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http://revista.ieee.es/index.php/ieee 322 Journal of the Spanish Institute for Strategic Studies Núm. 9 / 2017 With the disappearance of the communist regime, these Islamic historical sites became not just places of religious pilgrimage but also tourist attractions, prompting the new states to invest large sums of money into their restoration8. The new Central Asian regimes tried to keep Islam under government control just as had been done by the Tsarist Empire – Catherine the Great set up the Orenburg Muslim Spiritual Assembly in 1788 – and by its Soviet successors – who founded the Spiritual Administration of the Muslims of Central Asia and Kazakhstan9. In 1990, with Gorbachev’s glasnost, the USSR started to ease up its hold and each republic became responsible for its own religious affairs, with each country creating an Assembly similar to its Tsarist predecessor. Shortly after, pilgrimages to Mecca began to return to normal and religious training institutions – madrasas, institutes, universities – were created to instruct new imams in traditional Islam. This was an attempt to avoid a repetition of the situation during the Soviet era whereby young men wanting to study the Koran ended up in the more radical madrasas of Pakistan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia10. During the 1990s, Islamists took advantage of the limited room for manoeuvre that the governments allowed the opposition and created groups that served to channel the discontent felt by the people, such as Adolat (Justice), Tauba (Repentance), Baraka (Blessings), Islam Lashkarlari (Warriors of Islam), Hizb ut Tahrir al Islami (Islamic Party of Liberation) and Akramiya (Followers of Akram Yuldoshev)11. The Islamisation 8  There are now ziyarats managed by the government such as Kaffal Sasji in Tashkent; Khoja Bahauddin and Abdul Khaliq Ghijduvani in Bukhara; Shoh-i Zinda, Iman Al Bukhari and Khoja Ahrar Vali in Samarkand; Hakim al-Tirmizi and Palvan-Ata in Khwarezm; Sultan-Baba in Karakalpakstan; or Mawlana Ya‘qub Charkhi in Tajikistan. See ABDULLAEV, Evgeniy. “Central Asian Integration and Islamic Revivalism”, in TABATA, Shinichiro and IWASHITA, Akihiro (Ed.). Ten Years after the Collapse of the USSR, Hokaido: Slavic Research Center, 2002. See also KHALID, Adeeb. Islam after Communism: Religion and Politics in Central Asia, Berkeley/Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2007. See also KALANOV, Komil and ALONSO MARCOS, Antonio. “Sacred places and “Folk” Islam in Central Asia”, UNISCI Discussion Papers, nº 17, May 2008. See also KEMPER, M. and BUSTANOV, S. S.: “Administrative Islam: Two Soviet Fatwas from the North Caucasus”, in ALFRID, K. y KEMPER, M. (Eds.). Islamic Authority and the Russian Language, Amsterdam: Pegasus Oost-Europese Studies, 2012, pp. 91-92. 9  Stalin set up this body in an attempt to ingratiate himself with the Muslims of Central Asia and thus persuade them to participate more actively in the Second World War. Officially, it was constituted upon the request of several Uzbek ulema. 10  See “Is Radical Islam Inevitable in Central Asia? Priorities for Engagement”, ICG Asia Report, nº 72, 22 December 2003, pp. 5,7 and particularly 9. 11  BABADJANOV, Bakhtiyar. “Akramia: A Brief Summary”, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2 May 2006, under http://carnegieendowment.org/2006/05/02/akramia/5wz, consulted 27 April 2015. See also BARAN, Zeyno (Ed.). The Challenge of Hizb-ut-Tahrir: Deciphering and Combating Radical Islamist Ideology, Washington: The Nixon Center, 2004. Finally, see BARAN, Z. “Central Asia”, in RUBIN, B. M. (Ed.) Guide to Islamist Movements (Vol. 2), New York: M.E. Sharpe, 2010, p. 166.

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