How Islamic are the policies of the gov't of Tajikistan, compared to that of Chechnya?

Question

According to Western sources, Putin has managed to keep a lid on Chechnya by allowing Kadyrov a large degree of political autonomy in internal matters, which resulted in a significant 'Islamization' of Chechnya's government policies, e.g.:

Most women on the streets of Grozny, the capital, wear the Islamic hijab, a dress code until recently enforced by drive-by paintball shootings. [...] And, lest they forget, a building-size poster on Grozny’s main thoroughfare, Vladimir Putin Avenue, carries an example of proper attire. It is inscribed with Mr. Kadyrov’s admonition that the “hijab protects the dignity of the Chechen woman.”

Alcohol, officially allowed for sale only between 8 a.m. and 10 a.m. since 2009, has become virtually unavailable. Ostentatious new mosques are mushrooming, lessons in Islam are mandatory in schools, and the government sponsors youths who memorize the Quran.

Mr. Kadyrov fills his Instagram feed—his main means of communication—with footage of himself performing prayers and urging piety. His biography is a pithy one-liner: “Love the Prophet, read the prayers.”

Aslan Abdullayev, the deputy mufti, or religious leader, of Chechnya, noted with pleasure that the level of Islamic observance here is much higher than it was in the 1990s, when the republic was de facto independent and a magnet for jihadists from around the world.

So, that theory goes, Russia thus managed to somewhat placate the more extremist elements in Chechnya (in a manner that's not too far from how Saudi Arabia or Pakistan turned more Islamic/conservative [for decades], in the late 1970s.)

Ostensibly though, that is done in Chechnya thorough personal/cultural examples, and not through any [Sharia-like] laws:

“We are a normal secular republic. Russian laws are sacred to us,” said Djambulat Umarov, the minister of national policy, external relations and information. “But if you follow Kadyrov’s path, the path of creation, the path of returning to cultural values, then you are a Muslim and you must be an example in everything—and you should follow to the maximum the sacral truths, including in matters like clothing and chastity.”

How is the situation in Tajikistan though? Are they more liberal than Chechnya in re Islamic symbology, so that gives more room for extremists to use as a grievance to recruit there?

(FWTW, aside, the gov't in Dushanbe claims that most Tajiks that were IS-radicalized, were so while visiting Russia, at least between 2014-2016.)

Answer 1

To answer my own Q, apparently there's not that much similarity. While the Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan was tolerated for a while, it was eventually banned in 2015. And the brand of Islam officially tolerated in Tajikistan looks a bit different than in Chechnya:

The government hereby does not distinguish between devout, observant Muslims and critical religious movements, on the one hand, and militant extremists on the other. In favor of the fight against “Islamism” by all means, it restricts the rights of all these individuals and especially their right to freedom of religion which is guaranteed in Article 26 of the Constitution of the Republic of Tajikistan. Nevertheless, the restrictive measures of the government mainly curtail the free exercise of daily religion. In 2016, Tajik authorities shaved the beards off around 13,000 of its male citizens, they shut down approximately 160 shops selling traditional Islamic clothing and ordered over 1,700 women to stop wearing hijabs. Young Tajiks under 18 years were no longer allowed to participate in public religious activities such as prayers at the mosque.33 In the beginning of 2018, local authorities shut down almost 100 mosques in Northern Tajikistan, 45 of them in the city of Isfara for “failing to maintain sanitary norms” and another 45 in the neighboring Ghafurov district because some of them were built too close together and, according to Tajik law, it is forbidden to have two religious facilities within a distance of 50 metres. Moreover, it is the government who decides on the topics of the homilies of the imams and on a regular basis distributes “recommended” texts among them.

OTOH Rahmon is essentially leader for life, somewhat resembling Belarus' Lukashenko in his career for Soviet-era state enterprise manager to eternal country leader. But this is more of a (old) Soviet style authoritarianism than the more novel/Islamist-fusionist kind practiced in Chechnya.