An Islamic Renaissance In Central Asia

By Sikander Hayat

Islam is by no means the only religion to have flourished in Central Asia and
the Caucasus. Prior to the Arab arrival in the seventh century, this region
was the main locus of Zoroastrianism. This fundamental religion of both
East and West gave the world the concepts of both Heaven (paradise) and
Hell, and also of saints, and thus directly inspired Judaism, Christianity and
Islam itself. Central Asia was also a great center of Buddhism, the region
where that faith was consolidated and codified in a way that enabled it to be
transmitted to China, Korea, and Japan.

Absorbed into this world, Islam in Central Asia and the Caucasus took on
several distinctive features.
First, it had a strong and consistent practical streak. The traders who
adopted Islam naturally favoured the Hanafi school of law, Islam’s most
pragmatic and worldly system of regulating conduct. Second, it possessed a
strong analytical streak that interacted easily with classical and secular
learning. Thanks to this, Central Asians played an exceptionally powerful
role in codifying Islam, with al Bukhari’s compendium of the sayings of
Mohammed remaining the standard text. Third, it was indifferent and even
hostile to formalism.
When by the eleventh century Arab Islam had gelled
into a stultifying array of external rituals, Central Asian Islam reacted by
developing the Sufi movements, which rapidly took root also in the
Caucasus.
Sufism stressed inner spirituality, mysticism, and the cult of saints. The latter led to an
intensive localization of Islam in Central Asia and the Caucasus, with shrines
to local saints dotting the landscape. The fact that many of
the founders of Islam itself are all to be found in the region has left Muslims there convinced that their region is the heartland of the faith, not a provincial outpost.


Ibn Sina (known to Europe as Avicenna, the founder of modern
medicine), al Khorezmi (inventor of algorithms), and many other scientists
advanced secular learning, even as they affirmed Islam.

Soviet rule in Central Asia and the Caucasus diminished most Muslim institutions and reduced them to the conduct of life-cycle rituals. Mass Soviet education successfully imposed

both literacy and secular western learning on the entire population. By the
1960s one could be “Muslim” in the sense of practicing birth, marriage, and
death rituals. The erosion of faith in salvation through Marxism-Leninism opened a cultural and psychological gap. Secular parts of the population filled it by looking directly to the West for the first time. The rest of the population tried to follow suit, but at the same time began groping
into the region’s Muslim heritage for a new base of identity.
Today, Islam is back in central Asia with vengeance and making its mark on all aspects of life. An Islamic renaissance is sweeping the region and reclaiming Islam as a code of life.