Book: Being Muslim in Central Asia: Practices, Politics, and Identities

This book explores the changing place of Islam in contemporary Central Asia, understanding religion as a “societal shaper” – a roadmap for navigating quickly evolving social and cultural values.

Islam can take on multiple colors and identities, from a purely transcendental faith in God to a cauldron of ideological ferment for political ideology, via diverse culture-, community-, and history-based phenomena. The volumes discusses what it means to be a Muslim in today’s Central Asia by looking at both historical and sociological features, investigates the relationship between Islam, politics and the state, the changing role of Islam in terms of societal values, and the issue of female attire as a public debate.

Contributors include: Aurélie Biard, Tim Epkenhans, Nurgul Esenamanova, Azamat Junisbai, Barbara Junisbai, Marlene Laruelle, Marintha Miles, Emil Nasritdinov, Shahnoza Nozimova, Yaacov Ro’i, Wendell Schwab, Manja Stephan-Emmrich, Rano Turaeva, Alon Wainer, Alexander Wolters, Galina M. Yemelianova, Baurzhan Zhussupov

About the Author

Table of contents

List of Figures and Tables
Notes on Contributors

Introduction
Marlene Laruelle

Part 1: What Does It Mean to Be a Muslim in Today’s Central Asia?

1 How ‘Muslim’ are Central Asian Muslims? A Historical and Comparative Enquiry
Galina Yemelianova
2
Two Countries, Five Years: Islam in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan Through the Lens of Public Opinion Surveys
Barbara Junisbai, Azamat Junisbai, and Baurzhan Zhussupov
3 Uzbekness and Islam: A Survey-based Analysis of Identity in Uzbekistan
Yaacov Roʾi and Alon Wainer

Part 2: Islam, Politics, and the State

4 The Islamic Revival Party of Tajikistan: Episodes of Islamic Activism, Postconflict, Accommodation, and Political Marginalization
Tim Epkenhans
5 Power, “Original” Islam, and the Reactivation of a Religious Utopia in Kara-Suu, Kyrgyzstan
Aurélie Biard
6 Islamic Finance and the State in Central Asia
Alexander Wolters

Part 3: Islam in Evolving Societies and Identities

7 Visual Culture and Islam in Kazakhstan: The Case of Asyl Arna’s Social Media
Wendell Schwab
8 Playing Cosmopolitan: Muslim Self-fashioning, Migration, and (Be-)Longing in the Tajik Dubai Business Sector
Manja Stephan-Emmrich
9 Informal Economies in the Post-Soviet Space: Post-Soviet Islam and Its Role in Ordering Entrepreneurship in Central Asia
Rano Turaeva

Part 4: Female Attire as a Public Debate

10 The War of Billboards: Hijab, Secularism, and Public Space in Bishkek
Emil Nasritdinov and Nurgul Esenamanova
11 Hijab in a Changing Tajik Society
Shahnoza Nozimova
12 Switching to Satr: An Ethnography of the Particular in Women’s Choices in Head Coverings in Tajikistan
Marintha Miles

Bibliography
Index

Bibliographic Information

Title: Being Muslim in Central Asia: Practices, Politics, and Identities

Editor: Marlene Laruelle

Publisher: BRILL

 Language: English

Length: 344 pages

ISBN: 9789004306806

Pub. Expected Date: January 2018