“Is your post meant to be predictive, prescriptive, or a little of both?”

Both.

It will not happen in the whole region, but IMO it will in certain parts and among certain coats of society, who maybe do not represent a majority but not a few people either.

Either case, basing myself on years of observations in the region and many conversations with local people I got convinced that an Islamic-inspired alternative could do no harm, especially if you look at the stagnation or outright failure of the main –neo-Soviet and Western– alternatives.

Now that we’re at it, we also have to agree of what we mean by ‘moderate Islam’. For many, a ‘moderate Muslim’ means a non-observant or nominal Muslim. Yet that is not what I understand under ‘moderate’. That is what it is: non-observant and nominal.

‘Moderate Islam’, for me, is ’social Islam’ i.e. one that does not aims at seizing state power or imposing religious tyranny. Yet it can be socially active and assertive (besides, Muslims also have the right to defend themselves against agression).

There can be no such thing as ’state Islam’ (like in e.g. Uzbekistan) or an ‘Islamic state’ (like in e.g. Sudan). That is against the nature of the Aqidah (the Faith). The state is a worldy management structure, be it one that can not do it all. The Faith has a social-cultural function (cultural in the broader, sociological sense that is).

“For instance, pre-Taliban Afghanistan was home to a relatively moderate, traditional form of Islam as well, but that all changed in less than a decade.”

Yes. The key explanation is war. Like Chechnya, Afghanistan has been devastated by the semi-genocidal Soviet/Russian occupation/reconquest (to make matters clear, nothing against ‘the Russians’ since I’m talking about the Russian military establishment). Of course, after the Soviet withdrawal, there were all these dodgy warlords yet the Soviet invasion and subsequent devastation by the Soviets and their PDPA proxies were the trigger events.

In turn, the war created a whole generation who grew up as uprooted refugees and became easy prey for radical currents, including Wahhabism and Salafism. MaÅŸallah/Ñ?�»�°�²�° �‘�¾�³Ñƒ this is not the case for Azerbaijan and Central Asia (at least not to the same extent, cf. Karabakh, Tajikistan).

“In the case of Turkey, do you think that a related language will be enough to allow Turkish civil society groups to edge out the competition?”

No. In the early ’90s, the importance of Turkic linguistic ties were heavily over-rated. What I want to say is, that the *economic* ties are real (e.g. Turkey is, along with Russia, one of Kyrgyzstan’s main trading partners). Many a Sovok might not *like* the Turks, but they are there in certain sectors and a number of Turkish achievements are respected.

I’m not talking about the ‘Turkish model’ like it was advocated in the early ’90s either. Thinking in terms of ‘models’ that can be set up like an ikea kit is a very Soviet mindset. It didn’t work. I’m talking about certain elements that can be of use, like social faith-based initiatives e.g. the Fetüllaçi movement (see http://en.fgulen.com/ or Russian http://ru.fgulen.com/) in the field of education to name but one example.

“To the extent that your argument is prescriptive, what policy measures can be taken to ensure that if Eurasia’s future is an Islamic one, it is of the moderate variety? Which actors can facilitate this transition and what can they do?”

There are two things that we –both Westerners and Soviet Muslims– have to keep in mind:

1) Some of the regimes in the region (Uzb and Turkm in particular) will collapse, whether in five weeks or five years is not important — like Milosevic and Ceaucescu, they’re doomed. Much will depend on internal power struggles and international dynamics.

The worst that can happen for the karimovites, for example, is that Western-Russian relations become better…

2) What interests me, much more than bashing Karimov and Türkmenbaşi, is the alternative.

To the ex-Soviet Muslims, believers or not, I have this to say: assertivity and self-respect presuppose identity; it is of no use to rely and try to imitate Russia or the West.

Russia is there to stay since it has a number of physical, linguistic and historical advantages in the region. Hence, as you all know, Russia will remain part of your lives and societies.

Yet the question is, what position you will obtain in this reality. For at the end of the day, Russia is not there to ‘help’ or ‘uplift ‘you. For the Russian establishment and indeed a large part of public opinion, you’re “Ã?²Ñ‚Ã?¾Ñ€Ã?¾Ã?¹ Ñ?Ã?¾Ñ€Ñ‚”: cheap labour from the periphery.

Same with the West: no matter how much some try to imitate everything Western, they’re not taken seriously by those they try to imitate.

I’m only the messenger.

http://www.eurasianet.org/departments/insight/articles/eav071306b.shtml

Ataman Rakim argues for a Eurasian Islam that would unite Muslims of the former Soviet Union under a common identity and serve not so much as a formal set of religious and political ideas but instead as a catalyst for social initiatives.

……

To what extent do you think the path you outline is likely to happen, and to what extent are you arguing it should happen? Is your post meant to be predictive, prescriptive, or a little of both?

its international vectors will not come from the Arab world; instead, Russian Muslims and Turkish faith-based civil society are better placed because of the existing economic and linguistic ties with most Muslim-majority ex-Soviet countries.

You might well be right, but this has not necessarily been the case for everyone else in the neighborhood. For instance, pre-Taliban Afghanistan was home to a relatively moderate, traditional form of Islam as well, but that all changed in less than a decade. The neighboring Pakistan is probably not a model of moderate Islam either, and Iran has cultural and linguistic ties with Tajikistan. In the case of Turkey, do you think that a related language will be enough to allow Turkish civil society groups to edge out the competition?

To the extent that your argument is prescriptive, what policy measures can be taken to ensure that if Eurasia’s future is an Islamic one, it is of the moderate variety? Which actors can facilitate this transition and what can they do?