ABSTRACT
The Muslims are the fastest growing population group in the former USSR. However, the consistently high rate of growth conceals the ongoing processes of demographic modernization among them. The populations of Muslim origin form the majority of the total populations in these republics with the exception of Kazakhstan, where in 1989 Muslims constituted only 47 per cent of the whole population. Many different demographic indicators are necessary for an overall assessment of fertility dynamics. The primary demographic characteristics of marriage patterns are age at first marriage and the extent of final celibacy. In the past decade the demographic dynamics of the Muslim populations of Azerbaijan and former Soviet Central Asia have been characterized by some serious difficulties and obstacles. The recent economic and political crisis in the newly independent Muslim states is a serious danger to health services, whose decline began already in the last years of the Soviet era.
