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Uzbekistan, officially the Republic of Uzbekistan, is a doubly landlocked country located in Central Asia. It is surrounded by five landlocked countries: Kazakhstan to the north; Kyrgyzstan to the northeast; Tajikistan to the southeast; Afghanistan to the south; and Turkmenistan to the southwest. Its capital and largest city is Tashkent. Uzbekistan is part of the Turkic world, as well as a member of the Organization of Turkic States. The Uzbek language is the majority-spoken language in Uzbekistan, while Russian is widely spoken and understood throughout the country. Tajik is also spoken as a minority language, predominantly in Samarkand and Bukhara. Islam is the predominant religion in Uzbekistan, most Uzbeks being Sunni Muslims.
The Uzbeks are a Turkic ethnic group native to the wider Central Asian region, being among the largest Turkic ethnic group in the area. They comprise the majority population of Uzbekistan, next to Kazakh and Karakalpak minorities, and are also found as a minority group in: Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Russia, and China. Uzbek diaspora communities also exist in Turkey, Saudi Arabia, United States, Ukraine, and other countries.
The Basmachi movement was an uprising against Russian Imperial and Soviet rule in Central Asia by rebel groups inspired by Islamic beliefs.
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.
Islam is the largest religion practiced in Kazakhstan, with estimates of about 72% 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.
Bukharan Jews, in modern times also called Bukharian Jews, are an ethnoreligious Jewish sub-group of Central Asia that historically spoke Bukharian, a Judeo-Tajik dialect of the Tajik language, in turn a variety of the Persian language. Their name comes from the former Central Asian Emirate of Bukhara, which once had a sizable Jewish population. Bukharan Jews comprise Persian-speaking Jewry along with the Jews of Iran, Afghanistan, and the Caucasus Mountains. Bukharan Jews are Mizrahi Jews, like Persian Jews and Afghani Jews.
More than 90% of the population of Azerbaijan is Muslim. The rest of the population adheres to other faiths or are non-religious, although they are not officially represented. Among the Muslim majority, religious observance varies and Muslim identity tends to be based more on culture and ethnicity rather than religion. The Muslim population is approximately 60-65% Shi'a and 35-40% Sunni; differences traditionally have not been defined sharply.
The Jadids were Muslim modernist reformers within the Russian Empire in the late 19th and early 20th century. They normally referred to themselves by the Turkic terms Taraqqiparvarlar ('progressives'), Ziyalilar ('intellectuals') or simply Yäşlär/Yoshlar ('youth'). Jadid movement advocated for an Islamic social and cultural reformation through the revival of pristine Islamic teachings; while simultaneously engaging with modernity. Jadids maintained that Turks in the Russian Empire had entered a period of decay that could only be rectified by the acquisition of a new kind of knowledge and modernist, European-modeled cultural reform.
The Tajik language has been written in three alphabets over the course of its history: an adaptation of the Perso-Arabic script, an adaptation of the Latin script and an adaptation of the Cyrillic script. Any script used specifically for Tajik may be referred to as the Tajik alphabet, which is written as алифбои тоҷикӣ in Cyrillic characters, الفبای تاجیکی with Perso-Arabic script and alifboji toçikī in Latin script.
Hujum was a series of policies and actions taken by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, initiated by Joseph Stalin, to remove all manifestations of gender inequality, especially on the systems of female veiling and seclusion practiced in Central Asia. The era was often symbolized by the burning of the face-veil that women in the Muslim majority areas of the Soviet Union wore, but removal of the veil was not the sole goal of the campaign. The party began re-emphasizing their messages women's liberation within class consciousness. By abolishing them in Central Asia and heralding in women's liberation, the Soviets believed they could clear the way for the construction of socialism. The campaign's purpose was to rapidly change the lives of women in Muslim societies so that they may participate in public life, paid work, education, and ultimately membership in the Communist Party. It was originally conceived to enforce laws that gave women in patriarchal societies equality by creating literacy programs and bringing women into the labor force.
