total 500 words

Bringing the mosque home and talking politics: women, domestic space, and the state in the Ferghana Valley (Uzbekistan)

Svetlana Peshkova

Published online: 12 August 2009 # Springer Science + Business Media B.V. 2009

Abstract In this article I argue that domestic space has to be theorized as an important center of religious practice and socio-political activism. Born-again and devout Muslim women in the Ferghana Valley (Uzbekistan) use domestic space as an important sacred place for religious observance and socialization equal to the mosques. This sacred place has a special meaning for born-again and devout Muslims as it carries a promise of personal and social change. In the context of religious and political persecution by the Uzbek state, domestic space is experienced as a politically safe place and as a critically important site of socio-political criticism and activism, as some intimate in-house discussions about religious, political, and social oppression take a form of public protest on the streets.

Keywords Islam . House . Socio-political activism . Muslim . Uzbekistan . The state

...we have a desire to go to the mosques, but in Uzbekistan only men go there. We [women] are not very upset because the Qur’an says that one needs to read within a group and we do just that at our meetings (interview, 2002).

Ugar used to be a street boy, you know, he was drinking, fighting, and smoking. In 1994 something happened, I do not know what, and he began to read namoz [ritual prayer],1 study Arabic, and his life has changed, one hundred per cent. But he suffered because of his faith. He was set up by the

Cont Islam (2009) 3:251–273 DOI 10.1007/s11562-009-0093-z

S. Peshkova (*) Department of Anthropology, University of New Hampshire, Huddleston Hall, # 310, 73 Main Street, Durham, NH 03824-3532, USA e-mail: speshko@gmail.com

1 Ritual prayer(s) performed five times a day (Uz. Namoz and Ar. salat) is one of “the five pillars” of Islam.

police when the government was fighting against Wahhabists2 here. They [police] planted drugs in his suitcase. He ended up in prison. Now he is out but still is a deep believer. You know, he was innocent. He was guilty of one thing: trying to change his life and live like true Muslim. Our system [government] does not want us to lead Muslim lives. If we do, they will stop making money.... We are all set up in this country. We have to steal and live criminal lives. Many people suffer innocently if they try to break away from this life. Our police officers do not know our rights. It [police] does not want us to know and does not respect these rights anyway. All it [police] needs is money. I used to be a driver. I know plenty. There were five young men in Margilon that were arrested as Wahhabists. There were no evidences against them. One of them was killed, beaten to death. They [police] threw his body in the canal and some people later fished his body out. Another one was raped.... When some people in Tashkent [capital of Uzbekistan] found out about it, they punished those officers who did it. But nothing has changed. Some Muslims in one zona [correctional facility] in Karakalpakistan, I know it for a fact, are political and religious prisoners who are tortured and live in inhuman conditions (personal communication, 2002).

In October 2002, a young man from the Ferghana Valley (Uzbekistan), 3 Ulugbek, told me this story. Like many other stories it demonstrates that consistent religious observance by some Muslims in Uzbekistan was suspect, read as a sign of political affiliation by the Uzbek government whose abuses of power and persecutions of devout Muslims are well documented4 (International Crisis 2007; McGlinchey 2007; Kandiyoti and Azimova 2004; Human Rights Watch 2005). This increased religious observance by some Muslims is a part of a religious renewal in post-Soviet Central Asia in which some locals transform from being culturally or secularly Muslim (celebrating some religious holidays or occasionally participating in religious rituals) to being devout. This transformation is expressed through consistent performance of ritual prayers, participation in communal religious rituals, observance of dietary restrictions, adoption of particular forms of covered dress,5 cultivation of piety through spiritual exercises (e.g. zikr)6 and religious education (cf. Mahmood 2005).

2 In my experience the term was used in the Valley in reference to those who (1) wanted to purify, to different degrees, existing religious practices from innovations; (2) were reported by the mass media (reflecting such government sources as the national security service [former KGB]) to desire an Islamic state by overthrowing existing government; and (3) to those in agreement with certain principles outlined in the Kitab at-Tawhid by Abd al-Wahhab (reported by one interlocutor to be available in the Valley since late 1970s). The term was also used to slander one’s opponents and to justify the state’s authoritarianism by politicians and political commentators. Louw (2007:30–33) has a useful discussion about the state’s use of the term. Those referred to as “Wahhabists” were not, to my knowledge, the supporters or representatives of the Hanbali school (of jurisprudence) of Sunni Islam widespread in Saudi Arabia. For a detailed discussion of Wahhabism see Algar (2002). 3 My research was conducted in the part of the Ferghana Valley that belongs to Uzbekistan. The Valley is shared among Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. In light of the on-going persecution of devout and born-again Muslims in Uzbekistan, the names of the interlocutors have been changed. When quoting individuals I omit references to a particular city or village. 4 On the theory of oppression and violence perpetuated by states, see Rashid Omar’s dissertation “Religion, Violence & the State: A Dialogical Encounter between Activists and Scholars.” Doctoral Dissertation in Religious Studies, University of Cape Town, South Africa (December 2005). 5 For women it is usually a scarf that covers one’s hair and neck (two scarves for some) and a long, loose dress. 6 In this case a devotional practice that consists of repeating such phrases as la illaha illa’llah [Ar. there is no other God but Allah].

252 Cont Islam (2009) 3:251–273

These transformed Muslims I refer to as “born-again.” Not every inhabitant of the Valley is Uzbek, not every Uzbek is a born-again, and not every born-again is Uzbek. Local communities include several ethnic groups such as Tajiks, Kyrgyz, Koreans, Russians, Roma and Jews; among these are Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Hare Krishna, and agnostics. There are also Muslims who continued to be devout before, during, and after the Soviet rule. There are atheist (born into Muslim families but lacking belief in God) Muslims as well.7 In this article I focus on the devout and born-again Muslims’ socially “active religiosity” that I, following Bayat (2005), take to include not only increased religious observance but also socio-political activism.

I have heard stories similar to Ulugbek’s recollection of persecution and abuse in private conversations with local people and at several social gatherings taking place in domestic spaces. These included ihsons (ceremonial gatherings and feasts to express one’s gratitude to God, to make special requests and to gain religious merit and blessing),8 life-cycle ceremonies, gap (gathering of one’s social network), mavlud (celebration of the Prophet’s birth) and dars (religious lesson) at local home-schools (cf. Kandiyoti and Azimova 2004). In some cases verbal criticism of contemporary life in the Ferghana Valley was preceded or followed by public protests outside domestic space. At least three public protests took place during the second part of my ethnographic fieldwork in 2002–2003. The participants in these protests suffered or feared various degrees of the Uzbek state’s disciplinary action against them.

Following Foucault (1978), I take the state to mean an aggregation of various administrative and law enforcement institutions, constituted by individuals behaving in patterned ways. This aggregation has an authority to make rules that govern people living within a particular territory (and beyond) and to enforce these rules through techniques of power at every level of social organization, such as the police, the mahalla (neighborhood) committee and the family. Despite on-going persecution by the state socio-political activism beyond domestic space continued to be vibrant in the Valley. In 2005, one of these protests culminated in the massacre of civilians by government forces in the Valley’s city of Andijan (Andijon) (Khalid 2007:192–198; Human Rights Watch 2005). In this context individual homes were safer environments than other public spaces, such as the streets or the mosques, for expressing one’s socially active religiosity through verbal criticism of the existing regime.9

7 These descriptive adjectives refer to various feelings about and ways of expressing in words and acting out one’s religiosity. 8 The definition I use is a direct translation of the local women’s definition of these occasions. By hosting such ceremony a household (not just its individual members) gains religious merit and blessing. Similar ceremonial occasions based on individuals sponsoring feasts in their homes or at the sacred sites take place in other Muslim communities. For instance, in Malaysia, Bosnia, and Ajaria these occasions have been analyzed as a way of establishing and solidifying interpersonal connections and networks (see Bringa 1995, Being Muslim the Bosnian way: identity and community in a central Bosnian village. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, and Neuburger 2004, The Orient within: Muslim minorities and the negotiation of nationhood in modern Bulgaria, Cornell University Press). In Turkish villages Mevlud celebrations have similar elements (see Tapper and Tapper 1987, The Birth of the Prophet: ritual and gender in Turkish Islam. Man 22(1):69– 92). Abramson and Karimov (2007) translate ihson as “pilgrimage” (p. 320). 9 Although McGlinchey (2007) suggests that there are limits to the Uzbek state’s control of local mosques, during my research Ferghana and Margilan cities’ mosques were not only patrolled by the local militsia (police) but also were talked about as “unsafe” spaces where the government’s informants abound.

Cont Islam (2009) 3:251–273 253253

Gradually, after Uzbekistan’s independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, the state’s inability to effectively control domestic space resulted in both secular and religious authorities’ criticism of social and religious gatherings as possible sites of conspicuous consumption and dissemination of not “politically correct and correctly political” versions of Islam (Kandiyoti and Azimova 2004:337; Papas 2005:39). The state was relentless. A number of interlocutors pointed out that its surveillance of domestic space was on the rise in 2002–2003. One mechanism actively involved in surveillance of domestic space was the mahalla committee (see Bogner and Human Rights Watch (Organization) 2003; Massicard and Trevisani 2003); its representa- tives made informal religious teachers sign statements promising not to teach minors and reported to the national security service office on various activities in their neighborhoods. In personal communications some of these teachers complained of government informants among their students.

