Saudi Arabia may have been getting more than it
bargained for when authorities in Khujand, Tajikistan’s second largest city,
ordered that the city’s largest and most
popular mosque be converted into a cinema.
The order followed the closure of some 2,000 mosques
in the country in the last three years and the arrest last month of scores of Muslim
clerics and teachers, many of whom
were accused of being members of the Muslim Brotherhood, a group that is banned
in both Tajikistan and the kingdom.
Fewer men sport beards in Tajikistan after being
harassed by police, while women in hijabs are far and few between after many
were detained and intimidated.
Imams deliver sermons praising President Emomali
Rahmon that are approved by authorities, reinforcing his effort to cloak
himself in Islamic legitimacy despite the crackdown.
Larger mosques are equipped with surveillance cameras
to ensure prayer leaders stick to their texts.
The arrests no doubt will have pleased Saudi leaders
who stepped in to help Tajikistan financially in 2015 as the country’s
relationship with Iran soured over Iranian demands that Tajikistan pay down
its huge debt, allegations that a
businessman charged with fraud in the Islamic republic had deposited large sums of money in
the National Bank of Tajikistan, and
a meeting between Iranian spiritual leader
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and a Tajik opposition leader.
As relations with Saudi Arabia improved and Saudi
Arabia pledged to pump money into infrastructure projects like the Rogun
hydroelectric power plant and a highway in eastern Tajikistan as well as
education, Tajikistan accused Iran of involvement in the murder of Tajik social
and political figures as well as 20 Russian military officers during the 1990s
Tajik civil war, which Iran helped bring to an end.
Tajik authorities also closed down an Iranian trade
and cultural center in Khujand and helped block Iran’s application to
become a member of the China-led Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). Iran is an observer at the SCO.
Developments in Tajikistan, however, no longer look
all that good from a Saudi perspective and bode ill for the kingdom elsewhere
in Central Asia. In fact, the more than four years of strained relations
between Tajikistan and Iran have made way for quickly warming ties.
Driving the patching up of differences is the fact
that landlocked Tajikistan, like its neighbour, Uzbekistan, needs access to
ports and Iranian ports, including the Indian-backed one in Chabahar at the top
of the Arabian Sea, offer the cheapest and shortest transportation options.
Iran’s attractiveness to Central Asian nations
increases the Islamic republic’s importance to the Belt and Road, China’s
infrastructure, transportation and energy-driven initiative to connect the
Eurasian landmass to Beijing.
There is an element of irony in the Saudi-backed
crackdown on mosques and clerics in Tajikistan. That was long the preserve of
Uzbek president Islam Karimov, whose state security services tightly controlled religion under the guise of
combating Islamic extremism, until his death in 2016.
Mr. Karimov’s successor, Shavkat Mirziyoev, has
promised to reverse his predecessor’s repressive policies and put his
government “at the service” of the Uzbek people.
Mr. Mirziyoev’s reforms included emasculating the security service’s
Religious Committee, by ending its
oversight of all religious education, publications, and gatherings, and sacking
its supervisor, Aydarbek Tulepov, without replacing him.
Mr. Mirziyoev has also created an academy of higher
Islamic learning that is operated by the state-run Spiritual Directorate of
Muslims of Uzbekistan.
Meanwhile, delegations of Saudi businessmen
visited Uzbekistan twice last year to explore
investment opportunities.
Saudi Arabia’s textiles-focussed Ajlan & Bros
Holding Group plans to invest over the next five years up to
US$2 billion in an Uzbek cotton-textile cluster.
Already a vital node for Uzbek exports and imports,
Iran is nonetheless written all over Mr. Mirziyoev’s transportation
infrastructure plans. A decree issued in late 2017 identified as key to the plans the Uzbekistan-Turkmenistan-Iran-Oman.
China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan, and three Trans-Afghan corridors.
The three Afghan corridors take a rail line connecting
Uzbekistan’s Termez to Afghanistan’s Mazar-i-Sharif as their starting point.
Uzbek plans envision the rail line being
extended to the Afghan city of Herat from where it would branch out to Iran’s
Bandar Abbas port, Chabahar; and Bazargan on the Iranian-Turkish border.
The Central Asian focus on Iranian ports, despite
harsh US sanction, takes on added significance with the Chinese-backed
Pakistani port of Gwadar, a mere 70 kilometres down the coast from Chabahar, a
Belt and Road crown jewel at the core of the China Pakistan Economic Corridor
(CPEC), running into problems.
China Ocean Shipping Company (COSCO) recently terminated its container liner
services between Karachi and Gwadar because
of a lack of cargo destined for transit to Afghanistan.
Zhang Baozhong, chairman of China Overseas Port
Holding Company (COPHC), insisted that transit trade was key to Gwadar’s
success.
Port authorities said last month that two 20-foot containers containing 54
tonnes of bagged fertilizers had been shipped to Gwadar from Karachi for onward
transport to Afghanistan in what
amounted to an effort to kickstart transit trade.
