War of the beards

摘要

IF THE mosques are overflowing in your poor, remote outpost of the former Soviet Union, with men growing beards and women donning headscarves, how should you, a secular autocrat, deal with concerns that your people are picking up radical ideas from across the long, porous border with Afghanistan? Not, presumably as President Emomali Rakhmon is doing, by driving believers underground. Late last year Mr Rakhmon's government stepped up a campaign to close unregistered mosques, while making it almost impossible for new mosques to register, even though government officials write the sermons. Then he ordered thousands of students of Islam abroad to return home, without offering them an alternative once they arrived. This spring police took to harassing bearded men on the streets. A professional footballer was told to shave or get off the team.