Volume 1, No 3, Summer 1991

Some Facts about Central Asian Republics

[information from Impact International]

The people of Uzbekistan, Turkmenia, Kazakstan, Kirghizia, Azerbaijan and other Central Asian Republics have a brilliant and glorious history. Many of the great scholars were born, bred, and educated in these lands: Imam Bukhari, al-Tabari, Ibn Sina, al-Farabi (a well known Muslim philosopher who mastered, perhaps too much, the thinkers of Athens), Abu Zayd al-Dabusi (the great Hanafite jurist from "land beyond the River Oxus" in Samarkand), al-Bayruni (a multi-faceted scholar who laid the foundation for modern geology and astronomy, gifting the world with an accurate method to determine latitude and longitude, investigated the relative speeds of sound and light, and -- 600 years before Galileo -- discussed the possibility of the earth rotating around its own axis), and many others like al-Maturidi, Abu Layth al Samarkandi, al Shashi, and al-Nasafi. It is a great source of anxiety and disturbance, however, to reflect on the historical illiteracy prevalent regarding the Islamic legacy in Central Asia. Following are some facts about Central Asian Republics:

• In 1917, there were 30,000 mosques (estimated). In 1943, only 1,200 remained standing. In 1959 Khrushchev kicked off a second wave of mosque demolition. In five years, nearly all village mosques were destroyed. When "public image" entered the Soviet lexicon of the Soviet leadership, a few cosmetic concessions were made. Last year only 25 Soviet Muslims were permitted to make their Pilgrimage.
• Reckless disregard for the health of the Muslim Turkic population... In Uzbekistan, public discontent has focused on a Kremlin-imposed policy that called for massive use of Agent Orange type defoliants on cotton crops. One Uzbek candidate in the March (89) election for a new Supreme Soviet blamed the region's staggering 25% infant mortality rate on the defoliants.
• In recent years, there has been a steady rise in arrests of Turkic people who have been charged with distributing "religious literature" including the Qur'an.
• A significant amount of the Soviet's nuclear arsenal is in Azerbaijan. These regions are extremely rich in natural sources, in fact the richest lands in USSR. The regions possess world class deposits of oil, natural gas, coal, iron ore, and hydrocarbon sources.

Bygones are bygones... We have to look at what we have now. If we look at the capacity of these lands and people today, I am very optimistic for the future. What we need is a young generation of high quality people and a new leadership. We need leaders who trust themselves, their people, and their heritage only...