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.
Paranja or paranji is a traditional Central Asian robe for women and girls that covers the head and body. It is also known as "burqa" in Arabic. It is similar in basic style and function to other regional styles such as the Afghan chadari. The traditional veil in Central Asia worn before modern times was the faranji. The part that covered the face, known as the chachvan, was heavy in weight and made from horsehair. It was especially prevalent among urban Uzbeks and Tajiks. The paranja was worn in Khorezm. It was also worn during the Shaybanids' rule (c.1510–1600).
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, while boasting to a large minority population in the Zarafshan river valley, from Samarkand to Bukhara. 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.
The deportation of the Crimean Tatars or the Sürgünlik ('exile') was the ethnic cleansing and cultural genocide of at least 191,044 Crimean Tatars carried out by the Soviet authorities from 18 to 20 May 1944, which was supervised by Lavrentiy Beria, head of Soviet state security and the secret police, and which was ordered by the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. Within those three days, the NKVD used cattle trains to deport mostly women, children, and the elderly, even Communist Party members and Red Army members, to mostly the Uzbek SSR, several thousand kilometres away. They were one of the several ethnicities who were subjected to Stalin's policy of population transfer 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.
Photography in Uzbekistan started developing after 1882, when a Volga German photographer and schoolteacher named Wilhelm Penner moved to Khiva as a part of the Russian Mennonite migration to Central Asia led by Claas Epp, Jr. After his arrival in the Khanate of Khiva, Penner shared his photography skills with a local student Khudaibergen Devanov, who later became the founder of Uzbek photography.
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.
The ethnonym Turks has been commonly used by the non-Muslim Balkan peoples to denote all Muslim settlers in the region, regardless of their ethno-linguistic background. The majority of these, however, were indeed ethnic Turks. In the Ottoman Empire, the Islamic faith was the official religion, with Muslims holding different rights than non-Muslims. Non-Muslim (dhimmi) ethno-religious legal groups were identified by different millets ("nations").
This is a select bibliography of English language books and journal articles about the post-Stalinist era of Soviet history. A brief selection of English translations of primary sources is included. The sections "General Surveys" and "Biographies" contain books; other sections contain both books and journal articles. Book entries have references to journal articles and reviews about them when helpful. Additional bibliographies can be found in many of the book-length works listed below; see Further Reading for several book and chapter-length bibliographies. The External Links section contains entries for publicly available select bibliographies from universities.
This is a select bibliography of English language books and journal articles about the History of Central Asia. A brief selection of English translations of primary sources is included. Book entries have references to journal articles and reviews about them when helpful. Additional bibliographies can be found in many of the book-length works listed below; see Further Reading for several book and chapter-length bibliographies. The External Links section contains entries for publicly available select bibliographies from universities. this bibliography specifically excludes non-history related works and self-published books.
References
- ↑ Rasanayagam, Johan (2010-11-08). Islam in Post-Soviet Uzbekistan: The Morality of Experience. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781139495264.
- ↑ Corcoran-Nantes, Yvonne (2013-07-04). Lost Voices: Central Asian Women Confronting Transition. Zed Books Ltd. ISBN 9781848137295.
- ↑ Northrop, Douglas (Spring 2001). "Subaltern Dialogues: Subversion and Resistance in Soviet Uzbek Family Law". Slavic Review. The American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies. 60 (1): 115–139. doi:10.2307/2697646. JSTOR 2697646. S2CID 147540996.
- ↑ Corcoran-Nantes, Yvonne (2005). Lost Voices: Central Asian Women Confronting Transition . London, New York: Zed Books. p. 141. ISBN 1-84277-537-5.
- ↑ Kamp, Marianne R. (Summer–Autumn 2001). "Three Lives of Saodat: Communist, Uzbek, Survivor". The Oral History Review. 28 (2): 21–58. doi:10.1525/ohr.2001.28.2.21. S2CID 154878776.
