This is a three page section on religion and ethnicity in Kyrgyzstan in a dissertation that is otherwise not about Islam. It discusses the interrelationship between kinship, ethnicity, social practices, and religion and argues that religion has been an identity marker and is just now becoming a belief system in Kyrgyzstan.
Comments: 2/3/10
One quote on pages 13-14 is as follows:
In many cases the influence of Islamic practices on everyday life are overstated. Among the mobile pastoral peoples, Islam was a relatively late development which was quickly prohibited by the Soviet regime. In Kyrgyzstan, many people perform Muslim rituals, but do not consider themselves to be believers. This is slowly changing, but Islam does not determine many of the social practices found in the region.Gullette continues on page 14 by arguing that Islam during Soviet times became "regarded as a part of ethnic identity." He supports that claim with a brief history of Islam in Central Asia. Then he concludes on page 15:
While Islam remains a part of people’s ethnic identity, this is now changing. Particularly in northern Kyrgyzstan, people are adopting Islam as a belief system, observing the rituals of worship and the other five pillars (Arabic: Arkan-al-Islam). Today, Kyrgyz are predominantly Sunni Muslims, many of whom follow the Hanafi school of thought. Islam, however, has not had much influence on forms of relatedness in contemporary Kyrgyzstan. While Islamic practices do influence marriage proscriptions, general conceptions of kinship and religion are distinct categories of identity. In my discussions with people about their ancestors and notions of kinship, the subject of religion was rarely mentioned. However, as I have stated, ancestors are described as “moral” people, i.e. abiding by Islamic moral values, but which are also the basis for the secular views of citizenship.The interrelationship between kinship, ethnicity, social practices, and religion is interesting and complex. During my time in Kyrgyzstan, I noticed Islam as a marker of ethnicity, but I also noticed that even though some people lacked knowledge about Islam, they had a desire to comply with the religion. For example, while visiting a grave of the mother of a Kyrgyz friend who had recently died, some of the relatives in the group asked me to recite the Fatiha (the first surah (verse) in the Qur'an) over the grave of other ancestors in the graveyard. While they did not know any Qur'anic verses or prayers, they knew that I did and asked me to recite the Fatiha, even though I was not Muslim.
Descriptors: 2000s, anthropology, dissertation, ethnography, G, identity, Kyrgyz, Kyrgyzstan, section
