In addition to the hujum (the Soviet effort to remove the veil from women in Central Asia), this book also discusses byt crimes dealing with polygamy, marriage, divorce, the bride price, etc. It has some discussion of jadids (new Islam) and qadimists (old school Islam) and also tangentially discusses Islamic law. Sections: Embodying Uzbekistan; Hujum, 1927, Bolshevik Blinders; The Chust Affair; Subaltern Voices; With Friends Like These; Crimes of Daily Life; The Limits of Law; Stalin's Central Asia; Conclusion
Comments: 2/4/10
The following paragraph on page 17 is an interesting description of the complex nature of Central Asian identity, which includes Islam as a component:
Indigenous identities were complex, multifaceted, and changeable, and they corresponded poorly to these new political borders. Such stark national distinctions, for example, meant little in places such as multilingual, multicultural Samarqand-the first capital city of the new Uzbek SSR-where most people wasted little time considering whether to call themselves Uzbek, Tajik, or something else. Most Central Asians did claim an identity as Muslim, but that common label masked a vast variety of local customs and religious practices. Simple national and religious labels, in short, do not capture the multiple, layered, context-dependent nature of Central Asian identities. Personal self-conceptions here are better seen as a matrix, its components produced by an ongoing interplay of social institutions, religious practices, economic relationships, political structures, regional, clan, and local customs, generational and gender hierarchies, and occupational categories, as well as urban/rural differences and the deep historical divide between settled and nomadic groups. The matter of which identity was most salient in a particular situation (man? Muslim? Uzbek? Sart? farmer? father? from Tashkent? Surqosh?) depended on the precise issues under consideration and the individual in question, and frequently was impossible to pinpoint.Because the matter of identity is so complex, outside observers should be careful when placing labels, including labels regarding Islamic identities.
Descriptors: 2000s, archival, book, history, hujum, Islamic law, N, Soviet, Uzbekistan, women; jadids, qadimists, byt
