DUSHANBE, February 26, 2016, Asia-Plus — In authorities’ ongoing efforts to restrict private expressions of religious devotion in Tajikistan, the focus is turning toward small, unregulated places of prayer, according to
EurasianNet.org
.
Over the past year, authorities have been systematically demolishing prayer rooms, or handing them over to local entrepreneurs for conversion into shops or hairdressing salons. The decline of what are known in Tajik as Joi Jamiyati — literally “public places” — has been assured by a combination of secular and religious edicts.
In 2012, a fatwa proclaimed by the government-affiliated Council of Ulema decreed that only imams could lead congregations in prayer. That rule in effect cast a shadow of suspicion over unsanctioned religious activities performed away from the gaze of state officials. In government rhetoric, any manifestation of unsanctioned religious expression is tantamount to radicalism and is therefore potentially liable to become subject to prosecution under extremism legislation.
In explaining their aversion to the prayer rooms, government representatives also cite social factors.
Usmon Soleh, press secretary for the ruling People’s Democratic Party of Tajikistan, told
EurasiaNet.org
that getting rid of the Joi Jamiyati will ultimately yield a cohesive effect. “The population is becoming segregated into local pockets. If we reduce the number [of Joi Jamiyati], people will start going to other mosques, get to know one another, and they won’t be segregated into their districts, streets and mahallahs (neighborhoods),” Soleh said.
Soleh also cited a law restricting the number of mosques that can operate as a legal basis for removing alternative places of prayer. That Law on Religion, adopted in 2009, established that Friday mosques could only operate in the capital, Dushanbe, in areas with a population between 30,000 and 50,000. Five-times-daily mosques are only allowed in areas with 1,000 to 5,000 people. The limit is lower elsewhere in the country — Friday mosques can only exist in areas with populations between 10,000 and 20,000, and regular mosques in areas with at least 100 to 1,000 people.
Another argument advanced by Soleh was that the transformation of former prayer sites into small business would help create much-needed jobs.
The restrictions on where people can pray fits into a broad pattern of limitations for pious Muslims. Some rules are informal, like the ban on young men wearing beards and women wearing veils covering their face. Other prohibitions are official, such the rule denying people under 18 the right to attend Friday prayers at mosques.
Raids on mosques and prayer houses suspected of lacking proper paperwork have been taking place since 2009, but have intensified in the last year amid increasing anxiety about the presumed threat from radical Islamists.
At a January 25 press conference, Interior Minister Ramazon Rahimzoda pointed out that Tajikistan has the largest number of mosques in Central Asia and that the region’s largest mosque is being built in Dushanbe. Funds for the project are being provided by the government of Qatar.
Rahimzoda has said, however, that some 900 out of an estimated 1,500 irregular prayer rooms and mosques have ceased to exist.
According to the Committee on Religious Affairs (CRA), 4,010 religious associations are registered in Tajikistan, and that there are 3,930 mosques.
