Embodying Moral Superiority

Abstract

This article describes an Uzbek culture of politeness that is being actively promoted in Uzbek society and through which the state can claim a moral superiority in the region and dissociate itself from the Soviet past. As an added advantage, the preservation of this cultural tradition fosters a social order in which submission to authority is an essential moral value. Contemporary role models are created by raising awareness of the lives of individuals of exceptional integrity from the past. The article is focused on one aspect of this cultural tradition: the relationship between ustoz (master) and shogird (apprentice), which has considerable influence on the structure of the professional branches as well as the work processes within them and is of special relevance in the state service.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

My sincere thanks for their constructive comments on a previous draft of this text go to Jeanine Dağyeli, Paul Goode, Alexandra Yatsyk, Melanie Krebs, and two anonymous reviewers.

Notes

^1. Odob may be translated as courteousness, propriety, tact, or more generally as civility, culturedness, modesty, and learnedness.

^2. Adams (2010, 12) likewise points out that national identity constitutes its subjects.

^3. Conversation with Diyor on 21 April 2010.

4. As Uzbekistan maintains economic relations with a number of other Asian countries, it cannot be considered entirely isolated.

5. One of my main informants in the field kept on comparing the ustoz–shogird bond with the relationship between samurai master and apprentice. One of the qualities apprentices are expected to cultivate in both cases is self-control.

6. More about Amir Temur and his dynasty further below.

7. The author uses the term ustod only in the title and a few times in the first and second part of the book but otherwise resorts to the more common equivalent ustoz.

8. Keller (2007, 257) describes school as the main place for instilling a sense of an Uzbek national identity.

9. In my own observation, it was not uncommon to find books belonging to this genre in people’s private libraries.

10. See, for instance, Maxpirat; Beruniy 1995, Qoshg’ariy 2002. More specialized publications focus on the odob of a good father, wife or daughter.

11. See, among others, Roy 2000, Everett-Heath 2003, Jones Luong 2004, Ilkhamov 2002 and Kandiyoti 2002.

12. This does not mean that they were not readily embraced by local intellectuals. See Khalid (1998) for the politics of Jadidism.

13. This attitude is less pronounced in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, where many people view the Soviet past in more positive terms.

14. One does well to read the Uzbek narrative also as a reaction to Western arrogance and chauvinism. Attitudes of Russian superiority vis-à-vis the inhabitants of Central Asia and the Caucasus are discussed by Iğmen (2012) and Grant (2009).

15. Krebs (2015), in an article about the Uzbek textile industry, describes the counter-intuitive case of Western development organizations that reintroduced natural dyes to Uzbekistan, as they help to achieve better sales on the tourist market. In this instance, the initiative for a process of re-traditionalization came from the West and was inspired by an orientalist image of the country and its culture.

16. See Massicard and Trevisani (2003) for more information on the Uzbek mahalla.

17. It is conceivable that ethnic Uzbeks in Kyrgyzstan adopted the neighboring state’s propaganda. Uzbek TV programs, which the author indicates are popular in Osh, are a source of nationalist messages. As with all other symbols of national culture, mahalla life may also have been held in high regard in the population for a long time before the state embraced this attitude.

18. For the continuous rewriting of history by replacing statues in the center of Tashkent, see Kudaibergenova (2016, 7). I personally witnessed another instance of mythmaking when attending a book presentation in 2008 at which a member of parliament, Akmal Saidov, mentioned a community of foreign scholars committed to what he labeled “Amir Temurology.”

19. The way that state and society negotiate the religious situation in Uzbekistan is further described by Zanca (2005) and Schmoller (2016).

20. More information on the meaning of the terms ustoz and shogird is found in encyclopaedias and dictionaries. From early Islamic times onwards, somebody who is “eminent and skillful in his profession” is called ustadh or ustad (according to Brill’s Encyclopedia of Islam, 2d ed., vol. 10). Persian speakers originally used the term for learned men and teachers as an honorific. It kept that meaning in later periods, when it was used as the opposite of shagird (pupil/novice), but department heads in the administration would also be termed as such. In Timurid times, the term mainly came to be applied to the heads of guilds and other professional groups. In modern Uzbek (according to O’zbek Tilining Izohli Lug’ati [Explanatory Dictionary of the Uzbek Language]), an ustoz can denote the instructor in a profession or craft or the instructor of knowledge—in other words, a teacher. The second meaning is that of a guide (yo’l-yo’riq ko’rsatuvchi/rahnamo), educator (tarbiyalovchi), and tutor (murrabiy). On the other hand, a shogird (according to the same dictionary) is a person who is learning or did learn a craft, a profession, or who has acquired knowledge under some master, specialist, or scholar. The term can also stand for somebody who contributes to somebody else’s work or teachings or who carries these on, possibly as a disciple or devotee.