At female homosocial gatherings to which I was privy, there were often competing assessments of social life in an independent Uzbekistan. Some discussants insisted that socio-political and economic realities in the Valley and Uzbekistan at large should not be criticized, questioned and/or altered for the semblance of social stability. Others found the abuse of power by various state agents appalling and called the president a criminal (cf. Abramson 2000; Khalid 2007; Naumkin 2005). Yet others insisted that their socio- economic lives had improved and their ability to lead “better Muslim lives” increased after the independence (interviews, 2001–2003) (also Fernea 1998). While recogniz- ing this diversity in individual experiences of and opinions about religious observance and socio-economic changes in post-Soviet Uzbekistan, I argue that the house has to be analyzed as a critically important center of religious practice and socio-political activism (both talk and action) in the situation of existing political opposition to the state and the state’s on-going persecution of devout Muslims.10 In this article I demonstrate that in such context the house must be theorized not only as the women’s place (e.g. Ridd 1981; Pellow 2003; Massey 1994), but also—and more importantly— as a safe place. I enter an analysis of the house as a safe place for born-again and devout Muslims’ socio-political activism through a discussion of women’s religious observance in domestic space.

Studies of space and place are one lens through which to understand religious renewal and socio-political activism in post-Soviet Central Asia. Space is an essential component in theorizing social relations of subordination and domination (e.g. Rosaldo 1974; Ortner 1974), gender hierarchies (e.g. Ardener 1981; Bourdieu 2003), social and individual power and empowerment (e.g. Hugh-Jones and Carsten 1995; Erdreich and Rapoport 2006; Torre 2000), transformation of identity (e.g. Kondo 1991; Ong 1990), social change (e.g. Pellow 2008; Abramson and Karimov

10 There are numerous sources documenting the government’s persecution of the religious and political leaders and civilians, who by hearsay might be sympathizers or silent supporters of religious or political opposition (see http://www.eurasianet.org/resource/uzbekistan/links/uzrt916.html, accessed May 6, 2008; http://hrw.org/english/docs/2007/11/07/uzbeki17229.htm, accessed May 6, 2008; http://hrw.org/reports/ 2007/uzbekistan1107/, accessed May 6, 2008). The US Department of State refers to Uzbekistan as an authoritarian state in its annual report on human rights practices (2007). Citing a lack of reliable data as the main reason this report is ambivalent about certain human rights abuses. The report recognize arbitrary on- going political and religious persecution by citing several court cases (see http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/ hrrpt/2007/100623.htm, accessed May 6, 2008)

254 Cont Islam (2009) 3:251–273

2007; Henkel 2007), individuals’ resistance (e.g. Castells and Susser 2002), and socio-political mobilization (e.g.Wiktorowicz 2005). I argue that in the first decade of the 21st century in the Ferghana Valley, domestic space enabled socially active religiosity of born-again and devout Muslim women and men, who inhabited this space in particular, understood as Islamic, ways (cf. Henkel 2007:63). When read as Islamic in terms of meaning, domestic space was then experienced as a sacred and safe place as it carried a promise of change and thus enabled one’s cultivation of piety through religious observance and one’s expression of socio-political criticism.

My initial interest in born-again and devout Muslims in the post-Soviet Central Asia stemmed from my short-term project in the city of Tashkent in 1998, where I met and interviewed three Uzbek women claiming social and physical trans- formations, expressed through healing and increased social respect, as a result of their re-discovered faith. While researching existing reproductive practices in the Ferghana Valley in the summer of 2001, I came across otinchalar (women religious leaders). Their local importance was highlighted by the interviewees on several occasions. During the second stage of my research (in 2002–2003) in the cities of Ferghana (Farg`ona) and Margilan (Marg`ilon) and some surrounding villages (qishloqs), I identified thirty otinchalar but focused on five of these and their students. I participated in various religious ceremonies and attend religious classes, interviewed about one hundred women and ten women’s husbands, encountered numerous others, and held discussions with several male and female secular and religious leaders. I collected a life history of a famous otincha (singular form of the word otinchalar) in the city of Ferghana, while being taught by her and other otinchalar in the city of Margilan. I observed and asked questions while being questioned and observed by otinchalar and others. The code switching from Russian to Uzbek and occasionally to Arabic so prevalent in my fieldwork is reflected in this article (cf. Abramson 2000).11 The prevalence of the former is in part a result of “the Soviet attempt to remake Central Asia” by linking general education and social advancement to Russian language (Khalid 2007:4). The use of Arabic can signal certain individuals’ familiarity with sacred texts in Arabic, such as the Qur’an (as an Uzbek interpretation of the Qur’an was often used), and with religious vocabulary pertinent to ritual practice. It also reflects a growing competence in religious knowledge by some of my interlocutors.

My access to female religious ceremonies and my lack of access to the religious ceremonies officiated by men explains my focus on former as a way of theorizing domestic space. This lack of access in some ways impeded my research yet it also offered a unique opportunity to focus in-depth on women’s use and experience of space. In order to fully understand this role of domestic space in religious renewal, below I offer a brief review of geographic, historical, religious and political landscapes of the Ferghana Valley.

11 In the summer 2001 my research was carried out in Uzbekistan’s villages of Oltariq, Rishtan, Yasyavan, Okhunboboyev rayon, and in the cities of Ferghana, Andijon, Namangan, Kokand, and Margilan. During my research in 2002–2003 in the Valley I attended about ten ihsons (ceremonial gatherings to honor God and to made special requests), three bushik toi (a celebration of the birth of one’s child), one sunnat toi (a celebration of the boy’s circumcision), about ten iftors (breaking of the fast during the month of fasting Ramazan [Ar. Ramadan]), five weddings (kelin toi), six maraka (commemorating the deceased), about fifteen classes at the local home-schools, one taborak (ceremony before marriage), various gap and other meropryatia (social occasions) that included birthdays and social outings at the local restaurants and individual homes.

Cont Islam (2009) 3:251–273 255255

Geographic, historical, religious and political landscapes

Post- Soviet Central Asia, a vast geographic territory, often referred to for various reasons to as “Islamic,” or “Muslim,” (e.g. Eickelman 1993) includes five independent countries: Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan.12 Raiding the region since the 670s CE, Arab armies incorporated parts of Central Asia into the Umayyad caliphate by the beginning of the 8th century CE. This marked a start in the long-term gradual process of the Islamization of Central Asia facilitated greatly by Sufi tariqats (spiritual orders) (Khalid 2007:25). The social formation of the region as a center of science, art, philosophy and Qur’anic studies, reached its pinnacle in the 15th century. Famous for rich scholarly and scientific productions in astronomy, mathematics, theology, linguistic studies, and architecture, the region became the backbone of Amir Timur’s (or Tamerlane) empire (Egger 2008). In the post-Timurid historical period, the Ferghana Valley became part of the Kokand khanate and rose to prominence as one of the centers of Islamic learning in the region. The Valley was conquered by the Russian Empire in the 1870s and came to be known as the Ferghana Province of Russia’s Turkistan Territory. As a part of the Soviet Union’s establishment of national republics in the early 1920s, the Valley was divided between the Uzbek and Kyrgyz (Qyrghyz/ Qara-Qyrghyz at the time) Soviet Socialist Republics (SSR) with a part later assigned to Tajik SSR. After the disintegration of the Soviet Union (in the early 1990s) the Valley remained divided among the respective nation-states.

Vibrant religious practices in the Valley were interrupted in 1927 by the socio-political campaign hujum (assault), a systematic attempt to eradicate Islam (understood by the Bolsheviks, later known as the Communist party, as an oppressive social system) and establish a secular socialist state. Gender became a central trope of this campaign. In the name of liberating Central Asian women from the shackles of religious oppression, many mosques and madrasa (religious schools) were closed or destroyed, while some clergy were executed and/or exiled (Keller 2001:175–211; Northrop 2004; Massell 1974). Shariat (an Islamic law)13 and customary law (odot) were to a great degree replaced with secular laws that articulated principles of equality and assured women’s ability to work outside the house. The newly created educational, professional and political opportunities for women’s active participation in social life had mixed outcomes and consequences on both social and individual levels (Tokhtakhodjaeva 1995; Kamp 1998; Fernea 1998; Sahadeo and Zanca 2007:86).

A long-term result of this campaign was the formalization of some religious activities and institutions through registration and politico-economic control by the state (Keller 2001:245).14 Other religious activities, including those taking place in

12 For the purposes of the article I accept the commonly used terms referring to the post-Soviet countries in Central Asia, although locally and officially they are referred to in different terms, e.g. Kyrgyz Respubllikasy, or Uzbekiston. 13 Following An-Na’im (2002), I take Shariat (Ar. al-Shari’ah) to mean “the general normative system of Islam as historically understood and developed by Muslim jurists… [which] includes a much broader set of principles and norms than legal subject matter as such” (p. 1). 14 Kamp (2006) states that maktabs and madrasas in pre-Soviet Turkistan were also “supported and regulated by the state and religious foundations (waqfs)” (p. 79). In this sense the state has always controlled formalized religious practice and education.

