Islam in Central Asia

Last updated
Muslims in Central Asia
Gorskii 20001u.jpg
Madrassa in Bukhara
Total population
c. 66 million [1] [2] (90.6%)
Religions
Sunni Islam
Languages
Liturgical
Common
Some Turkic languages, Tajik (Persian) and Arabic (Sacred)
Muslims Percentage per Country [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9]
CountryPercent
Flag of Tajikistan.svg  Tajikistan
98%
Flag of Turkmenistan.svg  Turkmenistan
96.1%
Flag of Uzbekistan.svg  Uzbekistan
96.5%
Flag of Kyrgyzstan (2023).svg  Kyrgyzstan
90.6%
Flag of Kazakhstan.svg  Kazakhstan
72%

Islam in Central Asia has existed since the beginning of Islamic history. Sunni branch of Islam is the most widely practiced religion in Central Asia. Shiism of Imami and Ismaili denominations predominating in the Pamir plateau and the western Tian Shan mountains (almost exclusively Ismailis), while boasting to a large minority population in the Zarafshan river valley, from Samarkand to Bukhara (almost exclusively Imamis). [10] Islam came to Central Asia in the early part of the 8th century as part of the Muslim conquest of the region. Many well-known Islamic scientists and philosophers came from Central Asia, and several major Muslim empires, including the Timurid Empire and the Mughal Empire, originated in Central Asia. In the 20th century, severe restrictions on religious practice were enacted by the Soviet Union in Soviet Central Asia and the People's Republic of China in Xinjiang.

Contents

History

Arrival of Islam and Medieval period

Age of the Caliphs
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Expansion under Muhammad, 622-632/A.H. 1-11
Expansion during the Rashidun Caliphate, 632-661/A.H. 11-40
Expansion during the Umayyad Caliphate, 661-750/A.H. 40-129 Map of expansion of Caliphate.svg
Age of the Caliphs
  Expansion under Muhammad, 622–632/A.H. 1-11
  Expansion during the Rashidun Caliphate, 632–661/A.H. 11-40
  Expansion during the Umayyad Caliphate, 661–750/A.H. 40-129

Urban centers were the first to adopt Islam in the region due to many socio-political and economic institutions coming under the influence of Muslim leadership. Rural regions were Islamized significantly later. While urban areas generally tended to be spiritually influenced by the ulema, Sufi mystics held prominent authority in the rural regions. [11]

Russian Empire

After conquests in the region by the Russian Empire in the 1860s and 1870s, western Central Asia came under Russian control and was incorporated into the empire as a Governor-Generalship led by Konstantin von Kaufman. Russian authorities debated what position they should take on Islam in the newly conquered territories. Some advocated a policy of religious repression, citing the ongoing Dungan Revolt in the neighboring Qing Empire as proof of the potential "threat" of Islam. Others, such as General Kaufman and his superior Dmitry Milyutin, preferred a policy of mild religious tolerance. Kaufman was nevertheless concerned about pan-Islam movements that would cause the Muslims of Russian Turkistan to view anyone other than the czar as their ruler. [12]

Soviet Union

While the practice of Islam was broadly tolerated by the Russian Empire during its rule over Central Asia from the mid-1860s to 1917, the advent of Soviet rule following the Russian Revolutions of 1917 and the subsequent civil war brought with it Marxist opposition to religion. During the first few years of Bolshevik rule in the early 1920s, Soviet officials took a pragmatic approach by prioritizing other goals (attempting to modernize culture, building schools, improving the position of women) in order to solidify their hold on Central Asia. During this time, the Bolsheviks cooperated with the Jadids (Muslims working towards social and cultural reforms such as improved education) to accomplish their goals. In the process, the Bolsheviks created a new political elite favorable towards Marxist ideology by using propaganda and appointing officials favorable towards their policies during the division of Central Asia into separate republics along ethnic lines in the 1920s and 1930s. [13]

In 1926, the Soviet government decided it had consolidated control over Central Asia sufficiently to shift official policy from toleration of Islam to condemnation. The government closed private religious schools in favor of state-run public ones. Between 1927 and 1929, the state ran a campaign to shut down mosques in Central Asia. This operation was not well documented, but existing accounts indicate that it was often violent and poorly controlled, often carried out by self-appointed officials who arrested imams and destroyed buildings, denouncing Islam as an enemy of communism. [14]

Despite these assaults, Islam in Central Asia survived Soviet rule in the following decades. However, it was transformed in the process: instead of part of the public sphere, Islam became family-oriented, "localized and rendered synonymous with custom and tradition." [15] This led to a homogenization of practice; as religious authorities could not publish treatises or often even communicate with one another, the store of religious knowledge available vastly decreased. Additionally, Islam was largely removed from the public discourse, especially in terms of its influence on morals and ethical values. [16] What religious practice that was permitted by the Soviet government was regulated by the Spiritual Administration of the Muslims of Central Asia and Kazakhstan.

