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Uzbek and US Islamic Leaders Share Perspectives through Public Roundtable

September 29, 2003

Ten visiting Islamic leaders from Uzbekistan joined American Muslim scholars and leaders in Washington, DC, on September 29 in a dynamic exchange of views that was facilitated by IREX president Mark Pomar. Entitled “Islam in the Family, Education, and Interfaith Communication: Perspectives from the US and Uzbekistan,” the public roundtable presentation came as the culmination of three weeks of travel and internship in several US cities through the Community Connections program, which gives special focus this year to the topic of Islam in a religiously diverse United States.

Opening the roundtable, Jakhongir Sharifiy, program coordinator of the Sadokat Youth Center in Namangan, Uzbekistan, explained that neighborhood organizations have existed for centuries in Uzbekistan and play a large role in education and mentoring of youth. Beginning in the family through the passing of traditions and ceremonies, religious education is also obtained from local mosques, and according to the legislature, any youth can obtain a religious education.

By contrast, Susan L. Douglass, a scholar and writer for the Council on Islamic Education, noted that in the United States, the constitution does not allow the teaching of religion itself in public schools but permits teaching about religion as a means of learning about our deepest beliefs. “It is important to share this,” said Douglass, who assists public schools in teaching about Islam, “because it teaches how a diverse country deals with its deepest differences in a public arena.” Douglass also praised the work of organizations representing several religions in establishing guidelines for textbook publishers and schools that require that teaching about religion be performed with balance and fairness and that religions be explained from the perspective of the people who share a faith. American Muslims often use weekend schools for religious education; in the United States, Douglass observed, Muslims generally do not have the types of institutions found in Uzbekistan, such as state-supported religious education and community centers, but instead must create their own institutions within a diverse community.

Speaking on interfaith relations, Sobirjon Normatov, Imam-Hatib of the Umm al-Koro Mosque in Ferghana City, Uzbekistan, and a member of Uzbekistan’s Committee for Religious Affairs, recited verses from the Koran in support of the tolerance mandated in Islam. Normatov stated that approximately 10 to 12 percent of the Uzbek population is non-Muslim; of 2,047 religious organizations in the country, over 180 are non-Islamic, and the large cities in Uzbekistan have Jewish and Christian communities, among others.

Likewise, Imam Yahya Hendi of the Islamic Society of Frederick, Maryland, who also serves as Muslim chaplain at Georgetown University and the National Naval Medical Center, noted that the Koran calls for Muslims to show Christians and Jews birr, the highest form of kindness, and that the prophet Mohammed avowed that he who hurts a Jew or Christian hurts the prophet himself as well. Hendi highlighted practical works that Muslim organizations have used to bring people of different faiths together, including sending Jews and Muslims to serve together at soup kitchens and the construction of a house through Habitat for Humanity with one-third of the financing and volunteer labor coming from each of the Muslim, Jewish, and Christian communities. Imam Hendi closed the roundtable with the challenge, directed to all present, that when a church or mosque or temple of a minority religion is attacked in any nation, the religious community of the majority should be first to rise to its defense.

In addition to the roundtable, the Uzbek visitors also participated in a private discussion with local Muslim leaders, who spoke of the activities of Muslim organizations in the United States and observed that the leader of the largest US Islamic society is a woman, reflecting the active participation of women in Islam in the United States. Local leaders also described community outreach activities, such as an Islamic center’s annual dinner for local firefighters and police and the establishment of regular Friday jum’ah prayers in the US Congress, and shared details of both the sporadic acts of vandalism and far stronger interfaith support in the wake of September 11.

On September 30, the visitors departed for Uzbekistan, taking with them the perspectives of American Muslim and non-Muslim counterparts along with newfound knowledge of methods of grassroots networking and weekend religious education that they will implement in their hometowns.

Community Connections is a program of the US Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA).

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