Politicizing Islam in Central Asia

Unusually for a work of political science, this ambitious book aspires to be a work of history. Its author, Kathleen Collins, has indeed assembled historical sources sufficiently breathtaking to leave this historian drooling, the product of decades of research: 79 focus groups with people from all walks of life, more than 500 interviews, 150 Islamist propaganda videos, archival and published sources, and more still. The book’s main argument is that “Islamist movements are a response to state secularization and repression of religion, which entails the state’s threats to, oppression of, or exclusion of religious institutions, leaders, and followers, and restriction and control of their practices and beliefs” (p. 36). Applied to Central Asia, a framework so angular leaves the author little choice but to force a century of relations between Islam and the state into categories of repression and resistance too narrow to do justice to the subject.

Afghan · Ancient history · Central asia · Islam · Political science · Theology · Historical Geopolitical and Social Dynamics · History · Jewish and Middle Eastern Studies · Law · Philosophy · Religious studies · Soviet and Russian History