Sayid Abdulloh Nuri

Sayid Abdulloh Nuri

Sayid Abdulloh Nuri (Tajik: Сайид Абдуллоҳи Нурӣ, Perso-Arabic script: سید عبدالله نوری) (March 15, 1947 - August 9, 2006), also transliterated as Abdullah Nuri, led the Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan from 1993 until he died of cancer in late 2006. During the Tajik Civil War of 1992 to 1997 he led the United Tajik Opposition. Nuri and President of Tajikistan Emomali Rakhmonov ended the civil war by signing the Tajik National Peace Accord in 1997.

Nuri was born in Sangvor, Qarateghin Valley, Tajikistan. In 1974 he founded Nahzat-i Islomi, an Islamic education organization. Soviet militia arrested him in 1986 for spreading 'religious propaganda', imprisoning him until 1988.

Nuri met with Turkmenbashi Saparmurat Niyazov in Tehran, Iran on 24 January 1996. Niyazov told Nuri that a CIS summit in Moscow, Russia agreed to renew the mandate of CIS peacekeepers in Tajikistan.

Nuri advocated making Tajikistan an Islamic state. Unlike other militant organizations, after 1997 Nuri embraced a peaceful, gradual change in Tajik laws, telling Radio Free Europe, "Yes, creating an Islamic state is our dream and our hope. But we understand that it can be achieved only stage by stage and in accordance with the wishes of the people of Tajikistan. We want to build a state that will be within the framework of the constitution."

Nuri criticized the Tajik government's expulsion of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, a militant Uzbek Islamic organization, from Tajikistan. He offered to act as a mediator between the IMU and Central Asian governments.

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