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Contents : Talking Points Muslim Life in Central Asia 1943-1985 Eren Tasar During the Soviet period many and probably most Central Asian Muslims came to identify themselves as proud and loyal Soviet citizens. It cannot be denied that during the Soviet period many Central Asian Muslims regarded Soviet Communism as antithetical to their moral and/or political aspirations. However it seems at least possible that this attitude constituted more the exception than the rule. Central Asian Muslims identified with Soviet civilization which they defined not as Russian culture but as shared experiences common to all Soviet citizens. At the same time they retained a distinct notion of a Central Asian Islamic civilization in which migrants from other parts of the Soviet Union including non-Central Asian Muslims could not participate. Among figures of religious authority there existed an Islamically informed critique of nationalism and Soviet nationalities policy. Unregistered (i.e. illegal) networks of Islamic education thrived during the Brezhnev period bringing together students from all across Central Asia with renowned scholars (e.g. Muhammadjon domla al-Hindustoniy in Dushanbe). Legally registered Islamic figures came to be identified by Soviet bureaucrats and scholars as representatives of official Islam. Those figures operating without registration came to be identified as representatives of popular or unofficial Islam. The evidence does not support the bureaucratic characterization of official and unofficial Islam as two distinct realms of religious life. Significant interaction and cooperation occurred between figures with registration and those lacking it especially in the realm of Islamic education. 1 Executive Summary Eren Tasar 1. Title of Research Proposal Muslim Life in Central Asia 1943-1985 2. Topic of Research This project envisions a socio-cultural history of Muslim life in Soviet Central Asia. It explores how the social and religious life of Muslim communities changed under the political and especially social conditions engendered by Soviet policies. My research will also address the manner in which Soviet bureaucracies analyzed and understood the religious practices and beliefs of Central Asian Muslims. Taken together these two components of the history of Muslim life in Soviet Central Asia will lead to a broader and substantially more complex and nuanced understanding of the unique interaction between Islam and Soviet Communism in the region. 3. Relevance and Contribution to Field Muslim identity as well as the social and religious life of Muslim communities evolved in Central Asia during the Soviet period. Anthropologists historians and political scientists studying Islam in Central Asia have debated the nature of this evolution in the realms of social cultural and political life. The analysis has tended to define the relationship between Muslims and the Soviet party-state as one of opposition. Many of these scholars have asked whether Muslims engaged the party-state and Communist ideology in a spirit of uncompromising resistance sustained by their religious convictions and therefore viewed the Soviet state as utterly alien to their values and aspirations. Soviet sources and ethnographers in particular saw the observance of Islamic obligations (e.g. prayer fasting) among Muslim populations as indicators of opposition to Communist-led progress. Those scholars touching upon social history in their works also gravitated towards an oppositional representation of the impact of Soviet rule upon the values and behavior of Muslims in everyday life. In the literature on Central Asia which includes works by Western and other non-Soviet historians and political scientists as well as relevant selections from the body of Soviet ethnographic literature on Islam in Soviet Central Asia - this analytical opposition has taken two forms. On the one hand some scholars both assumed and attempted to demonstrate that the social life of Muslim communities as well as the political aspirations of Muslims remained unchanged during the Soviet period even if the political conditions confronting them did become radically transformed. In this framework one could not be a full-fledged Soviet citizen loyal to the Soviet state integrated socially and culturally into Soviet life and a believing Muslim at the same time. This strand of scholarship stressed the implacable resistance of Muslims to Soviet rule treating such a posture as the natural innate inevitable outcome of adherence to the Islamic faith in Soviet conditions. Works falling into this category presented the Muslim societies of Central Asia and in particular rural populations as immune to the influence of Soviet modernity 2 responding to Soviet policies politically and culturally in a manner defined by pre-revolutionary values and aspirations .1 On the

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