled with the arrival of fanatical Muslim missionaries soon lead to the birth of several Islamic fundamentalist organizations.

The Islamic Renaissance Party (IRP), Hizb ut Tahir (HT) and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) are the main focus of most of the book. Each of these organizations aims at overthrowing the current governments in the area and replacing them with some form of repressive Islamic state; however, none of the groups is particularly clear on what that would be. I think that Mr. Rashid does a very good job at portraying these organizations as destructive, reactionary groups with no plan for the world after they win.

Finally, the strategic concerns of Russia, China and the USA are dealt with and how they relate to Central Asia. I would like to point out to future readers that whenever the USA's influence in the region is mentioned America is indicted because its military and economic aide is not tied to political reform; regional leaders are just encouraged to reform. However, no such concern is ever once raised by Mr. Rashid when he discusses the influence and aide of Russia, China, Iran, Turkey, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, any European Country or any other player in Central Asia. Also, not once in the book is there ever any discussion of the responsibility that the residents of each of the "Stans" have for the maintenance and good government of their own lands.

All in all this is a well written and worthwhile book. It covers the subject area briefly, but well. I came away from this book with a much better understanding of this region, its problems and what we will be facing for many years to come.