DUSHANBE, May 5, 2009, Asia-Plus — Brochure entitled “Political Islam in Tajikistan” by Iskandar Asadulloyev has been brought out in Dushanbe.
In his brochure, Dr. Asadulloyev considers “passionarity” (the concept introduced by known Russian historian Lev Gumilyov (1912-1992) of different regions and different political forces in Tajikistan’s events.
Speaking in an interview with Asia-Plus, Asadulloyev said that his “passionarity” differed from Gumilyov’s passionarity theory. “In my opinion, the purpose of human being is more important than life – one’s or another’s,” he said.
We will recall that to describe his ideas on the genesis and evolution of ethnoses, Gumilyov introduced the concept of “passionarity”, which may be explained as the level of vital energy and power characteristic of any given ethnic group. Gumilyov argued that they pass through stages of rise, development, climax, inertial, convolution, and memorial. It is during the “acmatic” (acme – Greek: the peak, zenith, prime — denotes the best of something) phases, when the national passionarity reaches its maximum heat, that the great conquests are made. The current state of Europe he described as deep inertia, or “introduction to obscuration”, to use his own term. The passionarity of the Arabic world, on the other hand, is still high.
In his book, the author also considers issues related to confrontation between intellectual and radical Islam. “Religion is holy and invariable; however understanding of it by people is different – it may meet reason and heart but the understanding of religion may also be fascist, terrorist,” said Asadulloyev, “Some people consider the last steps taken by the Tajik president in the field of religion, in particular announcement of this year the Year of Imam Azam, as the end of secular state in Tajikistan but it is nonsense. The president is not reforming religion, he just want people to understand religion in the spirit of reason, morality and peace.”
