Islam in World Cultures: Comparative Perspectives - Islamic Books ...

Islam in Contemporary Central Asia 1 4 5Asia and has been quite influential abroad, assumes that the revival of religiousactivity will inexorably lead to the emergence of Islam as a political forcethat will threaten the established secular regimes and destabilize the entire region.A closer look at the nature of the revival and its relation to deeper socialand cultural forces, on the one hand, and to state power, on the other, leadsone to conclude that such alarmist prognoses overstate the case.To d a y ’s Islamic revival originated in the context of the open assertion of nationalidentity that took place throughout the former Soviet Union in the late1980s as glasnost broke old taboos. Nationalist discourses were now free to explorenational and cultural legacies beyond the constraints placed on them bythe Soviet regime. For Central Asians, that freedom meant rediscovering Islamand Muslim culture and reestablishing links with the broader Muslim worldthat had been severed by Soviet xenophobia and the downplaying of historicallinks with non-Soviet nations. There was, in addition, a search for old spiritualand moral values that many felt had been lost during the Soviet period. Thereligious revival in this sense is profoundly national, one aspect of reclaimingand asserting national identity. None of this was unique to Central Asia. Indeed,the religious revival in Russia itself has been more spectacular than inCentral Asia: The Russian Orthodox Church has a secure place in official function,churches in Moscow’s Kremlin are fully functional, and many new oneshave been built. The religious revival has also encompassed the large numbersof non-Muslims living in Central Asia—mostly settlers from European parts ofthe former Soviet Union.The most ubiquitous sign of the re-Islamization of society has been the availabilityof what one might call “religious commodities” (see by way of comparisonStarrett 1995) in Central Asia. These range from plaques and stickers bearingprayers in Arabic and calendars with dates of Islamic holidays to postersbearing the photographs of the holy sites in Mecca and Medina and new editionsof the works of “classical” Muslim authors of Central Asia. Yet the life ofthese religious commodities is different from what it is elsewhere in the Muslimworld: In the cities of Uzbekistan, they often share shelf space with foreignliquor and tobacco, the most palpable symbols of the “opening” of the regionto the outside world.All the same, the publishing scene has been transformed, and many moreIslamic texts are available now than was even conceivable until 1988. “Islamic”books have appeared in substantial numbers since the 1990s. Nevertheless,publishing in Central Asia is very different from publishing in the Middle Eastor South Asia. A brief survey of the new “Islamic” books and their place on thepublishing scene will serve to highlight the peculiarities of contemporary CentralAsian Islam.In terms of content, the new Islamic books concentrate on introducing thebasic tenets of Islam or on providing basic Islamic knowledge that was lost