256 Cont Islam (2009) 3:251–273

domestic space, became defined as informal and could not be effectively controlled by the state. Informal religious leaders, both men and women, continued to be highly respected reservoirs of religious knowledge within local communities. Their legitimacy increased with the decreased availability of religious education and religious literature in the region.

The process of “recovery of national memories and national legacies” began in the late 1980s and actively continued after Uzbekistan’s independence (Khalid 2007:117). Religious renewal became an important part of this process. In the context of dramatic economic instability, institutionalized corruption and ex- Communist elites struggle for power (Liu 2003; Bazin 2008:10), the secular state of Uzbekistan increased its control over religious activities considering these to be potentially subversive (McGlinchey 2007; Khalid 2007; Kamp 2006; Babadjanov 2004). Islam, a potent symbolic resource for the expression of one’s desire for justice and feelings of dignity and “an organizing principle for oppositional politics” once again became a suspect for the state (Schoeberlein 2001:338). The state justified its authoritarianism by referencing “Islamic terrorism.” The Valley in particular has made headlines as numerous scholars, politicians and journalists, both local and foreign, began to refer to it as a center of extremist or terrorist activities (e.g. Olcott and Babajanov 2003; Lubin and Rubin 1999). In this context domestic space became a critical site for the formation and expression of public and private religiosities and political dissent.

Even if a relatively recent “strand of radicalism” referred to by some scholars as “jihadist” is present in the Valley (Khalid 2007:16), lived experiences of local Muslims cannot be reduced to “Islamic radicalism” (e.g. Rotar 2006). Local Muslims continue to imagine, feel and inhabit “being Muslim” in diverse ways (Marranci 2008:3), including honoring and venerating sacred persons and places (e.g. tombs of local saints), remembering one’s ancestors with a prayer and an alcoholic beverage, observing uroza (ritual fasting during the month of Ramadan) and performing namoz (ritual prayers) and hajj (pilgrimage to Mecca), celebrating navruz (a first day of spring, an historically Zoroastrian holiday) and using fire in ritual practices (e.g. Montgomery 2007; Abramson and Karimov 2007; Rasanayagam 2006; Privratsky 2004; Khalid 2007:21–22; Gorshunova 2000; DeWeese 1994; Louw 2007). This plethora of practices continues to fuel debates about the proper “Islamic way of life” as part and parcel of religious renewal in the Valley. 15

Following Mahmood (2005), I take religious renewal to mean a broadly defined set of numerous associational activities centered on discussions about and practices of Islam. These activities are not limited to “state-oriented political groups but [refer] more broadly to a religious ethos or sensibility that has developed within contemporary Muslim societies,” which is also expressed through a “palpable public presence” of various religious symbols (Mahmood 2005:3). I expand Mahmood’s definition of religious renewal by including discussions about and desires for change in various aspects of socio-political and economic life in addition to discussions

15 Musil'mon bulib yashash in Uzbek means “Islamic or Muslim way of life.” This phrase was used by several interlocutors during the research, while others used the Russian phrases zhit’ po-Islamski and Islamaskij or Islamskaya as adjectives to describe their lives in general, some objects in particular such as various forms of covered dress.

Cont Islam (2009) 3:251–273 257257

about Islam and spiritual exercises as techniques of producing disciplined subjects. Some of the Valley’s Muslim women inhabited and manifested this renewal not only by actively engaging in religious rituals and participating in various discussions about an Islamic way of life but also by taking part in socio-political criticism sometimes expressed through public protests.16 In one interview, a born-again devout Muslim in her late thirties named Naina-hon vehemently stated, “We want to teach people how to zhit’ po-Islamski (to live Islamically, Islamic way of life). That is it. No war, no abuse of power...[We want a] khalifah, a religious leader like Muhammad to be our government” (interview, 2003). Not all born-again and devout Muslim women desired an Islamic state. One interlocutor stated that “[i]f we are real Muslims we do not need to be the government and the only authority” (interview, 2001). Yet they all desired change in various aspects of their lives. This desire for change constituted their socially active religiosities. Domestic space became an important center for the expression of these religiosities and a locus of religious renewal in the Valley.

Domestic space and religious renewal

Since Uzbekistan’s independence from the Soviet Union, as a part of religious renewal a growing number of born-again and devout Muslims in the Valley have come to understand their domestic space in significantly different ways (cf. Henkel 2007). They invested domestic space with meanings reflecting their understandings of Islamic values and norms, expressing these spatially. Nodira-opa, a born-again Muslim, decided to add an additional room for ritual cleansing (tahorat) in her house and visually mark the direction of prayer—which was, according to her, very important to many born-again and devout Muslims—by painting a representation of the Ka’aba on the wall (interview, 2003). Some Muslims marked the direction of prayer with a particular poster or a calligraphic sign. Yet others replaced existing decorations (such as various art paintings) with Islamic calligraphy displaying Qur’anic verses or religious vocabulary such as bismallah (in the name of Allah), or posters, many featuring photographs of Ka’aba brought back from the hajj or bought at a local bazaar.

Some local women understood their increased religiosity to also mean decreased interaction with strangers outside the house, thus defining domestic space as the only appropriate place for Muslim women. Although spatial rules inside and outside the domestic space of born-again and devout Muslims both informed and were informed by a religious discourse defining the house as a socially appropriate space for Muslim women, these rules were understood, defined and experienced by different individuals, in different ways, at different times. The social reproduction of these rules depended not only on agents’ definition and experience of these rules (cf. Mahmood 2005). It was also reflective of changes in a larger socio-political and economic context, such as economic necessity and political repression by the state.

16 Khamidov (2008) also points out women’s active participation in the protests.

258 Cont Islam (2009) 3:251–273

Globalization “without capitalism” (Adams 2002:2), entered post-Soviet Central Asia in the 1990s in the forms of growing state authoritarianism, crumbling local economies and industries, trafficking in women, increased migration, and contested effects of media industries (democratizing and not) (cf. Megoran 2002; Bazin 2008; Jobborov and Thompson 2002; Sulaimanova 2002). In the context of rapid economic changes, local women became important wage-earners by venturing outside the house and sometimes outside the country (cf. Tabishalieva 1998:98). Their acute presence in spaces other than domestic was different from Soviet times for two reasons. First, during Soviet times women were encouraged to work outside the house; after Uzbekistan’s independence they were not (Akiner 1997; Tabisha- lieva 2000). Second, all local men, unless disabled, had a job. If some women decided to stay at home or trade at the bazaar, local men employed in various sectors including collective farms and factories were considered to be the main bread- winners, both as a cultural expectation and as a result of their higher wages (although women often performed more physically-demanding labor such as cotton harvesting). In the 1990s and early 2000s these government-owned industries were either privatized or were unable to pay wages for several months at a time. Thus, in many cases women became the only breadwinners in the families; if not it took two individuals working full-time and often more than one job to be able to provide for the family. Devout or not, born-again or not, women had to venture outside the house in order to make a living, not as a choice but as a necessity; mainly nouveau riche women continued to exercise their choice not to work outside the house (Bazin 2008:19).

Some born-again and devout Muslim women, who defined domestic space as the only appropriate place for Muslim women, became the only wage-earners as a consequence of their husbands’ arrests and detentions. Marfua, a devout Muslim in her fifties, reported in one interview (2002) that she had to go work “outside the house, on the streets” and sell doppa (headgear) that she made at the bazaar, despite strongly believing that a “true” Muslim woman should stay in the house. Her husband, a domla (here an informal religious teacher), also encouraged her to “stay inside” and leave only to visit her relatives and her married daughter. They lived a “modest and pious life” raising five children and caring for each other. He “used to teach local kids Islam” and was arrested in 2001 on the charges of “spreading leaflets against the government [containing antigovernment messages].” Marfua feared for his life. She insisted on her husband’s innocence and accused local police of planting the evidence inside packs of cotton in the barn during one house-search, only to find it during a second search. He was sentenced to eight years of hard labor in a “camp” in Karakalpakistan and she became “the mother and the father and the provider” to her five kids by making a living through stitching and selling doppas (interview, 2002).

Thus, gendering of space inside and outside born-again and devout Muslims’ domestic space was maintained through social practices. It was not absolute but inhabited by individuals in different ways, often informed by the state’s political persecution and economic restructuring. These actors’ understandings and experi- ences of domestic space reflected material processes engendering these under- standings and experiences.

