Introduction

Religion and culture play an important role in traditional societies. The traditional and moderate Islamic beliefs and practices with strong indigenous and Sufi content in South and Central Asia are diametrically opposed to the radical Wahhabi and Taliban ideologies and practices which are intolerant of other cultures and groups. The emergence of radical and extremist Islamist movements in South and Central Asia is the main source of instability and conflict in this region. The rise of radical Islamist groups has been influenced by the leading ideologues of Islamic fundamentalist thought – Sheikh Muhammad ibn-Abd-al-Wahab (1703-91), Jamal-ud-Din Afghani (1839-97), Ali Shariati (1933-77), Ayatollah Ruhullah Khomeini (1909-89) – leader of the Islamic Revolutionary Party of Iran, Hassan-al-Banna (1906-49) – founder of the Ikhwan-al-Muslameen (Muslim Brotherhood) and Sayyid Qutb (1906-66) of the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt, and Maulana Syed Abul Ala Mawdudi (1903-79) of Pakistan – the first Amir of the Jamaat-e-Islami. These ideologues emphasised that political power is indispensable to the establishment of an Islamic state. The emphasis by the Islamist radicals on the supremacy of their ideology and practice of pan-Islamism which is based on the concept of Ummah (community of believers), transcending national boundaries, ethnicities, creeds, race and all other distinctions, is at the root of violence, conflict and instability in parts of South and Central Asia and elsewhere. If one goes by the strict definition of the term “Islamic fundamentalism”, it

stands for a return to the doctrines of Islam in their original form as were practised in medieval times. It could also mean idealising the historical past of Islam and calling for a return to “pure and original Islam”, which can be achieved through peaceful, lawful, cultural and spiritual means. But in practice, the focus of religious radicals has been Islamisation of the state rather than the reform of individuals. Though Muslims like any other non-Muslims have multiple identities – religious, ethnic, tribal, linguistic or territorial – the emphasis by the religious extremists on the Islamic communal identity puts them on a collision course with the state and other groups. A section of Islamist intellectuals, Ulemma and activists have been seeking to blur the distinction between Islam as a religion and nationalism. They prop up the

Islamic political consciousness by politicising already existing religious traditions and practices and by resisting change and modernisation. The concept of Ummah or Millat is being invoked to abet, support and legitimise the secessionist movements of Muslims living in non-Muslim states. Religious extremism poses a major challenge to the secular and democratic polity, pluralistic social order and inter-religious harmony. The concepts of Dar-al-Islam (country where Islamic law prevails) and

Dar-al-Harb (country where Islamic law does not prevail) and jihad (holy war) as advocated by the Islamists envisage a perpetual state of confrontation between Islamic and non-Islamic states. The division of humanity into two clear cut groups – the faithful (momin) and the un-faithful (kafir) and the stringent rules laid down for the aliens (zimmis) or the subjugated communities, thus drawing a dividing line between the Muslims and nonMuslims, is at the core of Islamic fundamentalist ideology propounded and practised by the extremists. While propagating puritanism and puritan life style and the meticulous observance of the prescribed code of conduct, the Islamist extremists isolate the liberal Muslims from the faithful (momin) and try to coerce them into submission. In pursuit of this ideology, stress is laid on construction of mosques, acquisition of land for congregational prayers and graveyards, building of madrassas, teaching of Islamic theology, enforcement of their injunctions at gun-point, censuring the veneration of ziarats (shrines) and sufis, closure of places of entertainment, exclusion of music and fine arts, strict observance of hadith or tradition, and indoctrination of Muslim minds at all levels, making religion and politics essentially complementary to each other and negating the achievements of democracy, secularism and modernisation. The Islamists do not agree with the modern concept of democracy and

secularism. To a jihadi, Islam is his religion and his nation. To him, Islam transcends geographical boundaries, ethnicities, creed, race and all other distinctions. Maulana Mawdudi, while describing all other systems as irredeemably flawed, floated the idea of pan-Islamic jihad and gave the call for use of arms. He believed that democracy led to chaos, greed and mob rule, that capitalism fostered class warfare and inequalities and that communism stifled human initiative and curbed freedom of religion. So, Mawdudi proposed jihad and an Islamic state as the only remedy to these ills of modern times. In theory, jihad in Islam was meant to cerate an egalitarian social order where the poor and the deprived would be treated fairly and with dignity. But what would have been a social, political or economic struggle against inequality, injustice and deprivation, has been turned into Qital (violence) by Osama bin Laden, Al Qaeda, the Taliban and other Islamist militant groups which have been spearheading extremism and terrorism. The rhetoric of political Islam gained popularity due to its response to

growing economic disparity and discontent, corruption, political failures, and the moral bankruptcy of modern and Western material culture and value system. The Cold War era witnessed the rise of Islamic fundamentalists to

power – in Iran through Islamic revolution, in Sudan through military coup and in Algeria through democratic means. And the post-Cold War era saw the resurgence of Islam in Central Asia particularly in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, radicalisation of society and politics in Bangladesh and Pakistan, and the rise ofMujahideen and the Taliban to power in Afghanistan. The Islamic challenge is further compounded by the booming Muslim population, and the growing number of devout, conservative and assertive individuals making up the Muslim middle class alongwith their rising socio-economic profile. Wahhabi social and cultural conservatism, Qutbist political radicalism,

