DUSHANBE, June 9, 2013, Asia-Plus – Tajik President Emomali Rahmon intends to hold a meeting with the clerics of the country.

An official source at the Islamic Center of Tajikistan says, “Emomali Rahmon is expected to meet the clerics on the eve of the holy month of Ramadan.”

Imam-khatibs, members of the Shuroi Ulemo (A council that issues fatwas and religious guidance to Islamic religious organizations), senior representatives from the Committee on Religious Affairs (CRA) as well as teachers and students from the Tajik Islamic Institute are expected to attend the meeting.  

Ramadan is the ninth month of the Islamic calendar, during which Muslims fast or do not eat or drink during the daytime.  This year, the holy month of Ramadan will be gin on or around July 9 and will finish on or around August 7.

We will recall that in August 2010, Tajik President Emomali Rahmon expressed concern that foreign religious schools were indoctrinating Tajik students with radical Islamist ideology. He urged parents of students studying at foreign madrasahs and universities to bring them home.

A conference entitled “National Mentality and Secular State: Problems of Culture and Religious Education” took place in Dushanbe on May 23.  Organized by the Center for Strategic Studies under the President of Tajikistan, the conference, in particular, discussed issues related to young Tajiks studying at religious schools abroad.  Speaking at that conference, Emom Melikov, a spokesman for the State Committee for National Security (SCNS), noted the Tajik authorities have managed in recent years to bring back some 2,000 Tajik youths from Islamic schools abroad.  Today, some 1,000 Tajik youths are continuing to study at unofficial religious schools abroad, Melikov said.  He also said three Tajik fighting on the side of Islamist rebels in Syria were killed recently.  According to him, eleven Tajik youths have been killed in Afghanistan and Pakistan in recent years.