Individual domestic space in the Valley was dynamic. It changed size and shape depending on the number of inhabitants and their marital status (cf. Zhilina and

Cont Islam (2009) 3:251–273 259259

Tomina 1993). It was also transformed situationally; depending on the occasion a room in an individual dwelling could be re-defined in terms of its function. One’s mehmonhona (living or guest room) could be defined as a study room during a dars (religious lesson), as an eating area during iftor (breaking of the fast), or as a sacred place during an evening prayer or religious ceremony. These transformations manifested the multivocality of domestic space, illustrating various meanings that it had for its inhabitants and visitors (Rodman 1992: 643–647).

Individual domestic space was also multilocal; it was not experienced uniformly by its inhabitants and guests (Rodman 1992: 643–647). Socio-economic distinctions among individuals influenced experiences of domestic space: wealthy and poor born- again and devout Muslim families experienced their domestic space in different ways. The former were likely to emphasize comfort. They had the means to achieve it. The latter emphasized the simplicity of their new Islamic living. For instance, Shahida, a born-again Muslim, was able to amass some capital for building a new room for religious studies and observance as a result of her business trips to China and her husband’s stable work for a police department. This room, in her words, would “make everyone feel more comfortable,” particularly those women who would like to avoid meeting her husband when gathering for a dars or a religious ceremony (interview, 2002). On the other hand, Ugar’s apartment’s (he is the born-again Muslim whose story is narrated at the beginning of this article) striking simplicity both in terms of furniture and the quality of the materials used was explained by his understanding of “true Islamic living.” He stated that “a deep believer” did not need much. All he needed was his “new wife,” who was a devout Muslim, “and God” (interview, 2002).

The meaningful features, such as marking the direction of prayer, creating a place for ritual cleansing and separate rooms for religious observance and education, enabled the occupants’ socio-religious practices which, in turn, reproduced the meaning of domestic space for them as Islamic. When read as Islamic in terms of meaning, domestic space was then experienced as sacred, as different from other spaces and places. Both the meaning and experience of space were not absolute. They reflected the agents’ understandings of being a good Muslim and were informed by a larger socio-political and economic context. The mutual constitution of domestic space and everyday socio-religious practices was reproduced through such practices as ritual prayers and Qur’anic recitations, which sacralized the domestic space, while being enabled by this space.

Space, religion, and gender

Social relations within a given community both structure and are structured by the living space (Pellow 2008:2; Tabishalieva 1998:18). The living space is gendered as the relations between males and females in a given society inform the division of space into female and male domains (Massey 1994: 178). This has been observed in various societies, such as Saudi Arabia (e.g. Doumato 2000), Nigeria (e.g. Pittin 1996), Ghana (e.g. Pellow 2003), Afghanistan (e.g. Shalinsky 1980), Iran (e.g. Betteridge 2000), and Bosnia (e.g. Bringa 1995).

Socio-spatial dynamics during religious ceremonies was one example, on two levels, of the gendering of space in the Valley. First, while both men and women

260 Cont Islam (2009) 3:251–273

could perform religious ceremonies in domestic spaces, and at sacred sites, only men could carry out their religious observances and socialize at the mosques (Kamp 2006; Troitskaya 1929). Second, religious ceremonies performed in domestic spaces by born-again and devout Muslims were homosocial; they were carried out by women and men in separated spaces. Competing discourses about Islamic “orthodoxy” and corresponding contextual practices and spatial constraints (such as a lack of space in general) were some of the elements that reproduced this gendering of space inside and outside the mosques.17

The Valley was not unique in terms of men’s connection to mosques and women’s connection to domestic spaces and sacred sites; neither was it unique in terms of the homosocial nature of religious practice by devout and born-again Muslims (e.g. Betteridge 2000:136; cf. Friedl 1989). Rather, it was the state’s repression that amplified the importance of domestic space in the Valley not only as a place for female religious observance but also as a critically important arena for women’s socially active religiosity expressed through religious observance and socio-political criticism.

Particular sets of historical, socio-political and economic developments in a society engender spatiality of women and men’s religious observance. In some societies, such as the United States, during congregational prayer the mosque is gendered with appropriate separate places relegated for men’s and women’s use: women can pray behind the men’s lines, in separate rooms, behind the curtain, on a balcony or in domestic space (e.g. Kahera 2002:128; see Holod et al. 1997). In the Valley the mosque was men’s space. Some local Muslim women, such as Leila, a born-again Muslim, were convinced that the “correct” understanding of Islam required women to avoid the mosque because women were understood to be morally inferior to men and preoccupied with worldly affairs. As she explained in one interview (2002) “[i]n the masjid [mosque] our eyes will go where they are not supposed to go and our mind will be distracted from Allah. We will be thinking about how much money she spent on that dress or this piece of gold. We will not be thinking about God.”

Whether it is explained through a reference to women’s moral inferiority, their dangerous sexuality controlled by spatial separation (cf. Holod et al. 1997: 21), or the code of modesty and privacy (cf. Kahera 2002:135), the gendering of space in terms of religious observance is culturally and socially reproduced and contested by individual actors inhabiting these discourses. Thus it changes over time (Low and Lawrence-Zuniga 2003:12). Muslim women in different places and at different times

17 Asad (1986) defines Islam as a “discursive tradition”. The adherents of this tradition are actively engaged in production of orthodoxy—“the establishment of a dominant version of religious tradition in specific historical conjunctions through a discursive process that extends in time and space” (Makris, 2007: 38). In the process of production of “orthodoxy” a range of opinions addressed gendering of space. Some interpreted sacred sources (the Qur’an and Hadith literature [Ar. ahadith – reports about sayings and practices of the Prophet Muhammad and his companions]) as neither precluding nor fostering women’s participation in the mosque’s activities. Others insist that a house, not the mosque, is the most appropriate place for women’s religious observances. [Here I am referring to the Sunni positions, as many devout and born-again Muslims claimed to follow the Hanafi mashab (Ar. madhab) one of the schools of jurisprudence in Sunni Islam.] These differing positions are historically contingent and are inhabited variously by devout individuals.

Cont Islam (2009) 3:251–273 261261

continue to exhibit varied responses to defining the mosque as a male space. Some of them struggle to carve their place in the mosques (Egypt see Mahmood 2005), choose not to attend the mosques (Iran see Friedl 1989), have or build their own mosques (China see Gillette 2000; Jaschok and Jingjun 2000; Somalia see Samatar 2005), or use local shrines as “women’s spaces” (Bosnia, Iran, Uzbekistan: see Friedl 2000; Gorshunova 2000; Bringa 1995).18 In the Ferghana Valley, definition of the mosque as men’s space went largely uncontested, as domestic space continued to be an important center of women’s religious observance, where local women religious leaders (otinchalar) led them in constructing their identity as devout Muslims (Kandiyoti and Azimova 2004:342).19

Women’s leadership is well documented in various societies, such as Indonesia, Iran, Philippines, Egypt, China, Kazakhstan and Afghanistan (e.g. Hoodfar 2001; Mahmood 2005; von Doorn-Harder 2006; Jaschok and Jingjun 2000; Horvatich 1994; Shalinsky 1996; Privratsky 2004). In anthropological literature on post-Soviet Central Asia, otinchalar are variously described as female clerics/mullahs (Fathi 1997; Kramer 2002); a distinctive age-group of elder women who act as guardians of tradition (Alimova and Azimova 2000; Corcoran-Nantes 2005); a mechanism of female religious education (Constantine 2007; Kamp 2006; Kandiyoti and Azimova 2004), women preachers (Sultanova 2000; Imamkhodjaeva 2005), and as a mechanism of conflict mediation within local families (Gorshunova 2001). These women, important religious leaders, were capable of transforming domestic space into a sacred place for religious observance on certain occasions in the Valley.

“We are the followers of Imam Azam,20 we are a part of Hanafi mashab [Ar. madhab, a school of jurisprudence]: that is why!” stressing every word responded Feruza-opa, a famous otincha, to my question about women’s inability to attend local mosques (interview, 2002). In an interview, one respected informal male religious teacher insisted that in his understanding of Hanafi mashab’s principles, only older women were allowed inside the mosque:

Only after they turn fifty can they attend the mosques, but they do not want to. They do not go. Some women brought this question [why they were not allowed to attend the mosques?] to our imams several times, but the imams did not allow them to go inside the mosques based on odot [customary practices] (interview, 2002).

18 In the Valley both men and women visit local shrines. 19 I was told that in Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan, a very small number of women did attend one of the mosques. Imamkhodjaeva (2005) refers to the prohibition on women’s attendance of the mosques in the past tense. My feeling is that her data is gathered in the capital and also at the time when the regime was toying with the idea of “safe” Islam (1991–1995). During my research in the 2001-2003 this prohibition, both overt and covert, was still in action. Even if women in the Valley were to be explicitly encouraged to go to the mosques, in my opinion, it would be a long term process until they decide to do so in great numbers. 20 The word “Imam” here is used probably as honorific, referring to important and influential individual and religious leader. In general it means a prayer leader and a scholar. I take it to be a reference to Al- Imam al-A’zam, Nu’man bin Thabit bin Zuta bin Mahan, known as Abu Ḥanīfah (699—767 CE), the founder of the Sunni Hanafi school of Islamic jurisprudence.

