In Uzbekistan, Western ways and Islam coexist peacefully

At crossroads of East and West, country is modern and Muslim

10/15/2001

By TRACEY EATON / The Dallas Morning News

TASHKENT, Uzbekistan – Pingpong balls bounced crazily as a woman read the numbers: "Fifty-three. Sixty. Seventy-five."

"Beeeengo!" someone yelled, and there was yet another winner at Golden Bingo, one of three gambling halls in Tashkent, capital of predominantly Muslim Uzbekistan.

Cheryl Diaz Meyer / The Dallas Morning News Emil Mustafin, 31, Nurridin Majjidov, 28, and Iskandir Abdurahmanov, 29, left to right, enjoy a few bottles of beer and entertain passersby with karaoke Sunday Oct. 15 on Sailgokh Street in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. Uzbekistan, a neighbor to the northwest of Afghanistan, is 80 percent Muslim but shares little of Afghanistan's fundamentalist views. • Video: Dallas Morning News reporter in Uzbekistan

"Many Muslims come here hoping to win," said Konstantin, 21, a bingo hall worker. "They tell Allah, 'Help me, help me' and then they play."

In Central Asia, Uzbekistan is where East meets West. Lovers hold hands and smooch along Broadway Street, lined with open-air restaurants. Teenagers flock to all-night Internet cafes to chat online. Unescorted singles kick up their high heels at the Juliano disco.

And the young Uzbeks do it, they say, without surrendering Islam, their religion for centuries.

Leaders of Uzbekistan are intent on keeping their past while sampling what the West has to offer. Their approach makes it clear that not all Muslim nations are the same. Not all reject Western ways. And not all are like Afghanistan, where music, television, kite-flying, and even paper bags are taboo under the Taliban regime.

"Thanks to Allah, I was born in Uzbekistan," said Dilyafruz Namatova, 24. "If I were living in Afghanistan, I would have to wear a full veil. The Taliban want women to live as if they were in the fifth century."

Not that Ms. Namatova is casual about her faith. She is a devout Muslim and prays five times a day.

In 1999, her mother warned her not to wear her veil outside the mosque after Islamic extremists set off car bombs in Tashkent, killing at least 16 people. Ms. Namatova's mother didn't want her to be under suspicion.

The reasoning wasn't far-fetched. Uzbek authorities take an extremely dim view of Islamic extremists. Just this weekend, local media reported that nine members of a banned religious group had been sentenced to nine to 12 years in prison. They were accused of having ties to Osama bin Laden.

The defendants belong to the Khizb-ut-Takhrir, which means Freedom Party in the Arabic language. The purported group leader, Nurullo Majidov, and some human rights activists contend that the government failed to produce evidence of the bin Laden connection.

Cheryl Diaz Meyer / The Dallas Morning News Valentina Harkovska, 49, and Oksana Chernik, 32, left and right, play a game at Gold Bingo in Tashken Sunday Oct. 14.

"We do not have connections to Osama bin Laden or any other terrorist organizations," Mr. Majidov said. "We are fighting for our ideas through peaceful means."

But Uzbek officials make no apologies. Islamic extremism is a threat to the country's sovereignty, they say. And after the Sept. 11 terrorist strikes in New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania, they quickly joined in the U.S.-led campaign against the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.

On the streets of Tashkent, Uzbeks say they support their government. And they are convinced that the country can continue to clamp down on extremists and embrace the West without losing Islam.

"It's impossible to live without God in your heart," explained a young man named Bakhrom, who is skilled at playing the electronic games on his cellphone. Bakhrom's interpretation of Islam is a contemporary one.

"I don't pray five times a day, because I don't have the time," he said. "I'm stuck in the middle. At night I go to the disco, and on Fridays I go to the mosque."

In decades past, the Soviets repressed the ancient religion. They outlawed the Quran and banned followers' traditional pilgrimage to Mecca.

Cheryl Diaz Meyer / The Dallas Morning News A woman and her son beg on Sailgokh Street, a boulevard in downtown Tashkent, Uzbekistan. Although begging is prohibited, rarely are people stopped or punished. In Afghanistan, begging by women is punishable by death

The Soviets also destroyed scores of mosques; many of those not razed were turned into museums, factories and government buildings. The number of mosques plunged from about 25,000 in 1917 to 1,700 by the early 1940s. Believers say the number continued to plummet after that.

Then came the collapse of the Soviet Union. Islam was born again, but this time around, it began to flourish alongside Western ways.

"We have many cultures. West and East are both here," said Lilia Husnutdinova, 21, who spent a recent night dancing at a glitzy Tashkent disco. "We watch European TV and have European culture in our life.

"In Afghanistan, they only have their own culture. Women can't do anything. Here women have no rules on how to live. We're modern Muslims."

Indeed, signs of the modern world are everywhere in Tashkent. Tabloid magazines advertise phone sex. Electronic shops do a bustling business. And Internet cafes are chic.

"Islam doesn't prohibit the Internet," said Abdulaziz Saliev, 19, an engineering student who works at a 24-hour Internet cafe. "Islam says you must educate yourself."

And that he does. When not tending to customers, Mr. Saliev surfs the World Wide Web, downloads his favorite music and sends messages to friends into the wee hours before falling asleep on a row of plastic chairs.

Asked what might happen to someone using the Internet in Afghanistan, the teenager replied, "He would be killed."

"In Afghanistan, they are fanatics," another Uzbek said. "We consider ourselves real Muslims."

Real or not, Uzbeks are right to be wary of Islamic extremists, said Bahodir Musaev, an expert on the faith.

As long as parts of the country remain desperately poor, the fundamentalists are a danger, he said. The only way "to block the spread of religious extremism" is to put more money in people's pockets, he said.

Dallas Morning News photographer Cheryl Diaz Meyer contributed to this report.