Early Islam: Cities, Nomads and Sufis

Islam first arrived in Central Asia in the 8th century with Arab armies and traders. The faith took root most quickly in the region’s oasis cities. “The first Islamic strongholds” were Bukhara, Samarkand and Kokand, and “sedentary people in these cities were Islamized” by the Abbasid caliphate in the 700s. By contrast, nomadic groups on the Kazakh steppe and Kyrgyz highlands resisted conversion longer: only in the 10th–18th centuries did Sufi preachers slowly win them over. As Lenz-Raymann explains, these different paths left a lasting imprint: ancient stone madrasas and mosques dot the old cities of Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, whereas the traditional nomadic lands have far fewer monuments from that era. (Some scholars once assumed nomads were “less religious” for converting later, but Lenz-Raymann points out there is no simple link between literacy and faith; Islam has long found devoted followers in nomadic societies too.)

Sufi brotherhoods were crucial in spreading Islam among Central Asian peoples. Charismatic shaykhs and ishans (spiritual guides) preached a mystical form of Sunni Islam that resonated across ethnic lines. Under the great Seljuk dynasty in the 11th–12th centuries, for example, “integration of Sufism into the state religion” was actively promoted. By the time of Timur’s empire (14th century), Lenz-Raymann reports, Sufism had become the “dominant part of cultural life” in Central Asia. Mosques and madrasas still existed, but religious authority increasingly lay with Sufi leaders: “it was no longer the ulama… but Sufi shaykhs and ishans who played a paramount role in the religious class”. In short, the spiritual networks of orders like the Naqshbandiyah knit together city-dwellers and nomads and kept Islam alive even through violent upheavals.

Imperial Rivalries and New Empires

Across these centuries, Central Asia hosted a succession of empires. The Samanid dynasty (9th–10th century) based in Bukhara made Islam its state religion and presided over a golden age of learning and Persianate culture. Later, the Turkic-led Shaybanid rulers (16th–17th century) also supported Islam. Lenz-Raymann notes that under the Shaybanids, rulers maintained close ties to the Naqshbandi order: the heads of Sufi tariqas were often drawn from the most powerful families, which in turn helped stabilize those khanates. By the 18th century a patchwork of Uzbek khanates (Bukhara, Khiva, Kokand) governed the oases, each declaring Sunni Hanafi Islam as the official creed. Even as they clung to Islamic legitimacy, these states were eventually drawn into the expanding Russian Empire: the khanates of Bukhara and Khiva became Russian protectorates in the 1860s–70s, and by the 1880s Central Asia was largely conquered. In Lenz-Raymann’s words, “hundreds of years of Islam as (quasi) state religion… came to an end”.

Tsarist rule was ambivalent toward Islam. On one hand, the Russian authorities set up formal Muslim institutions – for example Catherine the Great created a Muslim clerical council in 1788 – and even granted religious freedoms to Tatars and other Muslims. On the other hand, suspicion remained: Orthodox officials feared that “fanatical Islam” might spark rebellions. Lenz-Raymann cites a historian noting that czarist policy varied from deep suspicion (viewing Islam as a cause of uprisings) to conditional tolerance (seeing it potentially as a “civilizing factor” among nomads). In practice, local Muslims were often left to run their own courts and schools, as long as imperial interests (economic development, military control of the steppe) were safeguarded.

Revolution, Repression, and Soviet Control

The Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 upended everything. At first the new Soviet government was cautious about taking on Islam, because the Russian Orthodox Church was the bigger target and because Islam was deeply rooted in Central Asian societies. In fact, early Soviet decrees abolished the tsarist judicial system but for a time preserved Muslim sharia courts and waqf trusts in Central Asia. Worship and religious schooling were relatively free through the early 1920s. But this brief respite did not last. By the late 1920s, Lenz-Raymann reports, the regime unleashed “a very severe campaign… to suppress Islam”. Hundreds of mosques, madrasas and religious schools were shut down; the Sufi brotherhoods were declared “un-Islamic”; and countless clerics, Sufi pirs and ordinary believers were arrested or executed. Customary practices such as circumcision or shrine veneration were banned. For Central Asian peoples, Stalin’s collectivization and man-made famines in the 1930s were especially devastating – as the author notes, millions of Kazakhs died – crushing not only their physical survival but also their ability to resist cultural purges.