262 Cont Islam (2009) 3:251–273

Although Hanafi mashab was said to provide a theological rationale for local religious practices (and Hanafi theologians and jurists neither prohibit nor recommend women to attend the mosques), actual religious practices in the Valley were highly heterogeneous and contested (cf. Babadjanov 2004).

Be that as it may, other Muslim women and men cited neither Hanafi mashab’s position nor odot as the main reasons for women’s absence from the mosques. They stressed the issues of space rather than theological positions as important structuring elements of religious observance in the area. Another informal male religious leader insisted that the lack of physical space at the local mosques was the main reason for women’s inability to attend the mosques:

I agree that masjid [mosque] is only to be visited for praying to Allah. Men do not, and should not go to masjid in order to see women. After the Prophet’s death, men and women were separated. During his time they were not. Masjid is not a cinema hall. There should be at least a two-person distance between a man and a woman in a masjid. Our masjids are too small. They do not have enough space and were not built to accommodate such mixed gatherings. Additionally, we do not have proper, sometimes any, facilities for tahorat [a ritual cleansing ceremony performed prior to ritual prayer]. We do not have separate entrances (interview, 2003).

Those women who traveled outside the Valley, either for hajj or business, also agreed that a lack of appropriate space defined as women’s place was an important reason why women did not attend local mosques. One interlocutor reported that “in some places where there is a separate place for women, women go. We saw it in Mecca and Medina. But we do not have it, so we do not go” (interview, 2002). Other women defined the mosque as exclusively male space, but did not feel left out as they learned about various discussions at the mosques from their husbands (interview, 2002). There were some local otinchalar, such as Fatima-hon, who were ambivalent about existing gendering of the mosque as men’s place. She saw a choice to go to the mosque as desirable but either did not care enough or was afraid to challenge this gendering of space (interview, 2003). Although the interlocutors produced a variety of responses about women’s inability to attend the mosque, most of them agreed that only in domestic space can women truly be a part of the faith community and nurture their piety.

Historically, the hujum (attack) campaign and its consequences in the first part of the 20th century hindered any creative efforts in the production of women’s space in the local mosques; especially the efforts by Muslim reformers in the late 19th and early 20th century (jadids) to include women in a public life outside the house (Khalid 1998). In the post-Soviet period the initial impetus to re-open and construct more mosques that could have incorporated separate physical spaces for women was inhibited by the government’s fear of growing political and religious opposition. The formal religious leadership—contemporary Muslim scholars and local imams—were reluctant, incapable, or disinterested in developing a legal position allowing or encouraging women to attend the mosques. A very small number of otinchalar, the informal leaders, expressed a desire to attend mosques; a majority of them discouraged it. To encourage local women to contest existing gendering of space would lead to the loss of power by otinchalar as religious leaders to local imams, as

Cont Islam (2009) 3:251–273 263263

women were not able to lead men and women in prayer at the mosque.21 Hence, customary practices, opposition from and reluctance of local religious leaders, and a lack of physical space continued to construct mosques as male spaces and homes as female spaces for religious observance and socialization (cf. Rendell et al. 2000: 103).

Local women’s lack of access to the mosques constrained them from participating in congregational life (if congregation includes men only) and worship. Yet, it simultaneously enabled them to have religious and social experiences in other ways, as any spatial segregation both enables and constrains human action (Giddens and Turner 1987; Giddens 1984; e.g. Donley-Reid 1990). Rather than focusing on and criticizing their acute absence at the mosques and their gender subordination (e.g. Bourdieu 2003), their presence in other spaces, their various encounters and experiences, should be understood and theorized as spatially enabling. Furthermore, rather than resisting or promoting spatially enabled subordination and inequality (e.g. Massey 1994), many local women saw their religious practice and social activism in domestic space to be equal in importance to worship in the mosques, as the opening quotation exemplifies, “The Qur’an says that one needs to read socially within a group and we do just that at our meetings” (interview, 2002).22 This Qur’anic based definition of religious practice detached from a particular physical context and embedded in a social context (“within a group”) allowed local women to participate in religious practices and spiritual exercises (such as zikr) that nurtured their piety in the spaces other than the mosques. This piety was manifested through various practices in the house, not only a private space, but also occasionally a public place for religious and other social events.

Individual domestic space was one of these other important spaces. The mosques in the Valley did not “have a monopoly on sacredness, since the dwelling place (among others) also [provided] alternative notions of sacredness and sacred places” (Kong 1993:353; e.g. Privratsky 2004:163). Local Muslim women, like men, conducted namoz (daily ritual prayers) in their homes, and participated in such religious ceremonies as ihson. Yet, domestic space had more symbolic importance for the women than it did for local men: it was a space where they could develop their social networks and construct their identities as devout Muslims by themselves, unmediated by men and formal religious and secular authorities. Women’s leadership and agency made these places and activities critically different from, but equal in importance to, the mosques.

These exclusively female religious ceremonies in the domestic space, officiated by otinchalar, included elements similar to the rites conducted at the mosques:

When we get together at the ceremonies we read the Qur’an. Some women may cry. Others talk and discuss different things, and some gossip. During ihson when we get together is also like the mosque. While buying and preparing food for ihson we spend money on God. We celebrate God and

21 There are women who challenge gendering of leadership at the mosques in other socio-cultural contexts, such as Amina Wadud’s leadership during a gender-mixed prayer in New York City (USA) in 2005. 22 Although the interlocutors did not provide a particular Qur’anic reference addressing the importance of congregational prayer, surah (chapter) Al-Baqarah (Calf or the Cow) speaks about it in the ayat (verse) 23. There are also ahadith addressing this in the collections of Bukhari, Muslim, and Tirmidhi.

264 Cont Islam (2009) 3:251–273

worship Him.... We read hatma Qur’an [recitations from the Qur’an], or ashir [memorial service for Ali’s family], or Mavlud. Then masala [didactic stories] begin, and then hikmatlar [religious hymns]. The last two, masala and hikmalar, touch you and open your soul to God (interview, Fatima-hon, 2002).

As Fatima-hon’s quotation explains, these women, like local imams, led the prayers, recited the Qur’an, told didactic stories, answered religious and social questions, and provided a degree of religious education on occasion.23 Like imams they had the power and ability to facilitate sacred place-making in domestic spaces through the recitation of the Qur’an, whereby a house became as sacred as the mosque at the time of prayer. In light of religious and political persecution, women considered the sacred place in one’s home to be a safer place for a gathering than a mosque. It enabled women to express and foster their religious piety, to receive a degree of religious education, to develop social networks, to participate in congregational worship (if the congregation is defined as women only), and to engage in socio-political activism. It is in this sense that the mosque came to women’s houses on particular occasions.

Making place in a space

According to local women, domestic space was sacralized in terms of meaning during religious ceremonies led by otinchalar. These ceremonies would often start in the courtyard or at the gate with duo, an individual supplication which would be performed by an otincha on behalf of someone, usually the hostess, and/or pataha (blessing/prayer).24 The main parts of these ceremonies were often conducted inside the mehmonhona (living or guest room), where the otincha and other women could create the sacred place through conscious efforts and ritual practice (cf. Mahmood 2001; Bell 1997:74,84).

The otincha facilitated sacred place-making by using her major assets: knowledge of Arabic, ability to recite the Qur’an, and knowledge of the local ceremonial practices. Only a few otinchalar were able to read, speak, or understand Arabic but they had enough skills to recite some sections from the Qur’an by memory. Fatima-hon commented on the importance of Qur’anic recitation,

Angels descend from heaven when the Qur’an is read. The powerful nur [the divine light which comes from God] emanates from the pages of the Holy Book and from the spoken word. But when several voices join together in the prayer and reading of the Qur’an this light, nur, becomes forty times more powerful and we find ourselves in a sacred place. Everything in the room is holy, blessed, at that moment; it is all in the light! (interview, 2002).

Hence, sacred place-making was a process by which the otincha created an initial impetus through her recitation of the parts of the Qur’an. The final stage of the process was a social event that included all of the women in the room.

23 Many of these women taught religious and ceremonial knowledge to the students at their home-schools. 24 As pointed by one of the anonymous reviewers, pataha maybe is a dialectal form of fatiha, i.e. al- Fatiha (the Opening) surah (chapter) of the Qur’an. In this case it can mean both a blessing and a prayer.

Cont Islam (2009) 3:251–273 265265

During several interviews local women pointed out that the power of the nur was present during namoz but not necessarily to the same degree. At the time of religious gatherings it increased exponentially in direct correlation to the amplified sound produced by the women—“[b]ut when several voices join together in the prayer ... nur, becomes forty times more powerful,”—thus making one’s domestic space more sacred. The ceremony then would continue with expression of gratitude to God and the Prophet (salovat) for the ability to receive the divine light and blessings. Thus, the women guided by the otincha produced sacred place in domestic space independently through their agency and initiative, unmediated by male religious authorities and often undetected by secular ones.

