Today Tajikistan is celebrating the end of Holy Ramadan, one of the main Islamic religious observances. In comparison to other countries of Central Asia and the whole world, Tajikistan and as far as I know Uzbekistan are celebrating today (rus). I do not know the reason for that but the month of Ramadan was […]
Yesterday when I arrived from Bishkek at Dushanbe airport I saw an unpleasant scene: a Kyrgyz guy who came by the same plane asked a Tajik guy (airport personnel) for a light (matches, lighter), while having a cigarette in his mouth. That was the main mistake during the Holy Ramadan that one can make when […]
In the republican conference on regulation of national traditions and customs the president of Tajikstan Emomali Rahmon criticized many things in everyday life of the Tajiks. Besides proposing a ban on lavish weddings and funerals Rahmon laid structures on clergies for being “out of date” (rus). Although Ataman Rakin and some other visitors of […]
Rahmonov asked the local businessmen to stop building mosques. Wow! The Tajik newspaper “Sobitiya” (RUS), reports that nowadays Tajikistan is the only country in CIS, which does not ban Islamic parties. However the author thinks that it does not mean the secular authority is not concerned about the islamization process in the country.
It […]
The New York Times carried an article today describing the resurgence of polygamy in Tajikistan. According to the article:
But then came the breakup of the Soviet Union and Tajikistan’s civil war, which claimed as many as 100,000 lives in the 1990s, an overwhelming majority of the victims men. Since then, as many as […]
Said Abdullo Nuri died from an illness that was most likely cancer, as Younghusband over at ComingAnarchy and Ataman Rakin report. Younghusband asked for the Tajikistan bloggers over here at neweurasia to weigh in on the significance of this development. I will do what I can, but I am more interested to […]
IWPR reports that Tajik authorities are noticing increasing membership of women in the Hizb-ut-Tahrir. Previously, they were only peripherally involved in this Islamist organization, but now authorities are cracking down on them more harshly. Why this increase in membership?
According to the article, Tajik authorities have a contradictory take on the question. […]
What follows is one part of a cross-blog initiative, which takes the role of Islam in Central Asia and the Caucasus as its central theme:
Tajikistan’s relationship with political Islam is perhaps the most volatile, diverse, and complicated in Central Asia. Tajikistan is home to various strains of Islam, with the silent majority favoring […]
According to one source, the Government of Tajikistan has reversed its very unpopular decision to bulldoze the country’s only synagogue. The synagogue’s rabbi has promised to refurbish the site so that it better fits in with the planned “Palace of the Nation.”
The decision (assuming the government’s new commitment to leave the synagogue alone […]
Neweurasia hasn’t covered it yet, but a major piece of news coming out of Tajikistan lately is the government’s decision to demolish the the country’s only synagogue to make way for a presidential palace. Pleas from the international Jewish community have still met no success in changing the government’s mind.
Democracy in Central Asia […]
