Rasanayagam, Johan. 2006. "Healing with Spirits and the Formation of Muslim Selfhood in Post-Soviet Uzbekistan" The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute. 12, no. 2 (2006): 377-393.

Rasanayagam states: "In this article I will examine how people explore what it means to be a Muslim through ... healing with the aid of spirits."  He explores how healers have responded to increasing post-Soviet "scripturalist" interpretations of Islam. He argues that healers, "construct themselves as 'proper' Muslims according to the orthodoxies authorized by official imams while maintaining their own, often highly individual, interpretations and practices." 

Sections: A Particular Mode of Access to Divine Power and Knowledge; Healing Cosmologies; Orthodoxy in the Making; Authorizing Processes; Notes.  Descriptors: 2000s, anthropology, diversity, ethnography, healers, journal, otins, post-Soviet, R, rituals, spirits, Uzbekistan; pluralism-textual/popular, Hanafi, syncretism, tabibs, oqsoqols, otins, perikhon, saints, bakshis, mavlud, hatma Qur'an, bibi seshanba, mushkul kushod, jinn, qori, avlio, alcohol

Dautcher, Jay. Down a Narrow Road: Identity and Masculinity in a Uyghur Community in Xinjiang China. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2009.

Dautcher's book is the result of ethnographic research among Uygurs in Yining, Xinjiang, China beginning in 1995.  With regard to Islam, he discusses life cycle rituals, shrine visits, mahalla life, the meshrep, and Ramadan.  The comparison of the olturash (men's drinking parties) and the meshrep (parties where alcohol drinking is punished on religious grounds) is very interesting. The question of what is truly Islamic is present.  Dautcher quotes a lot of poems and jokes and has too much of a focus on sexuality.