The policeman lost his head, then everyone else began to lose their beards.
Bokijon Ubaydulayev was a traffic cop who also trafficked in stolen cars in Namangan, a dusty,densely populated and religiously fervent city in the swath of Muslim Central Asia once ruled by the Soviet Union. One night in December, a gang broke into his house and demanded money. When they found none, the attackers beat him with an iron bar, decapitated him, put his head on a stake and left it on display outside the house of the Namangan police chief.
His death appeared to be a case of attempted robbery and exceptionally brutal murder. But at a June trial, one of the assailants said he killed Ubaydulayev in the name of Islamic justice. "To cut heads, to chop hands, it is allowed. It's jihad,"said the killer, Talib Mamjonov, employing the Arabic term for struggle and holy war.
That declaration heightened what has become a tense struggle in Uzbekistan. This country of 23 million harbored high hopes for post-Soviet prosperity but is trapped between the secular and authoritarian leadership it inherited from Moscow and the Islamic currents sweeping through the region.
The reaction to the threat of jihad was swift: Police officers and soldiers sealed off Namangan, arrested scores of suspected Muslim militants and closed hundreds of mosques. Anyone with a beard was vulnerable to arrest; abundant facial hair is regarded as a sign of piety. Men quickly gave themselves a shave.
The affair was the most startling in a series of grisly killings and harsh crackdowns under President Islam Karimov, a former Communist functionary who seized control of the country as it gained independence in 1991. Karimov promised Uzbeks that they had a bright future, and with some reason. Uzbekistan has the largest population among former Soviet republics in Central Asia and lies between turbulent Afghanistan to the south and oil-rich Kazakhstan to the north.
Karimov fancied that Uzbekistan would regain the geopolitical importance it reached under Tamerlane, the great and cruel 14th-century conqueror. The president refurbished the tomb of Tamerlane among the soaring palaces of Samarkand, the fabled Silk Road city, and dedicated a mausoleum-like museum to him in Tashkent, the Uzbek capital. Tour guides talked about the advances of science and poetry in Tamerlane's time, while omitting his famous calling card -- piles of enemy skulls left on the doorstep of besieged cities.
But Karimov's Uzbek dreams are shattering. The country's economy is in tatters and its importance overshadowed as such oil-rich neighbors as Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan welcome Western suitors. With domestic opposition rising, Karimov has been driven to create a new, less attractive self-image: bulwark against Islamic fundamentalism.
The question now is whether his repression will wipe out or simply strengthen the political force of Islam in Uzbekistan and in the region. Last year Karimov boasted that he had nipped Islamic politics in the bud. "In Uzbekistan, Islamic fundamentalism will find no support," he predicted.
This year, the beheading in Namangan prompted Karimov to close 900 mosques and issue threats to Muslim militants that were worthy of Tamerlane himself. "Such people should be shot in the head," Karimov told parliament in May. "If necessary, I'll shoot them myself."
In the years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Karimov encouraged Islam's rebirth: Muhammad would replace Marx, and the Koran would serve as the scaffolding for a resurgent national culture. But in Uzbekistan, as in neighboring Central Asian countries, the Islamic revival brought back a tradition of mosque-based politics. Assertive mullahs threatened officialdom's virtual monopoly on political discussion. A fundamentalist takeover in nearby Afghanistan reminded the new post-Soviet despots of the violent end possibly awaiting them.
Opposition activists see a cynical scheme at work. They will tell you, as they drink tea in the Uzbek fashion -- out of bowls -- that Karimov wildly exaggerates the fundamentalist threat to eliminate the sole source of political opposition outside his control: the mosque. It is more likely that the policeman's murder was merely a falling out among thieves, despite the ideological luster displayed at the murder trial, critics say.
In fact, it is difficult to gauge the strength of political Islam here. Uzbeks are reserved; homes are hidden by high walls, and talk is restrained by suspicion and fear. But reality does not necessarily count. Human Rights Watch in New York put it this way: "The government is painting all Muslims with the same brush -- those who have criminal intent and average Muslims who simply wear a beard or go to mosque. It is subjecting all Muslims on a mass scale to beatings, show trials, expulsions from universities and jobs, and lengthy prison terms."
The religious tensions come at a particularly bad time for Uzbekistan. The Uzbek economy is based on exports of cotton and gold; the world price for both declined sharply in the past year. In a region where oil is the great hope, Kazakhstan appears to be taking on the mantle of regional kingpin. Uzbekistan, although a possible route for export pipelines, is likely to be able to produce only enough oil for its own needs and enough natural gas to export a little.
By Western accounts, Karimov has worsened Uzbek prospects by severely limiting the free exchange of soums, the country's currency, for dollars. That makes it difficult for investors to take home profits and hard for exporters to do business with foreigners. Salaries, long substandard, have stagnated. The average wage is the equivalent of $200 a month.
