ABSTRACT
In Soviet times the Ferghana Valley, despite being divided among three republics, nonetheless remained a cohesive region in which the suppression of religion and its subsequent revival occurred through region-wide processes. Because of these, the region must be taken as a whole, even while bearing in mind the political, economic, and even ideological circumstances specific to each of the countries. Some tendencies led to the partial disintegration of old relationships among the religious elite of the three countries and in the Ferghana Valley as a whole. The others encouraged the assimilation of radical and extremist political parties and Islamist groups whose rhetoric sought to discredit national governments. The emergence of Islam as a significant factor in the political life of Central Asia following the collapse of the Soviet Union was in no sense a surprise, even where religion had declined to the status of a cultural artifact.
