Although Tajikistan is a participating state of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and has acceded to the United Nations International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), religious associations are under increasingly scrutiny limiting the freedom of conscience. Tajikistan's government follows a similar policy as her Central Asian neighbors Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. While a restrictive and contradictory religious association law limits the public space for religious associations, the government successively strengthens 'official' Islamic institutions and therefore directly interferes in internal religious affairs. Considering the diversity of Islamic beliefs in and practices in Central Asia and Tajikistan in particular, this policy could generate further friction among religious communities.

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Research on contemporary Islam in Tajikistan and Central Asia frequently refers to the categories of 'official' and 'parallel' to describe, explain and frame regional 'Islam' and Muslim communities. Additionally, the relevant academic discourse is enriched by notions of an 'everyday' opposed to a 'scriptural' Islam. Despite these research paradigms, surprisingly little consistent research has been conducted on the representatives of these alleged spheres of, respectively, 'official' and 'parallel' Islam: their theological, social or political agenda, relations with the state, interactions and networks. Based on an analysis and contextualization of a recent publication of one of Tajikistan's leading religious authorities, Hoji Akbar Turajonzoda, this paper questions the heuristic capability of the prevalent research categories.

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The recent transformation of Tajikistan’s political system has significantly altered the social and political context in which the country’s lay Muslims and religious elites negotiate Islam and Islamic normativity. The quasi-governmental Islamic Center (Markazi Islomi) has taken on a more dominant role, becoming the sole official (state-approved) Islamic institution in Tajikistan defining Islamic normativity. In this work, we explore the rationale behind the Tajik state’s pursuit of this political trajectory, conduct a detailed examination of the religious edicts ( fatwas) issued by the Islamic Center, and identify its conservative trends. Our research suggests that the Islamic Center offers the Tajik government a way to achieve its much-desired monopoly over the religious field. Furthermore, we argue that the Islamic Center’s conservative interpretation of Islam, with its emphasis on political conformity, social patriarchy, and limited mystical experience, is far more “legible” and administratively manageable for the authoritarian regime than the previous religious pluralism.