The sacredness of the place was not accepted as normative by the women present at the ceremonies. Rather it was experienced through one’s words, tears and physical movements. At one ceremony during the Qur’anic recitation the women in attendance partook of the sacredness of the nur with their hands, pouring this divine light over their heads while experiencing different emotional states. After the sacralization of space some women continued repeating “Allahu Akbar” (God is the Greatest!), and “Khudoga shukur” (Thanks to God!) as their physical behavior became very different from what I had observed on arrival. Tears, closed or wide- opened eyes, covering one’s eyes with hands, physical movements from one side to the other and exclamatory expressions of gratitude characterized this body of the believers and their physical bodies. Some of the women had similar responses to the didactic stories and religious hymns (cf. Sultanova 2000). The multilocality of the place was exemplified by these qualitative shifts in individual behavior, which in turn signaled a qualitative transformation of space into a sacred place, a different public place.

In the context of an unstable economy and political oppression, a desire to change one’s condition (whether economic or social) infused religious practice in the Valley. “Allah has called Himself the nur of the heavens and the earth. He is the One who bestows the nur upon humans. The nur changes people’s conditions,” continued Fatima-hon in her explanation of religious ceremony (interview, 2002). In the sacred place described above, the women attempted to produce positive changes in their own and their families’ lives though prayer, hymns, and various expressions of gratitude. They were skillfully instructed by the otincha to communicate directly to Allah without asking local saints or spiritual figures such as Bibi Seshanbe (Lady Tuesday) (Kandiyoti and Azimova 2004; Louw 2007) to change their conditions. In subsequent interviews, one woman shared asking God for help in finding jobs for her children in Russia, as the wages received in Russia were considerably higher than the local ones. Another woman pleaded with God to facilitate a swift return of a son-in-law arrested on the charges of “Wahhabist” activities. She reported asking God for amnesty and for President Karimov’s health as “only he could announce amnesty.” Hence, the sacred place created in domestic space on such occasions was also experienced by some women as a safe place which carried a promise of personal and social change.

Such sacred places created in domestic space were as important as their counterparts at the mosque. These places were loci of potential positive change and encouraged local women’s socially active religiosity and political participation. These religious ceremonies did not end with supplications and promises, but

266 Cont Islam (2009) 3:251–273

continued with various conversations about personal, familial, communal (mahalla) and larger socio-political problems and issues. Some of these discussions led to women’s political protests (cf. Holmes-Eber 2003).

From talk to action and vice versa

In my experience, the process of socialization that took place in domestic space during religious ceremonies included various subjects, such as the socio-political and economic situation in the Valley and the country. At one ihson in early March 2003, after the Qur’anic recitations, duo, salovat, masala and hikmatlar, several women engaged in radical criticism of the Uzbek government for its inability to sustain local economic development. The discussion started before the religious part of the ceremony by expressing concern over the reported death of President Karimov—an event, which, some said, was announced on the TV channels retransmitted from the Russian Federation (a report which later was proved to be false).25 This larger political issue, directly connected by the women to the local economic problems and possible changes in the government, the women hoped, might bring some improvement to the Valley’s economy.

After the supplications and promises during this ihson, women moved to a discussion of a new tax law requiring local businesses to pay seventy per cent of the gross sale price to the local tax department. One businesswoman, a born-again Muslim, Alima-opa, passionately insisted that “many people in Uzbekistan are not happy with the government, although they do not openly say it.” She shared a story about official corruption and extortion during her trip from China with the commodities acquired there for resale in the Valley, complaining about growing corruption – “we have to bribe whoever inspects us on the way.” Her criticism of the current government and the tax law included a comparative aspect of the living and legal standards of post-Soviet experience in Uzbekistan and a recognition of their necessity driven law-breaking:

We used to have imported goods in the Soviet Union and at the beginning of our independence. Uzbek people are used to foreign produce and good quality. But with this new tax law we have nothing—no goods, no quality. Locally produced goods are of a bad quality, while the foreign goods are taxed so heavily that we make no profit. We have no interest in doing business legally [as a result of this new law], or doing it at all. But we have to feed our families.

The criticism of the government built up to criticism of the current social structure of Uzbekistan and a lack of social justice. According to other women passionately joining the conversation, not only the tax department, but also the police and the Ministry of Internal Affairs were complicit with and contributed to the growing corruption in the country. This moral decline was reflected in economic decline. One participant remarked:

The local police officers, even the traffic police, are making money off us businesswomen. We have to bribe everyone on our way and there is nothing we can do about it. We are more vulnerable than men [although some local

25 I was told later that the Uzbek press insisted that the false news of Karimov’s death was produced by the Russian authorities because of the president’s support of the pending American invasion of Iraq (2003).

Cont Islam (2009) 3:251–273 267267

businessmen reported extortion as well]. Now the tax police, local police officers, and traffic police are happy: they make money. So you see the laws benefit those who are in the positions of authority, not us, not our Uzbek products, and not the Uzbek people. But truly nobody is happy. People are simply afraid to say anything. We Uzbeks are like sheep: we keep silent.

This criticism of the flawed social structure and recognition of their reluctance to challenge it extended to the self-criticism, “We Uzbeks are like sheep....” Further, in the women’s criticism structural and individual moral declines were mutually constituted: the police demanded money, and the women “[had] to bribe everyone.”

These women also questioned the ideal of representative democracy as people’s rule, which was widely espoused by the state that failed to put it into practice. One participant fervently stated:

If the president wants to help his people, he needs to be among the people. He should see and hear what people want, what they say about him and his government. Maybe we people could give him some good advice. But he never listens to the people. Instead, he keeps us scared.

In the women’s assessment, the state not only failed to implement people’s rule, it also actively worked against a possibility of people’s rule through the use of violence, both actual and implied.

These discussions about social justice that took place in domestic space demonstrated women’s social activism which sometimes was expressed in political protests (see Human Rights Watch 2002; (UDD) 2002). In the fall of 2002, several born-again and devout Muslim women in Margilan organized and attended a public meeting protesting against the president’s incomplete amnesty, which did not include religious and political prisoners. This protest and its results were actively discussed by local women (some of them participated in the protest) at another religious gathering that I attended later that week. In the spring of 2003, another public protest by local women in Margilan targeted the lack of gas and electricity in the area. According to the women who discussed this action several days later during dars (religious lesson), several local women (devout and not) organized a protest group and went to the regional mayor’s office. The regional mayor “promised to give more gas in the canisters for every family.” The women were doubtful that the mayor would fulfill his promise. They were also afraid of persecution for “causing trouble” (participant-observation, 2003).

Women, domestic space, and the state in the Ferghana Valley

My ethnographic research and anthropological analysis of domestic space in post- Soviet Uzbekistan, demonstrates that religious renewal is not limited to religious discourses and the mosque and it is not the sole prerogative of men (cf. Mahmood 2005; Privratsky 2004; Louw 2007; Deeb 2006). In the Valley the sacred places created in domestic spaces became safe places for religious observance and socio- political activism of born-again and devout Muslim women; places where they could express their socially active religiosity. The sacred places created in domestic spaces

268 Cont Islam (2009) 3:251–273

carried promises of personal and social changes and thus provided devout and born- again Muslim women with safe arenas for religious observance. These sacred places were also safe public places enabling socio-political discussions, a first step for launching into the unsafe public spaces outside individual homes. The domestic space became a safe place for information exchange precisely because it was defined as a homosocial religious occasion, and not a political one. This safe place was not easily accessible to the secular and religious authorities, such as the local police department or the office of the imam, who attempted to control domestic space by publicly criticizing these occasions at the mosques and in the print media as wasteful and not Islamic. Nodira-opa heard from her husband that women’s religious and social gatherings, such as ihson and gap, received a negative assessment in one of the local mosques where an imam encouraged local men to “[t]ell your women not to go to ihson and gap so often; let them stay at home and pray” (interview, 2003).

In spite of these challenges, local women were not willing to give up their historical (cf. Fathi 1997) and, according to them, Islamically legitimate spaces of empowerment and support. For Fatima-hon, Islam required a social environment for studying and prayer, while for Nodira-opa, socio-economic changes in the post- Soviet Uzbekistan and women’s active participation in the local economy made women’s religious and social gatherings legitimate and as important as the ones attended by the men:

Yes many women go to ihson and gap. Women more often than men do. You know why? Because our lives have changed. Women make money, more money than men, or equal. Women go to bazaars, sell and buy things. Women are as important as men.

Thus, both religious observance and socio-political activism became critically important elements of religious renewal in the Valley, as the process of socialization during religious ceremonies taking place in domestic space included spiritual and societal matters. Economic and socio-political problems in the Valley and post- Soviet Uzbekistan and a desire for change saturated women’s discussions and requests made to the Divine. Some of these discussions informed and were informed by public protests in the Valley. These discussions and public protests were also expressions of these women’s socially active religiosity that cannot be reduced to Islam as symbols, language, and ideology, but is historically situated and engendered by particular socio-political and economic context of post-Soviet Uzbekistan’s Ferghana Valley.