1980s, 1990s, and Islamic Revival

Muslim family in Tajikistan celebrating Eid-i Fatr Celebrating Eid in Tajikistan 10-13-2007.jpg
Muslim family in Tajikistan celebrating Eid-i Fatr

The policy of glasnost put into practice by Mikhail Gorbachev in the mid-1980s meant that by 1988 the Soviet government relaxed its controls on Islam. As a result, there was a rapid religious revival, including new mosques, literature, and the return of private religious schooling. Many Central Asians were interested in the ethical and spiritual values that Islam could offer. [17] [18]

The revival accelerated further following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. For many, Islam constituted a national heritage that had been repressed during the Soviet era. Additionally, relaxed travel restrictions under Gorbachev enabled cultural exchange with other Muslim countries; Saudi Arabia, for example, sent copies of the Qur'an into the Soviet Union in the late 1980s. Islam, as practiced in Central Asia, became much more varied in this short time. [19] Furthermore, Islam was attractive because it offered alternatives and solutions to the myriad political and economic problems facing the republics in the wake of the Soviet Union's collapse. [20]

However, the governments of the Central Asian republics were wary of Islam in the political sphere. Their fears of undue influence were soon justified by the outbreak of the Tajik Civil War in 1992, between the Tajik government and a coalition of opponents led by a radical Islamist group called the Islamic Renaissance Party. [21] The civil war, which lasted until 1997, demonstrated to the other former Soviet republics the dangers posed by Islamic opposition groups. The takeover in 1996 of Afghanistan by the Taliban further emphasized that threat. [22]

The Islamic Renaissance Party (IRP) was one of several similar Islamic opposition groups, including the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), which also fought against the Tajik government in the civil war. [23] The IRP had its origins in underground Islamic groups in the Soviet Union. It was formed in 1990 in Astrakhan by a group consisting mostly of Tatar intellectuals, with separate branches for each Soviet republic. It was in fact registered as an official political party in Russia, but was banned by the Central Asian communist governments. [24] Partly as a result of this oppression, political opposition erupted into the violence of the civil war in Tajikistan, in which over 50,000 people were killed out of a population of 6 million and another 250,000 fled the country to Afghanistan, Uzbekistan or elsewhere. [25] Following the civil war, the Tajik government incorporated Islamic groups into the government in order to prevent future tensions. However, the other Central Asian republics did not follow this example, continuing instead to repress and persecute Islamic groups rather than allow them to participate in the political process. [26]

21st century

Following the attacks of September 11, 2001, foreign powers took a much greater interest in preventing the spread of radical Islamic terrorist organizations such as the IMU. The Central Asian republics offered their territory and airspace for use by the US and its allies in operations against the Taliban in Afghanistan, and the international community recognized the importance of ensuring stability in Central Asia in order to combat terrorism. [27]

In Uzbekistan, the government took advantage of this shift in international attitude in order to erode the position of Islam in politics, taking steps such as forbidding the hijab in public schools and reducing the legal rights of Islamic groups. [22]

Since 2001, ethnic and religious tensions in the Central Asian republics combined with endemic poverty and poor economic performance have made them increasingly volatile. However, governments as often use Islamic groups as a justification for repression and crackdowns as those groups are the cause of violence, if not more often. For example, in May 2005 the Uzbek government massacred over 700 of its own civilians demonstrating following a trial of 23 suspected Islamic radicals, saying that they were terrorists. Though the events of the massacre were complex, this simplistic account appears to be false; instead, it was a case of the Uzbek government repressing peaceful protesters, perhaps attempting to prevent the sort of popular revolt that had occurred two months earlier in Kyrgyzstan, toppling President Askar Akayev. [28] Overall, Islamic militancy in Central Asia is not a major threat to regional stability compared to the myriad social and economic problems—such environmental devastation around the Aral Sea, endemic poverty, poor education—that plague the region. [29] Central Asian expert Adeeb Khalid, writes that the situation in Central Asia demonstrates most of all that Islam is a complex phenomenon that rejects easy categorization into "good" and "bad," "moderate" and "extremist," and that the form Islam takes in Central Asia is not the same as the form it takes elsewhere. "For observers," he writes, "it is critical to have perspective, to discern clearly the political stakes at issue...and to separate the disinformation dished out by the regimes from the actual conduct of Muslims." [30]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Central Asia</span> Subregion in Asia

Central Asia is a subregion of Asia that stretches from the Caspian Sea in the southwest and Eastern Europe in the northwest to Western China and Mongolia in the east, and from Afghanistan and Iran in the south to Russia in the north. It includes Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. The countries as a group are also colloquially referred to as the "-stans" as all have names ending with the Persian suffix "-stan" in both respective native languages and most other languages.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tajikistan</span> Landlocked country in Central Asia

