RELIGIOUS THOUGHT IN CENTRAL ASIA: IT NEEDS A MAJOR OVERHAUL

Abdullo KHAKIM

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Abdullo Khakim, Political scientist, specialist in Islam, lecturer at the Department of Political Science, Tajik State National University (Dushanbe, Tajikistan)

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Islam, one of the most stable aspects of Central Asia today, has a considerable influence on the local historical and sociopolitical processes and their trends. Its potential and stability are rooted in the unique combination of historical and political circumstances that add legitimacy to Islam and ensure its future.

Islam as an important strategic factor cannot be excluded from the region’s social and political life: all the Central Asian countries are doing their best to make it more constructive and to use its huge physical and moral potential to build democratic nation-states.

Today, Islam in Central Asia is very conservative and steeped in tradition; while still an important factor in the present sociopolitical context, it is experiencing a crisis created by the gap between the type and level of religious awareness and the realities of developed contemporary society. Being weak intellectually and lacking structure, Islam is unable to play the constructive and creative function inherent in it. This explains why in Central Asia its role is not always positive; more often than not this negatively affects the sociopolitical processes there.

The pernicious results are clearly demonstrated by two very important aspects. First, while the level of religious awareness in a society that is behind the times remains low, religion, with its untapped potential, is degenerating from a consolidating factor into a factor of instability and……………..

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