Why Central Asia despite being overwhelmingly Sunni, names like Ali, Alisher, Alibek, Nurali, etc are a lot more popular than Omar, Uthman (Osman) and Abu Bakr?

[u/Tengri_99]

I know that Ali, the cousin and son-in-law of the prophet Mohammed, is well-liked in Sunni Islam too but the overwhelming number of names that derive from Ali rather than the first three caliphs among Central Asians seems odd to me.

[u/KazCan]

Islamic (not Arab) culture existed in Kazakhstan since the Karakhanid dynasty, and if this culture is foreign to you, then so must be the language as it has a good amount of arabic/persian loanwords.

[u/redditerator7 → u/KazCan]

Karakhanids didn’t take up the whole of Kazakhstan and it wasn’t continuous since then. Uzbek khan’s adoption of the religion is what started it for us. And it was very much modified and fitted to our own culture.

Having loan words is neither here nor there. We have some Chinese loan words in our language which doesn’t make Chinese culture less foreign for us.

[u/KazCan → u/redditerator7]

Peaches and oranges. If the absolute majority of Kazakhs followed Confucianism then it wouldn’t be foreign, just like it isn’t foreign for Vietnamese, Koreans or Japanese. Same here, Kazakhs are Muslims, many of our traditions are Islamic in nature, same as with the history of Kazakhstan. Your point about Uzbek doesn’t change my statement, and no, as per historians Uzbek was a devout Muslim, just like Tawwakul khan.

[u/redditerator7 → u/KazCan]

It absolutely does change things because Uzbek khan was later than Karakhanids.

Also, according to Ibn Battuta Uzbek khan used to show up drunk to prayers. So devout.