In order to fully understand the role of domestic space in contemporary lives of local women and men in the Valley, Muslim and not, devout and not, it is necessary to further investigate the discussions that take place in domestic space between local men and women, either friends or relatives. Religious observance and political activism of born-again and devout Muslim men are also embedded in domestic space. More research is needed to make a thorough scholarly assessment of the role of domestic space in these religious and socio-political activities. While the importance of the house as a critical center for religious observance may not hold true for those Uzbeks and non-Uzbeks in the Valley who are secular, it is indisputable that the domestic space still provides them a degree of safety in expressing political dissent and social criticism of existing social structure.

Cont Islam (2009) 3:251–273 269269

Acknowledgments I extend my thanks to Professor Asma Afsaruddin, University of Notre Dame (South Bend, IN, USA), Professors Robert Rubinstein and Richard Pilgrim, Syracuse University (Syracuse, NY, USA), and the anonymous reviewers for Contemporary Islam: Dynamics of Muslim Life Journal for their careful reading and helpful comments on a draft of this article.

References

Abramson, D. M. (2000). Socialism's bastard children. PoLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review, 23(1), 49–64.

Abramson, D., & Karimov, E. E. (2007). Sacred sites, profane ideologies: religious pilgrimage and the Uzbek State. In J. Sahadeo & R. G. Zanca (Eds.), Everyday life in Central Asia: Past and present. Bloomington Indiana: University Press.

Adams, L. (2002). Globalization in Central Asia: notes of centrality and marginalization. Journal of Central Asian Studies, 6(2), 2–12.

Akiner, S. (1997). Between tradition and modernity: the dilemma facing contemporary Central Asian women. In M. Buckley (Ed.), Post-Soviet women: Prom the Baltic to Central Asia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Alimova, D., & Azimova, N. (2000). Women's position in Uzbekistan before and after independence. In F. Acar & A. Gunes-Ayata (Eds.), Gender and identity construction: Women of Central Asia, The Caucasus and Turkey. Leiden: Brill Publishers.

Algar, H. (2002). Wahhabism: a Critical Essay. Oneonta, New York: Islamic Publications International. An-Na’im, A. A. (2002). Islamic Family Law in a Changing World. London: Zed Books. Asad, T. (1986). The Idea of an Anthropology of Islam. Washington DC: Center for Contemporary Arab

Studies, Georgetown University. Ardener, S. (1981). Women and space: Ground rules and social maps. New York: St. Martin's Press. Babadjanov, B. (2004). Debates over Islam in contemporary Uzbekistan: A view from within In Devout

Societies vs. Impious States?: Transmitting Islamic Learning in Russia, Central Asia and China, Through the Twentieth Century : proceedings of an international colloquium held in the Carré des Sciences, French Ministry of Research, Paris, November 12–13, 2001, edited by S. p. A. Dudoignon. Berlin Schwarz.

Bayat, A. (2005). Islamism and social movement theory. Third World Quarterly, 26(6), 891–908. Bazin, L. (2008). Some responses to globalisation in Uzbekistan: State authoritarianism, migrant labour

and neo-traditionalism. Anthropology of the Middle East, 3(1), 10–27. Bell, C. M. (1997). Ritual: Perspectives and dimensions. New York: Oxford University Press. Betteridge, A. (2000). The controversial vows of Urban Muslim women in Iran. In: N. A. Falk & R. M.

Cross (Eds.), Unspoken worlds: Women's religious lives. Wadsworth/Thomas Learning. Bogner, M., & Human Rights Watch (Organization). (2003). Uzbekistan, from house to house: Abuses by

Mahalla committees. New York: Human Rights Watch. Bourdieu, P. (2003). The Berber House. In S. Low & D. Lawrence-Zuniga (Eds.), The anthropology of

space and place: Locating culture. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. Bringa, T. (1995). Being muslim the bosnian way: Identity and community in a Central Bosnian Village.

Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. Castells, M., & Susser, I. (Eds.) (2002). The Castells reader on cities and social theory: Blackwell

Publishers. Constantine, E. A. (2007). Practical consequences of soviet policy and ideology for gender in Central Asia

and contemporary reversal. In J. Sanadeo & R. Zanca (Eds.), Everyday life in Central Asia: Past and present. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.

Corcoran-Nantes, Y. (2005). Lost voices: Central Asian women confronting transition. London: Zed Books.

Deeb, L. (2006). An enchanted modern: gender and public piety in Shi'i Lebanon. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press.

DeWeese, D. A. (1994). Islamization and native religion in the Golden Horde : Baba Tukles and conversion to Islam in historical and epic tradition. University Park, Pa.: Pennsylvania State University Press.

Donley-Reid, L. W. (1990). A structuring structure: The Swahili House. In S. Kent (Ed.), Domestic architecture and use of space: an interdisciplinary cross-cultural study. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

270 Cont Islam (2009) 3:251–273

Doumato, E. A. (2000). Getting God's ear: Women, Islam, and healing in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf. New York: Columbia University Press.

Egger, V. O. (2008). A history of the Muslim world since 1260: The making of a global community. Upper Saddler River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.

Eickelman, D. F. (1993). Russia's Muslim frontiers: New directions in cross-cultural analysis, Indiana series in Arab and Islamic studies. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Erdreich, L., & Rapoport, T. (2006). Reading the power of spaces: Palestinian Israeli women at the Hebrew University. City and Society, 18(1), 116–150.

Fathi, H. (1997). Otines: the unknown women clerics of Central Asian Islam. Central Asian Survey, 16(1), 27–43.

Fernea, E. W. (1998). In search of Islamic feminism: One woman's global journey. New York: Doubleday Press.

Foucault, M. (1978). The history of sexuality. New York: Pantheon Books. Friedl, E. (1989). The women of Deh Koh: lives in an Iranian village. Washington: Smithsonian Institution

Press. Friedl, E. (2000). Islam and tribal woman in a village in Iran. In N. A. Falk & R. M. Cross (Eds.),

Unspoken worlds: women's religious lives. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth/Thomas Learning. Giddens, A. (1984). The constitution of society: outline of the theory of structuration. Cambridge: Polity

Press. Giddens, A., & Turner, J. (eds). (1987). Social theory today. Stanford, California: Stanford University

Press. Gillette, M. (2000). Between Mecca and Beijing: modernization and consumption among Urban Chinese

Muslims. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Gorshunova, O. V. (2000). Zhenskoe polomnichastvo k svyatim mestam (po materialam Ferghskoi

oblasti). In Polevie Etnograficheskie Issledovaniya. Moskva: IE Rassiskaya Academia Nauk. Gorshunova, O. V. (2001). The image of the Uzbek women: evolution of aesthetic representation (end of

the 19th - end of the 20th century). Etnoragraficheskoe Obozrenie, 5, 18–30. Henkel, H. (2007). The location of Islam: inhabiting Istanbul in a Muslim way. American Ethnologist, 34

(1), 57–70. Holmes-Eber, P. (2003). Daughters of Tunis: Women, family, and networks in a Muslim city, Westview

case studies in anthropology. Boulder: Westview Press. Holod, R., Khan, H.-U., & Mims, K. (1997). The contemporary Mosque : architects, clients, and designs

since the 1950 s. New York: Rizzoli. Hoodfar, H. (2001). Reproductive health counseling in the Islamic Republic of Iran: The role of women

Mullah. In C. M. Obermeyer (Ed.), Cultural perspectives on reproductive health. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press.

Horvatich, P. (1994). Ways of knowing Islam. American Ethnologist, 21(4), 811–826. Hugh-Jones, S., & Carsten, J. (eds). (1995). About the house : Levi-Strauss and Beyond. Cambridge and

New York: Cambridge University Press. Human Rights Watch. (2002). Uzbekistan: Round-up of women linked to Islamic Groups. Human Right

Watch: http://www.hrw.org/press/2002/05/uzbek-women.htm (Accessed 1 October 8). Human Rights Watch. (2005). “Bullets were Falling Like Rain”: the Andijan Massacre, May 13, 2005 by

Rachel Denber and Ian Levine. New York: Human Rights Watch. Imamkhodjaeva, O. (2005). Religious practices: Preaching and women preachers Central Asia. In S.

Joseph (Ed.), Encyclopedia of women and Islamic cultures: Practices, interpretations and representations. Leiden - Boston: Brill.

International Crisis, Group. (2007). Political murder in Central Asia: no time to end Uzbekistan's isolation. Bishkek; Brussels: International Crisis Group.

Jaschok, M., & Jingjun, S. (2000). The history of women's mosques in Chinese Islam: A mosque of their own. Richmond, Surrey: Curzon Press.

Jobborov, S., & Thompson, B. (2002). Television, transition, and globalization: Uzbeksitan's experience after a decade of independence. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, 6(2), 30–45.

Kahera, A. I. (2002). Deconstructing the American Mosque. Austin: University of Texas Press. Kamp, M. R. (1998). Unveiling Uzbek women: liberation, representation and discourse, 1906–1929, near

Eastern languages and civilizations, Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Chicago, June 1998., Chicago. Kamp, M. R. (2006). The new woman in Uzbekistan: Islam, modernity, and unveiling under communism,

Jackson School publications in international studies. Seattle: University of Washington Press. Kandiyoti, D., & Azimova, N. (2004). The communal and the sacred: women's worlds of ritual in

Uzbekistan. Journal of Royal Anthropological Institute, 10, 327–249.

