RELIGION

Abdulvokhid SHAMOLOV, Abdunabi SATTORZODA

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Abdulvokhid Shamolov, D.Sc. (Philos.), professor, department head, Center of Strategic Studies under the President of the Republic of Tajikistan (Dushanbe, Tajikistan)

Abdunabi Sattorzoda, D.Sc. (Philol.), professor, department head, Center of Strategic Studies under the President of the Republic of Tajikistan (Dushanbe, Tajikistan)

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There are no official figures on the percentages of followers of various religions in the republic’s total population: the recent population census was not interested in religious affiliations. According to expert assessments, 97 percent of the population is Muslim, most of whom are Sunni of the Hanafi madhab; however, there are any number of the Shi‘a Twelvers (the school that recognizes 12 imams), Ismailite Shi‘a Seveners (the school that recognizes only seven imams) and Sufi of the Naqshbandiyya order. Orthodox Christians, Catholics, followers of the New Apostolic and Lutheran churches, as well as Seven Day Adventists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, followers of the Korean-led Grace Sonmin (Protestant) Church, Judaists, Hindus, members of the Rama Krishna Mission and the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, Baptists, and followers of Zardushtism make the republic’s religious picture very diverse indeed.

Very much like in other Muslim countries of the East, the Tajik state is not based on a civil society, which means that the official political and the real public structures are separated.

The traditional and the contemporary can become closer to a certain extent, if integration between the state and………………

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