ABSTRACT
How do religion and the economy interact on a global scale? What are the goals and principles behind religious responses to prevailing economic ideologies? How do religious movements adjust to these developments? The aim of this chapter is to study the mutations of Islam in the wake of the fall of Communism and the integration of Muslim Eurasia into a globalized economy and culture. It highlights the emergence of Islamic ethical systems that reject globalization because of its Western roots. The chapter uses a comparative method that looks at Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan as post-Soviet republics that confront the realities of globalization. This chapter asserts that Islam has been an alternative source of identity in building self-worth. It has also become a reference in providing critique or justification of the modern economy. There are two different practices exhibited by Tablighi Jama’at and ‘Market Islam’ proponents. However, they only show one thing: rejection of globalization as an economic and ethical imposition of the Western world. These two Puritan Islamic ethics promote moral conservatism as a response to globalization and its purported values associated with the Western lifestyle. Getting rid of the moral corruption and distraction produced by globalization is considered essential in developing genuine Muslim identity. The post-Soviet Islamic ethical systems especially in Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan seek purity and individual virtue. It is an elitist puritan response against the supposed moral decay of the West that promotes ‘good Islam’ which revolves around a nationalist and territorialized response to the forces of globalization.
