Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam in
Central Asia by Ahmed Rashid
The Root Of Civilization's Problem.
In the aftermath of September 11, as Americans tried to figure out what
they were up against, many of them turned to Ahmed Rashids masterful
book Taliban, the single best account of Afghanistans murderous regime.
With Jihad, Rashid offers an indispensable companion volume on five of
Afghanistans neighbors--Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan,
Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan--and the New Great Game about to be
waged over them between China, Russia, and the United States. The vast,
empty landscape dotted with oases of vibrant populations and political
ferment, sitting on the worlds last great untapped natural energy reserves,
is almost as unknown to Westerners as it was to Europeans in the Middle
Ages, writes Rashid, a Pakistani journalist with extensive experience
reporting from the region. He describes the areas growing instability, which
he credits to a strain of militant Islam just like the form propagated by the
Taliban and Osama bin Laden. One of the most interesting parts of Jihad
concerns Juma Namangani, a shadowy rebel leader in Uzbekistan who

has cultivated an air of mystery that [is] even more extreme than that of the
secretive [Taliban leader] Mullah Omar. Rashid concludes that radical
Islam will remain popular in Central Asia as long as the governments there
are oppressive. We ignore this part of the world at our peril, and there is no
better guide to it than Rashid. --John Miller
Personal Review: Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam in Central
Asia by Ahmed Rashid
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.
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