KYRGYZSTAN TODAY Policy briefs on - Department of Geography

called ekhson, i.e. “give, treat in the name of Allah.” Funeral rites, which start with a death
of a person and end with the last ritual after a year of his/her death, also started to be
called ekhson, and practicing those rituals as funeral rites on the seventh, twentieth and
fortieth days started being perceived as non-Islamic. If, in the rituals Bibimushkul kushod
and Bibiseshanbba, former otyn were mostly engaged in ritual details such as preparation
and distribution of ritual food and reading duo, modern otyn focus their main attention
on educational and informational activity in the religious area – in particular, they are
involved in activities to persuade women to wear khydjab.
In the everyday life of the modern Uzbek people, ekhson has become an influential
institution used to manage women and dictate certain behaviors, clothes style, religious
thinking and even routines of life. The views and behaviors of otyn and very religious
(islomi) women are more caused not by “traditions” and traditional” religiousness but
by ideology, policy, and borrowed ideas about Islam and women-Moslem.
The identity of people of a traditional Uzbek makhalla today reflects a more and
more evident religious character. In particular, it explicitly prescribes practicing ritual
wedding ceremonies. During recent decades, secular weddings started being replaced
with religious weddings, which are called by people islomi tui, i.е. “Islamic wedding.”
At such weddings, a bridegroom and a bride do not sit together at a wedding party
(nikoh) with the guests, but spend the wedding evening surrounded by women. Such
innovations have lead to popular separation of practices into islomi and not islomi. As
a result, Islam has changed from a “people’s” routine level of activities to the level of
official, or near-official, ideology.
The transformation of religious rites, and related changes in modern Uzbek
society, demonstrate that Islam is no longer considered a marker of personal piety and
cultural identity, but is more likely perceived as an assertion of political and ideological
confrontation.
Recently, secular Uzbek power has taken advantage of the huge spiritual opportunities
of Moslem religion to open new facets of its peace-keeping and constructive, creative
and humanistic capacity. We believe that appealing to positive Islam principles, as well
as to principles of other religions, will allow the nation to positively address the issue
of integration of people’s frames of mind into an official ideology of the state. At the
same time, it will allow the salvation of Islam as a part of the spiritual life of the nation,
and protect it from numerous unjustifiable attacks caused by the actions of ignorant
followers.
Recommendations
1. International institutions and the international community should support the
efforts of Uzbekistan’s leadership to preserve the secular regime in the Republic, as long
as believers’ rights are observed. Religious identity and religious activities shall remain
a personal right of every citizen, who is obliged to observe secular rules and laws of the
state.
2. The series of terrorist acts in Uzbekistan, and the Kyrgyzstan–Batken events
of summer-autumn 1999–2000, the events at the end of March, 2004 in Uzbekistan
and events in May 2005 all confirm that a group of international terrorists work to
destabilize the political situation in the entire region of Central Asia, and involve the
local population in conflicts and wars using the “Islamic revival” shield. International
institutions and international community should help the Government of Uzbekistan to
counteract those plans and combat extremists.
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