Yet even opposition voices concede Karimov is popular. Uzbeks are fearful of the killing that burns in Tajikistan and Afghanistan and regard Karimov as a force for stability. Moreover, Karimov has taken pains to make sure no one challenges him. Elected in 1991, he engineered a 1995 referendum to extend his term until 2000. As in Soviet times, the yes ballots amounted to 98 percent of the vote.
Karimov banned several secular and Islam-based parties. Across the nation, he pulled the plugs on mosque loudspeakers that broadcast the five-times-a-day call to prayer. After the Ubaydulayev killing, his police announced preachers must have government licenses.
The democratic opposition is cowed and minuscule. Only Islam stands in Karimov's way to absolute power, observers say. "The secular democrats are not an important threat to Karimov right now," said Nasir Zakir, a human rights activist in Namangan. "The whole focus is on Islam."
Namangan, a city of more than 300,000, has long been a center of Islamic fervor. It lies in the fertile Fergana Valley east of Tashkent, in Uzbekistan's lushest region. Melons, grapes and vegetables grow profusely; vines decorate the inner courtyards of traditional homes. Fergana is also Central Asia's most crowded area and among its poorest. This decade, hundreds of mosques were built in the city, most with neighborhood donations. Many are run by self-educated imams armed with flinty righteousness, incessant prayer and enough charisma to fill the mosque on Fridays.
Muslim preachers soon found a nerve ending left exposed by local misrule -- corruption. Business people complain that no deal is complete without a bribe paid to numerous government functionaries for meaningless, yet vital permits.
The latest round of violence began in March 1997, when a local mullah claimed that security police tried to pressure him into delivering pro-Karimov messages during Friday prayer. He said the police had planted narcotics on him in an effort to frame him.
The cleric shot the two policemen dead near the train station and escaped. Police fanned out to arrest suspected, bearded dissidents. Violent incidents followed with regularity. "People are angry at the police and not sorry about such killings," said Gulianjon Hamato, a member of the opposition Freedom Party.
One of the cauldrons of dissent was the Gumba mosque, a large school and worship complex not far from the railroad station. These days, worshipers are barred from praying in its large courtyard. The school is closed, and the incumbent preacher was ousted by police. In his place, the government dispatched a cleric who identified himself as Taribjon. "The old imam was against Islam," he explained to visitors.
Taribjon repeated the government's contention that subversive preachers have been trained in Pakistan, Afghanistan or Tajikistan with the aim of setting up a theocracy in Uzbekistan. "They deceive the people into thinking the state is their enemy," he said.
Hasan Madrahimov, a butcher who calls himself a wahabi, the term in Central Asia for a pious Muslim, used to worship at the Gumba mosque. Now he stays close to home to chop mutton and to shoo flies and his nine children from his shop. He used to sport a long beard -- he placed his hand just above his belly to show its previous reach -- but cut it to a more discreet inch-long length.
"I didn't want to attract unnecessary attention," he said.
Madrahimov cloaks his political thoughts in theological dress -- until the issue of the mosque closures comes up. Then he speaks directly and sharply. Preachers at the mosque used "only the words of the Prophet Muhammad" in their sermons, he declared.
"The secret police know that, but still they pressure the believers," he continued. "They are always harassing us. First they reduced the time of prayer, now they have eliminated it altogether. They said the public call to prayer bothered people. Lies."
About This Series
It's sometimes hard to believe that the former republics of the Soviet Union once formed a unified empire, so different are the 14 countries that broke from Moscow's rule and stretch from the Baltic Sea in northern Europe to the Islamic center of Asia. Yet, they share troubling times.
This series of stories, appearing occasionally in the summer and autumn, reports on the situation in a number of the former republics. It looks at some of the issues they have in common, ranging from ethnic tensions to environmental problems to the struggle to build prosperous economies.
Uzbekistan At a Glance
Land: 172,700 square miles, slightly larger than California. Mostly plains and desert.
Population: currently 23.7 million; estimate for 2025: 35.7 million.
Proportion of population younger than 15: 41%; older than 65: 4%
Ethnic groups: Uzbek 71%; Russian 8%.
Religion: Sunni Muslim; some Eastern Orthodox.
Life expectancy: males 66; females 73.
Economy
Industries: natural gas, oil, machinery food processing
Gross domestic product: $54.7 billion (1995)
Exports: $3.1 billion (1995); partners: Russia 53%, Kazakhstan 16%
Imports: $2.9 billion; partners: Russia 59%, Kazakhstan 17%
Living standard
Income per person: $2,370, adjusted for purchasing power
One passenger car per 28 people
One TV set per 5.3 people
One telephone per 13 people
One physician per 284 people