RELIGION

Iakov TROFIMOV

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Iakov Trofimov, Ph.D. (Philos.), professor at the Karaganda “Bolashak” Institute of Actual Education (Karaganda, Kazakhstan)

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In 2006, just as before, the cult of the republic’s President Saparmurat Niyazov-Turkmenbashi (Father of all Turkmen) dominated Turkmenistan’s religious scene. This cult supplied a graphic example of a contemporary secular religion that pervaded all spheres of activities based on two volumes of Rukhnama written in 2001-2004, and on his other smaller creative works and speeches.

In March, the already accepted thesis of the book’s holy nature was confirmed by the president’s statement that those who read the book three times would go to heaven. On 19 March, speaking at the Navruz Bayram festival that marked the national spring holiday he said: “When I finished writing the first and second books of Rukhnama, I asked Allah to send to heaven those who read the book three times at home aloud—one hour at dawn and one hour at night.” This invited caustic comments in the media the world over, but strangely enough none of them came from Muslim theologians.

Rukhnamization of the entire country was the most important element of Turkmenistan’s newly created secular religion and the main determining factor in government policy in relation to the local religious communities. The new religion aimed at a syncretic marriage of Niyazov’s ideas with Islam, in which Rukhnama was a holy book while the Koran was…………..

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