This insightful book will be of great interest to scholars, government officials, and those concerned with understanding the complex world of Central Asia. Highly recommended.

S.A. Kochanek, Pennsylvania State University, Choice Reviews

Illuminates, for the first time, the varied complexities of largely clandestine movements shaped by contradictory and often opaque currents. The author's mastery of this unusual body of sources on a topic central to contemporary international politics sets it apart from other works of this kind.

Robert Crews, Stanford University

A 'must-read' for anyone who is interested in political Islam, its origins and role in modern Central Asia, and the linkages between Central Asia and the broader Muslim world. This essential book offers a long-overdue introduction to the extensive, highly original, and invaluable work of one of Russia's leading scholars.

Fiona Hill, The Brookings Institution

How better to understand the nature and scope of the challenge raised by radical Islam in Central Asia than to probe deeply the biography of the three key movements active in the region-one violent, allied to al Qaeda, and focused on overturning a key regime in Uzbekistan; a second, non-violent and committed to a global caliphate; and the third, increasingly tamed and part of conventional politics in Tajikistan. Naumkin brings to the task not only the erudition of a scholar of medieval Islam, but years of first-hand encounters with the region and with a broad spectrum of people within both the Islamic and governmental communities.

Robert Legvold, Columbia University

Vitaly Naumkin, one of Russia's foremost authorities on the Muslim world and the Middle East, has brought together his deep knowledge and experience to produce this outstanding study of the forces of change in the realm of Islam in Central Asia.

Anoush Ehteshami, Durham University, University Of Durham

This fine book offers an extraordinarily well-informed and insightful examination of political Islam in Central Asia and of its place in the broader phenomenon of political Islam across the Muslim world. Likely to be the standard reference on the topic for some time to come.

Graham E. Fuller, author of The Future of Political Islam