Publication

This paper analyzes shifting contemporary alignments of Islam and secularism in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. Despite the common changes in the religious field in all the successor states of the Soviet Union, Islamic revival in Kyrgyzstan carries distinctive features due to exceptional transformations in social, political, and economic realms; and unique national and cultural legacies. There is an increasing divide between Islamist and secular elites. While the latter highlight the importance of traditions and insists that the way the Kyrgyz practice Islam as entwined with traditions is the marker of a Kyrgyz identity, the former base their main critique on this argumentation.