Cont Islam (2009) 3:251–273 271271

Keller, S. (2001). To Moscow, not Mecca: the Soviet campaign against Islam in Central Asia, 1917–1941. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers.

Khalid, A. (1998). The politics of Muslim cultural reform: Jadidism in Central Asia. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Khalid, A. (2007). Islam after communism: religion and politics in Central Asia. Berkley: University of California Press.

Khamidov, A. (2008). Uzbekistan: Having Weathered Winter, Authorities Brace for Spring. http://www. eurasianet.org/departments/insight/articles/eav022808f.shtml (Accessed 14 May, 2008).

Kondo, D. (1991). Crafting selves: power, gender, and discourses of identity in a Japanese Workplace. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Kong, L. (1993). Negotiating conceptions of 'Sacred Space': a case study of religious buildings in Singapore. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, New Series, 18(2), 342–358.

Kramer, A. (2002). Geistliche Autoritat und Islamische Gesellschaft im Wandel : Studien Ãber Frauenlteste (otin und xalfa) im Unabhangigen Usbekistan. Berlin: Klaus Schwarz Verlag.

Liu, M. Y. (2003). Detours from Utopia on the silk road: Ethical Dilemmas of neoliberal triumphalism. Central Asian Studies Review, 2(2), 2–11.

Louw, M. E. (2007). Everyday Islam in post-Soviet Central Asia. London and New York: Routledge. Low, S. M., & Lawrence-Zuniga, D. (eds). (2003). The anthropology of space and place: Locating

culture. Blackwell Readers in Anthropology. Malden: Blackwell Publishers. Lubin, N., & Rubin, B. R. (1999). Calming the Ferghana Valley: Development and dialogue in the Heart

of Central Asia. New York, NY: The Century Foundation Press. Mahmood, S. (2001). Rehearsed spontaneity and the conventionality of ritual: Disciplines of Salat.

American Ethnologist, 28(4), 827–853. Mahmood, S. (2005). Politics of Piety: the Islamic revival and the feminist subject. Princeton, N.J.:

Princeton University Press. Makris, G. P. (2007). Islam in the Middle East: A Living Tradition. Malden: Blackwell Publishing. Marranci, G. (2008). The anthropology of Islam. Berg: Oxford; New York. Massell, G. J. (1974). The surrogate proletariat: Moslem women and revolutionary strategies in Soviet

Central Asia, 1919–1929. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Massey, D. B. (1994). Space, place, and gender. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Massicard, E., & Trevisani, T. (2003). The Uzbek Mahalla: between state and society. In T. Everett-Heath

(Ed.), Central Asia: Aspects of transition. London; New York: Routledge Curzon. McGlinchey, E. M. (2007). Divided faith: Trapped between State and Islam. In J. Sahadeo & R. Zanca

(Eds.), Everyday life in Central Asia: Past and present. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Megoran, N. (2002). Contested geographies of globalization in Kyrgyzstan. Journal of Central Asian

Studies, 6(2), 13–29. Montgomery, D. W. (2007). Namaz, whishing trees, and vodka: The diversity of everyday life in Central

Asia. In J. Sahadeo & R. Zanca (Eds.), Everyday life in Central Asia: Past and present. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Naumkin, V. V. (2005). Radical Islam in Central Asia: Between pen and rifle, the Soviet bloc and after. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield.

Northrop, D. T. (2004). Veiled empire: Gender and power in stalinist Central Asia: Cornell University Press.

Olcott, M. B., & Babajanov, B. (2003). The terrorist notebooks. Foreign Policy (135), 30–40. Ong, A. (1990). State versus Islam: Malay families, women's bodies, and the body politic in Malaysia.

American Ethnologist, 17(2), 258–276. Ortner, S. (1974). Is female to male as nature to culture? In M. Rosaldo & L. Lamphere (Eds.), Women,

culture and society. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Papas, A. (2005). The Sufi and the president in Post-Soviet Uzbekistan. International Institute for the

Study of Islam in the Modern World (ISIM) Review, 16, 38–39. Pellow, D. (2003). The architecture of female seclusion in West Africa. In S. M. Low & D. Lawrence-

Zuniga (Eds.), The anthropology of space and place: Locating culture. Blackwell readers in anthropology. Malden: Blackwell Publishers.

Pellow, D. (2008). Landlords and lodgers: Socio-spatial organization in an accra community. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Pittin, R. (1996). Negotiating boundaries: a perspective from Nigeria. In D. Pellow (Ed.), Setting boundaries: The anthropology of spatial and social organization. Westport CT: Bergin and Garvey.

Privratsky, B., & Dudoignon, S. (2004). “Turkestan Belongs to the Qojas”: Local knowledge of a Muslim tradition. Devout societies vs. impious states?. Berlin: Klaus Schwarz Verglag.

272 Cont Islam (2009) 3:251–273

Rasanayagam, J. (2006). Healing with spirits and the formation of Muslim selfhood in post-Soviet Uzbekistan. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 12, 377–393.

Rendell, J., Penner, B., Borden, I., & Inc NetLibrary (2000). Gender space architecture an interdisciplinary introduction. Routledge.

Ridd, R. (1981). When women must dominate: response to the oppression in a South African urban community. In S. Ardener (Ed.), Women and space: ground rules and social maps. New York: St. Martin's Press.

Rodman, M. (1992). Empowering place: multilocality and multivocality. American Anthropologist, 94(3), 640–656.

Rosaldo, M. (1974). Women, culture and society: a theoretical overview. In M. Rosaldo & L. Lamphere (Eds.), Woman, culture and society. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

Rotar, I. (2006). Resurgence of Islamic Radicalism in Tajikistan's Ferghana Valley. Terrorism Focus, 3 (15), 6–8.

Sahadeo, J., & Zanca, R. (eds). (2007). Everyday life in Central Asia: past and present. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.

Samatar, A. I. (2005). Social transformation and Islamic reinterpretation in Northern Somalia: The women's mosque in Gabiley. In G.-W. Falah & C. Nagel (Eds.), Geographies of Muslim women: gender, religion and space. New York and London: The Guilford Press.

Schoeberlein, J. (2001). Islam in the Ferghana Valley: challenges for New States. In S. A. Dudoignon & K. Hisao (Eds.), Islam and politics in Russia and Central Asia. London; New York: Kegan Paul.

Shalinsky, A. C. (1980). Learning sexual identity: Parents and children in Northern Afghanistan. Anthropology & Education Quarterly, 11(4), 254–265.

Shalinsky, A. C. (1996). Gender issues in the Afghanistan diaspora: Nadia's story. Frontiers - Boulder, 17 (3), 102–123.

Sulaimanova, S. (2002). Unintended consequences of globalization: the case of trafficking of women from Central Asia. Journal of Central Asian Studies, 6(2), 46–67.

Sultanova, R. (2000). Qadiryya Dhikr in Ferghana Valley. Journal of the History of Sufism, 1–2, 531–538. Tabishalieva, A. (1998). Otrazhenie vo vremeni. Bishkek; Kirgizia: Turar. Tabishalieva, A. (2000). Revival of traditions in Post-Soviet Central Asia. In: M. Lazreg (Ed.), Making the

Transition work for women in Europe and Central Asia. World Bank Discussion Paper # 411. Washington D.C.: The World Bank.

Tokhtakhodjaeva, M. (1995). Between the slogans of communism and the laws of Islam. Lahore (Pakistan): Shirkat Gah Publishers.

Torre, S. (2000). Claiming the public sphere: the mothers of Plaza De Mayo. In J. Rankell, B. Penner & I. Borden (Eds.), Gender space architecture: an interdisciplinary approach. New York: Routledge.

Troitskaya, A. L. (1929). Zhenskij Zikr v starom tashkente. Sb. Muzeja Antropologii i Etnografii VII:71– 99.

(UDD) Uzbekistan Daily Digest. 2002. Uzbek women beaten up, threatened with rape in detention.... Voice of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Mashhad, in Uzbek 1500 gmt 20.May 02 . BBC Mon CAU 210502gar/sa/abm:http://www.eurasianet.org/resource/uzbekistan/hypermail/200205/0016.shtml (Accessed 1 October 2008).

von Doorn-Harder, P. (2006). Women shaping Islam: Reading the Qur'an in Indonesia. Chicago: University of Illinois Press.

Wiktorowicz, Q. (2005). Radical Islam rising: Muslim extremism in the West. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield.

Zhilina, A.N., & T.N. Tomina. (1993). Narody Srednei Azii: Traditsionnoe Zhilishche Narodov Srednei Azii (XIX - nachalo XX vv.). Moskva: Rossijskaya Akademia Nauk Institut Etnologii i Antropologii im. N.N. Mikluho-Maklaya.

Cont Islam (2009) 3:251–273 273273