Tajikistan, officially the Republic of Tajikistan, is a landlocked country in Central Asia. Dushanbe is the capital and most populous city. Tajikistan is bordered by Afghanistan to the south, Uzbekistan to the west, Kyrgyzstan to the north, and China to the east. It is separated from Pakistan by Afghanistan's Wakhan Corridor.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of Tajikistan</span>

Tajikistan harkens to the Samanid Empire (819–999). The Tajik people came under Russian rule in the 1860s. The Basmachi revolt broke out in the wake of the Russian Revolution of 1917 and was quelled in the early 1920s during the Russian Civil War. In 1924, Tajikistan became an Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic of the Soviet Union, the Tajik ASSR, within Uzbekistan. In 1929, Tajikistan was made one of the component republics of the Soviet Union – Tajik Soviet Socialist Republic – and it kept that status until gaining independence 1991 after the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of Uzbekistan</span>

Uzbekistan is a landlocked country in Central Asia. It is itself surrounded by five landlocked countries: Kazakhstan to the north; Kyrgyzstan to the northeast; Tajikistan to the southeast; Afghanistan to the south, Turkmenistan to the south-west. Its capital and largest city is Tashkent. Uzbekistan is part of the Turkic languages world, as well as a member of the Organization of Turkic States. While the Uzbek language is the majority spoken language in Uzbekistan, Russian is widely used as an inter-ethnic tongue and in government. Islam is the majority religion in Uzbekistan, most Uzbeks being non-denominational Muslims. In ancient times it largely overlapped with the region known as Sogdia, and also with Bactria.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tajiks</span> Iranian ethnic group native to Central Asia

Tajiks are a Persian-speaking Iranian ethnic group native to Central Asia, living primarily in Afghanistan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. Tajiks are the largest ethnicity in Tajikistan, and the second-largest in Afghanistan and Uzbekistan. They speak varieties of Persian, a Western Iranian language. In Tajikistan, since the 1939 Soviet census, its small Pamiri and Yaghnobi ethnic groups are included as Tajiks. In China, the term is used to refer to its Pamiri ethnic groups, the Tajiks of Xinjiang, who speak the Eastern Iranian Pamiri languages. In Afghanistan, the Pamiris are counted as a separate ethnic group.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Basmachi movement</span> 1916–1934 Central Asian uprising against Russian/Soviet rule

The Basmachi movement was an uprising against Imperial Russian and Soviet rule in Central Asia by rebel groups inspired by Islamic beliefs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Khujand</span> City in northwestern Tajikistan

Khujand, sometimes spelled Khodjent or Chudzjand, and known as Leninabad from 1936 to 1991, is the second-largest city of Tajikistan and the capital of Tajikistan's northernmost Sughd province.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Islam in Uzbekistan</span>

Islam is the dominant religion in Uzbekistan. Islamic customs were broadly adopted by the ruling elite, and they began patronage of scholars and conquerors such as Muhammad al-Bukhari, Al-Tirmidhi, Ismail Samani, al-Biruni, Avicenna, Tamerlane, Ulugh Begh, and Babur. Despite its predominance and history, the practice of Islam has been far from monolithic since the establishment of the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic. Many versions of the faith have been practiced in today's Republic of Uzbekistan. Most of them stray far from conventional Islamic tradition and law, and practice a far more relaxed approach. Heavily authoritarian interpretations of the Qur’an, including Shariah Law, as seen in parts of the Middle East, are almost unheard of in Uzbekistan. There are also traditions from the Zoroastrian era which are still practiced, before the introduction of Islam to the country.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Islam in Kazakhstan</span>

Islam is the largest religion practiced in Kazakhstan, with estimates of about 74% of the country's population being Muslim. Ethnic Kazakhs are predominantly Sunni Muslims of the Hanafi school. There are also small numbers of Shias. Geographically speaking, Kazakhstan is the northernmost Muslim-majority country in the world, and the largest in terms of land area. Kazakhs make up over half of the total population, and other ethnic groups of Muslim background include Uzbeks, Uyghurs and Tatars. Islam first arrived on the southern edges of the region in the 8th century from Arabs. According to the Constitution, The Republic of Kazakhstan proclaims itself as a democratic, secular, legal and social state whose highest values are a person, his life, rights, and freedoms.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Russian Turkestan</span> 1867–1917 governorate-general of the Russian Empire

Russian Turkestan was the western part of Turkestan within the Russian Empire’s Central Asian territories, and was administered as a Krai or Governor-Generalship. It comprised the oasis region to the south of the Kazakh Steppe, but not the protectorates of the Emirate of Bukhara and the Khanate of Khiva. It was populated by speakers of Russian, Uzbek, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, and Tajik.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Islam in Tajikistan</span>