Khomeini’s ideology of exporting Islamic revolution, Jamaat-e-Islami’s panIslamism and Hizb ut-Tahrir’s concept of an Islamic Caliphate based on Shariah provided the ideological foundation of militant political Islam which in turn provided a fertile base for the militarised form of Islam represented by the Taliban and Al Qaeda. It hardly needs to be emphasised that the Taliban, Al Qaeda and other extremist terrorist groups like Hizb ut-Tahrir, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, Jaish-e-Mohammad, Lashkar-e-Tayyeba, the East Turkistan Islamic Movement, East Turkestan Liberation Organization, Hizbul Mujahideen, Harkat-ul-Jihad-ul-Islami (HuJI), Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HuM) etc. have been in the forefront of violence and terrorism in South and Central Asia. With the disintegration of the former USSR and the emergence of newly

independent Central Asian states – all having a predominantly Muslim population – a new geopolitical situation arose in the region. Due to its geostrategic proximity to Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and China, and being a distinct geopolitical entity, developments in Central Asia and adjoining regions have a direct bearing on South Asia. The rise of the Taliban to power in Kabul in September 1996, which turned Afghanistan into the centre of religious extremism, global terrorism, drugs and arms trafficking, brought the entire region into the focus of global attention. The establishment of a radical Islamist order in Afghanistan and the active involvement of armed Islamist militants in cross-border terrorism and jihad (holy war), whether in the Indian State of Jammu and Kashmir, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan or some other CIS countries, has adversely affected regional security, peace and stability in South and Central Asia. The Afghanistan crisis influenced all the Central Asian Republics. The

rise to power of the Taliban affected those countries, which were seeking to build secular democratic states. In Central Asia, pan-Islamic ideology gained popular appeal due to its rejection of moral degradation, erosion of values and corruption caused by modernisation, communism, and economic and political failures. It was also a reaction to the moral bankruptcy of modernity and alien Western values. Islam came to be projected as a better alternative to secularism, materialism and communist social and political order. Islamic revivalism offered a viable route to the Central Asian Muslims in their rediscovery of Islamic roots and cultural heritage and in their search for Central Asian identity in the post-Soviet order. However, the majority of the

Central Asian Muslims who belong to the Hanafi sect of Sunni Muslims and are mostly the followers of indigenous Sufi orders, are averse to adopting the rigid puritan brand of Islam being propagated by extraneous pan-Islamist zealots. The strong national consciousness of Uzbek, Tajik, Turkmen, Kazakh and Kyrgyz identities is deep rooted in the respective Central Asian Republics which are unlikely to allow the collective pan-Islamic Caliphate sought by the Islamists. Besides, the experience of violent conflict, bloodshed and huge economic losses suffered by Tajikistan and Afghanistan acts as a stark reminder to the Central Asian people of the worst possible implications of Islamist extremism in the region. Though the Central Asian Republics followed different approaches to the Afghan conflict, they have shown unanimity over the threats posed by the religious radicalism of Taliban, terrorism and drug trafficking. The first wave of political Islam appeared in Tajikistan in 1992 seeking

to make the country an Islamic state. Tajikistan witnessed bloody civil war and conflict during the early and mid-1990s, which fragmented the society and polity, besides causing severe economic damage to the country. In the late 1990s, the country moved forward towards reconciliation between Islamic opposition and the government. After the Tajik settlement, the Uzbek militants who fought alongside the Tajik Islamists broke away and openly linked up with the Taliban. The crisis deepened during the Taliban period when Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda turned Afghanistan into the hub of international terrorism and narco-trafficking. Even though war against terror in Afghanistan was launched over seven years ago, Al Qaeda and the Taliban are now posing even greater threat to peace and stability in Afghanistan and the entire region. The new disturbing trend is that the resurgent Taliban are adopting Iraq style suicide bomb attacks resulting in large scale death and destruction. Since early 2004, Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and

Waziristan areas of Pakistan have become the havens from where armed bands of Pashtun, Uzbek, Chechen, Uyghur and Arab extremists and terrorists belonging to bin Laden’s International Islamic Front (IIF) have been operating and striking at different places. These groups support bin Laden’s pan-Islamic ideology and work for the establishment of an independent Islamic Caliphate comprising Central Asia, Afghanistan and Xinjiang. The events in Pakistan have demonstrated that by using extremist ideology and terrorism as the tools to expand the strategic, ideological and even economic frontiers in South and Central Asia, the patron state has brought peril to itself. So much so that Pakistan’s parliament for the first time recognized the threat from extremism and terrorism, when in a joint session it unanimously passed a resolution on 22 October 2008 stating that “extremism, militancy and terrorism in all forms and manifestations pose a grave danger to the stability and integrity of the nation state”. During 2009, a record number of Pakistani civilians and members of the

security forces died in militant violence, propelling Pakistan into the ranks of

the world’s most perilous places. There were over 12,600 violent deaths across Pakistan, which is 14 times more than in 2006, in the spate of suicide bombings and militant attacks by the Taliban and Pakistan-based Tehrik-eTaliban. The Afghan Taliban, Tehrik-e-Taliban, Lashkar-e-Tayyeba, Jaishe-Mohammad and Al Qaeda are closely allied and have been pursuing a common anti-west and anti-India agenda. The Pakistani establishment, particularly the army and intelligence agencies, seeks to use these jihadi groups as instruments of securing Pakistan’s strategic depth in Afghanistan and Central Asia vis-à-vis India. This explains Pakistan’s military’s reluctance to take on Siraj Haqqani, the Afghan jihadi chief, who has been operating from North Waziristan. To quote the well known Pakistani analyst Ahmed Rashid,

the Pak army is loath to even acknowledge the presence of the Afghan Taliban leadership that is based in Baluchistan province and North Waziristan. The Pakistan army is likely to push Afghan President, Hamid Karzai to accept a Pakistani brokered deal to form a pro-Pakistan government with the Taliban in Kabul.