Publication

This paper analyzes how the main relevant institutional and individual actors in the Kyrgyz capital, Bishkek, develop strategies to Islamize Kyrgyz, and how and why the Kyrgyz people agree to change the way they define themselves as Muslims. After the lifting of Soviet Union-era restrictions on religious expression, various groups have made it their main goal to convert nominal Muslim Kyrgyz into 'true' Muslims. Many Kyrgyz have been willing to participate in this Islamization project–even if it meant that they would have to negotiate between a multitude of local customs, on the one hand, and the new understandings brought by Islamization, on the other.