Rouslan Jalil / The Social Significance of Islam in Post-Soviet Central Asia: The Case of Kyrgyzstan

The aim of this paper is to analyze whether the process of religious revival that started after collapse of the Soviet Union has translated into increased religiosity of Kyrgyzstany society. The study is based on quantitative field work carried out in 2012 and updated in 2015, which examines various dimensions of religiosity to learn the degree of Islamic practice, beliefs, values and religious knowledge.

The findings demonstrate that the evident outcome of the religious resurgence in Kyrgyzstan is the profound growth of religious institutions and formal attachment to religion. However, this has not led to dramatic growth of religiosity in terms of participation and attendance of religious practices. The findings also reveal significant regional and ethnic differences in religious observance and attachment to certain aspects of Islamic tradition. Overall, the outcomes of the study present the fact that whereas Islam in Kyrgyzstan serves as a means of traditional self-identification, the society prefers to believe but not belong to Islamic traditionalism.

Bio
Rouslan Jalil is a doctoral fellow at department of Educational Policy and Evaluation (EPE), the University of Kentucky, USA. He is currently doing a research on examining Islamic education and political secularism in post-Soviet Central Asia. Rouslan has BA degree from the ICP at AUCA (2001). He earned his MA degree in social science and economics from the University of Bonn and the University of Hamburg (2006), Germany. In 2013, he was a visiting scholar at Indiana University, USA. During 2006-2010, Rouslan worked as a research fellow and a program manager at “ABH Institut für Sozialforschung”, a German based research institute in Hamburg. Between 2010-12, he worked as an assistant professor at ICP in AUCA. His research interests include sociology of religion, education and religion, educational policy, and trends and reforms in higher education.

Видео Rouslan Jalil / The Social Significance of Islam in Post-Soviet Central Asia: The Case of Kyrgyzstan канала AUCA Anthropology