This chapter theorizes Uzbekistan’s state–Islam relationship as a process of dialectical radicalization: a reciprocal dynamic in which secular governance and Islamic revival co-produce one another through cycles of control, resistance, and recalibration. Bringing a relational lens to bear on a dialectical framework, it treats “the state” and “Islam” not as fixed entities but as positions constituted through interactions—registration regimes, surveillance, sermons, hujra networks, and everyday moral negotiations. The analysis traces how ethical revival in the Ferghana Valley—initially centered on piety, discipline, and tajdīd—was reframed by authorities as disorder, prompting punitive responses that deepened underground organization and oppositional identities. It argues that the 1999 Tashkent bombings and the rise of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan crystallized a securitized repertoire that radicalized the state itself—expanding legal categories, intelligence primacy, and “official Islam” as a tool of moral regulation—while simultaneously validating militant narratives of persecution. Radicalization, therefore, is shown to be two-way and interactional rather than a linear drift of religious actors alone. The chapter closes by outlining pathways of negotiation and de-radicalization premised on transforming relations—shifting from coercive management to dialogic recognition—thus recasting secularism as a negotiated boundary rather than an imposed containment. Analysis of adashganlar as the hinge category of fear and control.