Counter-extremism, secularism and the category of religion in the United Kingdom and Uzbekistan: should we be studying Islam at all?

This article compares the UK Government’s counter-radicalisation policies as expressed in its Prevent Strategy with the Uzbekistan Government’s discourses on Islamic extremism. Some striking parallels are drawn, in particular that both governments present ‘good’ and ‘bad’ versions of Islam and promote their own state sanctioned official Islam, that they understand religion in terms of ideology, and that extremism is defined in an opposition to an ideal of national values. Rather than comparing the extent of state control of religious expression, the article uses the parallels between the two state contexts to interrogate the analytical value of the category of religion itself. Following Talal Asad’s critique, it argues that outside of particular discursive projects religion has no objective or universal purchase. Scholars should be wary of using ‘religious’ or ‘Islamic’ as descriptors, for example when making distinctions between ‘religious’, ‘political’ or ‘cultural’ factors or motivations, or even of framing our studies as studies of Islam.