Is Islam a Religion of Peace? Lessons from Uzbekistan

Western Europe has been engaged in a raging debate about mass immigration for at least a decade. If upon reading this statement you accepted it without objection, you have, like most people, swallowed what is at best a polite fiction and at worst a deliberate misframing of the problem. The claim that the debate is about “mass immigration” is fraudulent on at least two levels.

First, while we argue about stopping illegal immigration and keeping legal immigration manageable, the reality is that the concerns most people have are not about the future, or even the present. They are about the past. Dig even slightly under the surface of anti-immigration sentiment and you will discover that the core concern for many is not what might happen, but what has already happened. In other words: the debate is not about mass immigration but about the impact of the immigration that occurred not only in recent years but sometimes in decades past.

Second, the great unsayable in polite society is that not all immigrants are the same. Britain, for example, experienced a wave of Polish and Romanian immigration in the 2000s. Since 2022, millions of Ukrainians fleeing Putin’s invasion have been given refuge across the continent. Hundreds of thousands of Hong Kongers have escaped the Chinese Communist Party’s crackdown by coming here too.

Scour as you might, you will struggle to find any anti-Polish sentiment beyond the very fringes of our societies. There is no need for a debate about preventing societal discrimination against Ukrainians because no such discrimination exists. Hong Kongers appear to be doing just fine.

The rise of anti-immigration parties across Europe is not a response to mass immigration per se. It’s a response to the importation of large numbers of people from what even the bravest of our politicians euphemistically call “incompatible cultures”. To them, the problem is not immigration, it is Islam.

There are three broad schools of thought on this issue.

The progressive response is the head-in-the-sand mantra of “diversity is our greatest strength”. This slogan, mindlessly repeated, is a proxy for a whole host of dishonesties.

First, and for as long as possible, they will pretend that there is no problem. When Islamist terrorism is discussed, they will immediately try to “contextualise” the debate by talking about far-right violence and other threats. Their concerns are not incorrect in that the far-right does have a violent fringe, and our police and security services must remain vigilant in dealing with it. But the fact remains: 75% of MI5’s caseload involves Islamist terrorism, with over 90% of the 43,000 people on MI5’s terror watchlist being Islamist extremists. To understand this in its actual context consider that only 6% of people in Britain are Muslim. In other words, Islamist extremism is not only a huge problem, it is a disproportionately huge problem.

Second, once people who hold this view are forced to confront some measure of reality and accept the problem exists, they will pivot to blaming causes like poverty, discrimination, alienation and so on. They will ignore the fact that other groups in our society suffer from these problems and do not engage in terrorism, mass rape gangs or sectarian violence.

Third, they will immediately accuse anyone who attempts to look for solutions of being “racist”, “Islamophobic” and so on.

This package of lies, combined with the reality of the problem itself, has given rise to the second–and, in some ways, equal and opposite—school of thought. According to this perspective the problem is not Islamism, it is Islam itself.

Naturally, this group is diverse and not easily quantified. Some are ex-Muslims or those who have dealt with the reality of Islamist extremism and violence, like Gad Saad who says “There is no radical Islam, there is simply Islam”. This is, incidentally, also the view of Islamists themselves: they claim that there is only one way to be a Muslim, which is to seek to impose Islamic values on the whole world, introduce sharia, and subjugate non-believers and those of other faiths. If you think I am exaggerating their intentions, you probably haven’t read enough Islamist literature such as this or this.

To this camp, the fact that most Muslims are decent, peaceful people is irrelevant because they are so in spite of the teachings of their religion. Furthermore, many will argue that some “moderate” Muslims are moderate only in that they are unwilling to engage in acts of extremism, yet support or excuse those who do. As evidence, they will cite worrying surveys such as this one suggesting that British Muslims are more likely to view Hamas positively than negatively.

It goes without saying that hiding among honest critics of the doctrines of Islam are garden-variety bigots who simply hate Muslims for being different, foreign and so on. But this does not mean that believing the doctrines of Islam are liable to produce violence and oppression makes you a bigot, despite what those in the first camp would like to believe.

The problem I have always had with this argument, though, is that there are many countries around the world which are majority-Muslim—and some with large Muslim minorities, like Singapore—which appear to have dealt with Islamist extremism far better than we have in Western Europe. I saw this myself in Uzbekistan, where I lived between 1986 and 1990, and again when I returned here last week.

This is why, while remaining open-minded to different perspectives and claiming no expertise, I lean towards the third camp: people who believe that religious extremism is a problem which has a tried and tested solution.

My latest trip to Uzbekistan is a case in point. Islam is everywhere. The most prominent contemporary and historical buildings here are mosques and madrassas. It is not uncommon to be awakened in your hotel at 5AM by the Islamic call to prayer. Many men wear skullcaps called tubeteikas, while women dress modestly; some sport headscarves and traditional outfits which cover the full length of their arms and legs. Popular boys’ names here include Muhammad, Mustafa, Ali, Muslim, Abdullah and Ibrahim. The country’s first President after the fall of the Soviet Union was called Islam Karimov.

But not-Islam is everywhere too. Alcohol is sold in shops and many restaurants, not just for foreigners but for anyone who wants to buy it. Many (and I would say most) girls and women wear jeans, trousers, knee-length skirts, and other secular clothing, especially in the cities. “I saw a woman in one of those black bags,” one woman tells us in a disapproving tone. “You could see her face but that was it - this is not our way!” Traditional Uzbek women’s attire is a kaleidoscope of colours and does not cover a woman’s hair.

“What about them?” I ask, pointing at a gaggle of young women in hijabs. “That’s not ours either! They brought that crap here from Turkey,” she says with a dismissive wave of the hand. The only place you’ll find veils in Uzbekistan is in museums: burqas are banned in public places.

Don’t get me wrong: this isn’t Venice Beach. You won’t see crop tops, bikinis and vulva-hugging leggings here but neither will you see those in Armenia, a Christian country not far from here where I spend a lot of time. It’s a traditional society thing, not a Muslim thing. Tourists wearing summer dresses, shorts, skirts and other less conservative attire are safe and treated with respect.

The few churches and synagogues you’ll find in Uzbekistan are protected and well-maintained. Most Christians and Jews have left for America, Europe or Israel but not because of persecution or oppression. When the USSR collapsed, opportunities for the well-educated dried up and they left in search of a better life as many did from non-Muslim Soviet countries. “I am an Armenian,” our driver tells us. “I’ve lived here since 1994 - we have no ethnic issues here. At Easter my Muslim friends come to my house to celebrate with me. For their holidays, I go ‘round to theirs”.

At every opportunity, I broach the subject of extremism with what turns out to be unnecessary sensitivity. There is no serious problem with radical Islam here because the people in charge understand the threat and are prepared to deal with it: