ABSTRACT

The collapse of the Soviet Union not only turned Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan into independent states of Central Asia but transformed the role of Islam, as a faith, a culture, and an identity, from a marginalized religion into the rehabilitated faith of the newly independent states. Although Islam is not the official religion of these states, which espouse a secular model of government, it is, however, the faith of the majority. Islam, with its deep historical roots and centuries-long presence in a traditional Turkish-Iranian arena that has been Sovietized, is now in a position of cultural and religious dominance and is playing a major role in society. The revival of Islam today is part of the overall phenomenon of re-Islamization, observed since the end of the 1980s in all Muslim countries and also outside the Dar al-Islam, as, for example, in Muslim communities of Europe or America. This revival began as a result of the reforms initiated by Mikhaïl Gorbachov whose attitude toward religion was much more tolerant and accepting than all the former Soviet leaders of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The leaders of Central Asia inherited this religious revival from the perestroika period and are now building a national Islam to reinforce their policies of national consolidation. Since declaring independence, they have encouraged re-Islamization “from the top,”1 a process which has undoubtedly favored the revivification of Muslim behaviors that can be officially practiced in accordance with the prevailing religious laws of their secular regimes. Who are the real agents of re-Islamization at the grass roots level? And how are these new agents of re-Islamization managing to have a religious influence among basic Muslim believers on a collective level? This chapter will try to answer these questions by focusing on the female religious milieu in the five newly independent states of Central Asia. It will precisely examine how the old female religious roles of Central Asian Islam survived the former Soviet system and how new ones have emerged since independence. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Muslim societies of Central Asia are facing a new wave of re-Islamization. Re-Islamization for various Muslim populations, “which were Islamicized many centuries ago,” must be understood as a process of continuity.2 The role played by Muslim women in the re-Islamization of Central Asian Muslim societies has not yet received any attention for two main reasons. First, because the practice of Islam presents a rather masculine image.