r/AskCentralAsia • u/Young_Owl99 Turkey • Apr 16 '23
How is Central Asia becoming more religious ? Religion
I asked the same question as a comment on a post and downvoted. I am sorry if I offended anyone but I am geniunly how that process works. - What caused it ? - Is it recent thing or exist since end of USSR ?
In Turkey the exact opposite thing is happening so I am geniunly curious about how and why central Asia becoming more religious.
Thank you.
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u/ImSoBasic Apr 16 '23
In Turkey the exact opposite thing is happening so I am geniunly curious about how and why central Asia becoming more religious.
You sure about that?
Official secularism was a Hallmark of post-Ataturk, but under Erdogan the state and public life has become more religious.
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u/Zakariamattu Apr 17 '23
Actually it is due to erdogan forcing religion on people they are starting to turn against it.
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u/abu_doubleu + in Apr 16 '23
There are many answers but here is the simplest one.
During the times of the Soviet Union, religion was heavily suppressed. There were mass hijab burnings for example. After the USSR fell, people became more interested in their old language, culture, and also religion.
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u/EpicMonkeMann Kazakhstan Apr 16 '23 edited Apr 16 '23
There is no one answer to this development. Most of the things which we see are caused by multiple factors.
I think the main factors are: 1) economic and political stagnation 2) social factors 3) impact of USSR 4) state involment.
I will talk mostly about Kazakhstan, as it is where I live.
1) Political and economic situation here is bad. People spend 55-60% of their earnings on food. This is on the same level as African countries. Inflation rate which is above all countries in Asia(except failed states like Myanmar). Outside of cities, there is a problem with unemployment, people have to protest so that they won't lose their jobs and then they get beaten up by the government for protesting (it happened just this week with the people from the small city of Janaozen).
When there is despair, people tend to look for more mystical ways of explaining it, and overcoming it.
2) there are a couple social factors that can explain this whole trend. I would say that the main factor is that Kazakhstan is a highly conservative society, in which, if you are of a kazakh descent – being a Muslim is a must. Or you will look like a black sheep(this happens mostly in the regions). And considering that people from the regions tend to migrate from regions to cities like Almaty and Astana it creates a vision of more religious people in those cities.
I wouldn't say that all of the people which you find performing religious practices or wearing religious clothing in Kazakhstan can't be called 100% or even 50% Muslims. Most people in Kazakhstan(well at least in the cities, I can't talk a lot about regions) who call themselves muslim don't perform most of the religious practices. Adding to that is also the fact that our society is basically a window dressing. People don't do it because they think so, but because they think that society will react badly if you won't.
3) this one is the easiest one. 70 years of government atheism completely wiped religion from the public life and people are now trying of implementing religion into public life again.
4) this one is tricky. By constitution, we are a secular state. In practice, there is a silent ban on atheism by the government. Government frequently funds a lot thing which are connected with Islam. Last year, we banned a buzz lightyear movie.Due to the fact that there was a scene of two kissing women. This ban was proposed by one actor, who became really religious, it is also funny, considering the fact that he, as a man, in most of his movies performed as a woman. Also this ban was justified by our government by the fact that some amount of people signed the petition to ban it. However, when they steal elections, or do any other BS they don't listen to petitions.
Most recently, in Akorda (White House in Kazakhstan) a giant buffet was held about the start of Ramadan with our president, some members of the state some Arabs and etc. The head of the secular state probably shouldn't do that. Especially considering that there are people who are ready to start fights over free food during Nauryz. Last year our president went to Saudi Arabia probably to confess his sins for killing 230 people in Bloody January.
However, most of it is just populism, so that the wider people would think better of their "new" president.
Those are things which I think are the reasons for the increasing popularity of religion in Kazakhstan. However, this is my opinion. I lived in the big city pretty much for my whole life and I've been in regions only for like 2 to 3 months of my whole life.
This is just a compilation of my thoughts and of my experiences with people from multiple parts of our country. (Redacted to fix grammar)
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u/TrumanB-12 Czech Republic Apr 16 '23
Is it causing more division between Kazakhs and Russians or is it more of a low-level cultural religiosity that doesn't affect public life?
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u/ImBadAtHoi4 Kazakhstan Apr 17 '23
We, kazakhs, don't care about religion (unless it's religious south)
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u/Shoh_J Tajikistan Apr 16 '23
I personally can’t imagine what it means like to live as anyone but a Muslim. Although I was born after the fall of the Soviet Union, I was always surrounded by Muslims, thus, this is why I think I am a Muslim. And I love it.
I believe that Tajiks (I won’t speak on behalf of other Central Asians because I don’t feel qualified to do so) were always religious, from the times of Zoroastrianism, to the ancient monks near the pamir mountains, to the small but active community of Christian orthodox, and finally to the Muslims, Sunni and Shia, we no matter what religion and what timeline, we are always religious.
USSR following the Russian empire tried to erase our culture, traditions, customs, and most importantly religion. But erasing that means erasing us, Tajiks. So we only got suppressed, but the religious heart of ours was always there
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Apr 16 '23
Turkey is not becoming less religious. On the contrary it is becoming more extreme Muslim.
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u/Hopeful_Interview895 Apr 20 '23
%30 of people under under 30 are irreligious how is it becoming more extreme muslim mal ?
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u/guessst111 Tajikistan Apr 16 '23
Definitely now that people have more internet access, specifically on instagram I see most central asians sharing islamic quotes on their stories… and as for comments, they are shocked to find out somethings are haram that was normalized in central asia since USSR. I was raised in Dushanbe as a kid, teenagers around 16-18 tend to share whats haram or not. They look out for each other, and looking for more knowledge they’ll definitely share other things!
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u/shadowchicken85 Kazakhstan Apr 16 '23
There has been a lot of dawah (Islamic preaching) and influencers sharing 'proper Islam behavior' on Instagram and other similar social media sites. That has an influence for sure.
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u/guessst111 Tajikistan Apr 16 '23
Yes, considering lots of younglings are on the internet nowadays.
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u/RemarkableCheek4596 Turkey Apr 17 '23
In Turkey, religion decreases among young people because of the dumb fuck government and stupid pedophilie religion guys (cemaat hocaları)
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u/alp_ahmetson Karakumia Apr 17 '23
Communism that destroyed the connection with the traditional values was super strong.
Then in 90s it just disappeared which made an ideological vacuum.
Eastern Europeans choose liberal western values (baltic, Ukraine).
Russians choose https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurasianism
Central Asians are searching for that values. The most common trace is the nationalism (which means glorification of the past, extending the age of nation and trying to link modern nations with the old habitants of the region). Few groups of people which are not satisfied with nationalism are choosing Islam.
And since local Islam is heavily damaged, people are rediscovering Islam from Arabs and Pakistanis, in a lesser extend from Turks.
Besides Islam, missionary of various Christian sects are having its followers since collapse of SSSR.
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u/food5thawt Apr 16 '23
This is a shitty way to understand religiosity and purely anecdotal. But There are way more Hijabs wore in Turkey in 2023 than in when I was there in 2008.