21. Goode (2012, 15) confines his argument to intra-regime and regime–opposition dynamics, but the model still seems applicable when book authors, who are members of an educated elite and thus stand apart from the masses, contribute with their work to the process of nation-building.

22. See Adams (2010, 15) for the co-optation of the nationalist agendas of intellectuals by the Central Asian states.

23. In order not to cause confusion, I have adopted the same spellings of names as used by the author.

24. It remains unclear why the author does not explicitly identify the sources he is using, but it may be that he intended to circumvent existing copyrights.

25. His full name is Abul Hasan Ali ibn Abu Bakr ibn Abdul Jalil al-Farg’oniy ar-Rishtoniy al-Marg’inoniy.

26. Burhonuddin is the Uzbek transcription of the Arabic Burhan al-Din.

27. The full title of the book is al-Hidāyah fī sharḥ Bidāyat al-mubtadī, although the title can slightly differ from edition to edition.

28. Complete submission to the authority of the master was usually expected of followers of Sufism as well.

29. As becomes apparent from Mana Kia’s (2014, 302) text about a prominent Mughal scholar and poet, adab in mid-eighteenth century Delhi was interpreted as loyalty to the sovereign and being sincere in one’s attachment and devotion.

30. Again, this indicates the relationship between master and disciple within Sufi orders.

31. Historically, adab texts have been sources of emulation in regard to both proper conduct and language composition (Kia 2014, 284).

32. Schubel (1999, 82) mentions that the readers of Uzbek literature on Sufism are also expected to imitate the devotion of the disciple for the Sufi master.

33. The publishing house is also owned by the State Press Committee of the Republic of Uzbekistan, which is responsible for regulating the country’s media domain.

34. See Stronski (2010, 46–71) for the Soviet civilizing mission in Uzbekistan and the effort of turning Tashkent into a “cultured” city.

35. Informants told me that the ustoz is on the same level as one’s father (otangday ulug’), but now and then the bond can be even more intimate (otadan ham yaqinroq).

36. Conversation with Sardor on 12 December 2008.

37. In Central Asia, the bond between ustoz and shogird is best known from the handicraft sphere and in particular the brotherhoods of mystical Islam, and appears to have found its way into the public service when religious personnel were recruited by the Russian imperial administration (Pashkun 2003). Historian Nile Green (2012, 2) regards the master–disciple relationship as the keystone of Sufi practice.

38. Conversation with Ravshan on April 13, 2009.

39. Conversation with Sardor on December 12, 2008.

40. Interview with O’ktam on November 24, 2008.

41. Lewis (2011) thinks that Soviet rule in Central Asia is responsible for the widespread existence of informal structures and networks, but he overestimates the relevance of party personnel and newly established political structures while neglecting the role of informal relations in the history of Muslim cultures. For more information on the latter point, see Zubaida (2009).

42. Conversation with Shoqosim on May 6, 2010.

43. Conversation with Ravshan on April 13, 2009.

44. I am informed that while many people try to become shogird but fail the test (sinovdan o’ta olmaydi), the right candidate will be able to prove his qualities (o’zi yaxshiligidan dalolat beradi).

45. Conversation with Shoqosim on December 16, 2008.

46. I am still painting a rather normative picture here that, in order to keep the text in a compact form, ignores resistance and subversion. In the course of my research, I came upon sufficient evidence for the many complications inherent in the relationship between master and apprentice.

47. It remains to be seen how much the system with its accompanying ideology might change under the new president of Uzbekistan, Shavkat Mirziyoyev. Adams (2010) argues for the resilience of those Uzbek cultural forms that took shape in the Soviet period and Keller (2007, 275) does the same for Uzbek history writing in form and even content. Reacting to the death of the Uzbek president, Khalid (2016) wonders if the “Age of Karimov” will endure in a different guise, while Zanca (2016) speculates that the system of “Karimovism” is going to be around for some time to come.