Sunni Islam is, by far, the most widely practiced religion in Tajikistan. Sunni Islam of the Hanafi school is the recognized religious tradition of Tajikistan since 2009. According to a 2009 U.S. State Department release, the population of Tajikistan is 98% Muslim,, with some Sufi orders.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tajikistani Civil War</span> Armed conflict

The Tajikistani Civil War, also known as the Tajik Civil War, began in May 1992 and ended in June 1997. Regional groups from the Garm and Gorno-Badakhshan regions of Tajikistan rose up against the newly-formed government of President Rahmon Nabiyev, which was dominated by people from the Khujand and Kulob regions. The rebel groups were led by a combination of liberal democratic reformers and Islamists, who would later organize under the banner of the United Tajik Opposition. The government was supported by Russian military and border guards.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">National delimitation in the Soviet Union</span> Process of creating national territorial units from the ethnic diversity of USSR

National delimitation in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was the process of specifying well-defined national territorial units from the ethnic diversity of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) and its subregions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Soviet Central Asia</span> Section of Central Asia formerly controlled by the Soviet Union

Soviet Central Asia was the part of Central Asia administered by the Soviet Union between 1918 and 1991, when the Central Asian republics declared independence. It is nearly synonymous with Russian Turkestan in the Russian Empire. Soviet Central Asia went through many territorial divisions before the current borders were created in the 1920s and 1930s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Islam in the Soviet Union</span> Overview of the countrys Muslim demographic (1922–1991)

After it was established on most of the territory of the Russian Empire, the Soviet Union remained the world's largest country until it collapsed in 1991. It covered a large part of Eastern Europe while also spanning the entirety of the Caucasus, Central Asia, and Northern Asia. During this time, Islam was the country's second-largest religion; 90% of Muslims in the Soviet Union were adherents of Sunni Islam, with only around 10% adhering to Shia Islam. Excluding the Azerbaijan SSR, which had a Shia-majority population, all of the Muslim-majority Union Republics had Sunni-majority populations. In total, six Union Republics had Muslim-majority populations: the Azerbaijan SSR, the Kazakh SSR, the Kyrgyz SSR, the Tajik SSR, the Turkmen SSR, and the Uzbek SSR. There was also a large Muslim population across Volga–Ural and in the northern Caucasian regions of the Russian SFSR. Across Siberia, Muslims accounted for a significant proportion of the population, predominantly through the presence of Tatars. Many autonomous republics like the Karakalpak ASSR, the Chechen-Ingush ASSR, the Bashkir ASSR and others also had Muslim majorities.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pamiris</span> Eastern Iranian ethnic group of the Pamir Mountains

The Pamiris are an Eastern Iranian ethnic group, native to Central Asia, living primarily in Tajikistan (Gorno-Badakhshan), Afghanistan (Badakhshan), Pakistan (Gilgit-Baltistan) and China. They speak a variety of different languages, amongst which languages of the Eastern Iranian Pamir language group stand out. The languages of the Shughni-Rushani group, alongside Wakhi, are the most widely spoken Pamiri languages.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Religion in Tajikistan</span>

Islam is the predominant religion in Tajikistan.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Spiritual Administration of the Muslims of Central Asia and Kazakhstan</span> Government religious body in the Soviet Union

The Spiritual Administration of the Muslims of Central Asia and Kazakhstan (SADUM) (Russian: Духовное управление мусульман Средней Азии и Казахстана (САДУМ); Uzbek: Ўрта Осиё ва Қозоғистон мусулмонлари диний бошқармаси) was the official governing body for Islamic activities in the five Central Asian republics of the Soviet Union. Under strict state control, SADUM was charged with training clergy and publishing spiritual materials, among other tasks. The organization was headquartered in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. Established in 1943, SADUM existed for nearly 50 years. With the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the five newly independent republics reformed their respective branches of SADUM into their own national Islamic institutions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hizb ut-Tahrir in Central Asia</span> Political party

Hizb ut-Tahrir is a pan-Islamist and fundamentalist group seeking to re-establish "the Islamic Khilafah (Caliphate)" as an Islamic "superstate" where Muslim-majority countries are unified and ruled under Islamic Shariah law, and which eventually expands globally to include non-Muslim states. In Central Asia, the party has expanded since the breakup of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s from a small group to "one of the most powerful organizations" operating in Central Asia. The region itself has been called "the primary battleground" for the party. Uzbekistan is "the hub" of Hizb ut-Tahrir's activities in Central Asia, while its "headquarters" is now reportedly in Kyrgyzstan.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tajikistan–Uzbekistan border</span> International border

The Tajikistan–Uzbekistan border is an international border between Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. It is 1,312 kilometres (815 mi) in length and runs from the tripoint with Kyrgyzstan to the tripoint with Afghanistan.

References

Citations

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