Yet the Soviet anti-religious drive was not constant. Occasionally Moscow relaxed restrictions, especially during World War II when it urgently needed Central Asians’ support. New official Muslim bodies were formed – most notably the Spiritual Administration of the Muslims of Central Asia and Kazakhstan (SADUM) in Tashkent in 1943 – marking a pragmatic retreat from outright repression. From the 1960s on, Soviet ideology even recast Islam as a folk tradition: party leaders allowed a forma of Muslim identity to persist as cultural heritage. Belonging to a Muslim nationality became tolerated, and one could even be an “atheist Muslim” in the nomenklatura jargon.Soviet students of theology were sent to study in Egypt and Syria to project a tolerant image, unwittingly sowing seeds for future change (see below).

Still, for much of the Soviet era official Islam was tightly controlled. By mid-century only a few hundred mosques remained open out of tens of thousands. Those that were allowed had to register with SADUM, which vetted sermon texts and ordered imams to include communist themes in prayers. Meanwhile, shrine-based and Sufi practices were driven underground: Lenz-Raymann explains that Soviet authorities took pains to show that saint-veneration was “actually un-Islam” and branded Sufi tariqas “parallel” or even illegal . In effect, two Islams emerged under communism: the official brand – Hanafi doctrine under SADUM’s oversight – and the unofficial folkloric Islam that many kept alive privately.

Official vs. Folk Islam and the Roots of New Movements

Even as Soviet rulers tried to eradicate religious life, many Central Asians quietly clung to faith. Shrines and family pirs remained focal points for local practice, even if officially banned. Lenz-Raymann notes that students learned religion at home and people still celebrated rites of birth, marriage and death in Islamic ways. Importantly, the “official” Soviet clergy were never wholly separate from the “parallel” clergy. Often they came from the same khoja (clerical) families and rural networks. When official mullahs were assigned to state mosques, they frequently maintained links with underground teachers. In this way a popular Islam endured: women “biotunchis” taught the Quran at home, elders held Islamic lessons in teahouses, and pilgrims secretly visited mazars (saints’ tombs). As Lenz-Raymann concludes, “Islam remained important to the Central Asian people throughout the communist decades”.

Ironically, some Soviet policies accelerated later revivals. In the 1970s and 1980s the regime allowed or even sponsored reformist clergy who had studied abroad. Returning students, influenced by the Muslim Brotherhood, preached an anti-superstition message. As one scholar put it, these young ulemas were politically loyal to the USSR but were “elaborating an uncompromising brand of Islam”. They did not rebel directly, but quietly encouraged what would become the region’s Salafi movement. Lenz-Raymann cites experts who argue that post-Soviet “fundamentalist Islam” in Central Asia has its roots in this era: by suppressing traditional Sufis, the Soviets left a vacuum filled by scripturalist groups. In fact, party officials at times backed the new Salafi-leaning leaders to divide the religious class; over time this contributed to a split between Hanafite conservatives and more reformist currents.

Glasnost, Independence, and Legacy

By the late 1980s Gorbachev’s reforms greatly loosened religious policy. Thousands of mosques reopened, and by 1990 over a thousand were officially registered across the USSR. Parallel mullahs proudly donned turbans and resumed teaching in neighborhood mosques. Sermons grew more freely Islamic, and state controls on content fell away. Within a few years the Soviet Union collapsed, and the new Central Asian republics faced the challenge of integrating this long-suppressed faith into society.

Lenz-Raymann suggests that today’s Islamic landscape is a palimpsest of this history. In many countries, the official clergy and institutions remain heirs to the Soviet/SADUM structure. Some governments emphasize traditional Hanafi and Sufi heritage (partly to distinguish themselves from radical trends), even as private Salafi and other movements gain followers. Meanwhile, popular Islam continues in family life and cultural rituals just as it did under communism. As one historian observes, the Soviet project “never fully succeeded” in eradicating Islam because local people found myriad ways to practice it covertly.

Ultimately, Lenz-Raymann underscores a “vicious circle” in which state control and public faith have fed each other. Policies of repression often strengthened religious identity, while state support for a narrow “official Islam” aroused resistance and drove people to underground traditions. Today’s Central Asian leaders draw on both legacies: they promote a sanitized, “national” Islam rooted in pre-Soviet history (citations of Timur and Naqshbandi heritage are common) while also using the apparatus built by Moscow to regulate mosques and clergy. The author’s historical account shows how centuries of conquest, empire and ideology have left a complex legacy. Islam in Central Asia has been alternately patronized and persecuted, written into constitutions and driven into hidden khanqahs – yet it has endured as a living thread through these vicissitudes.

Sources:  Kathrin Lenz-Raymann, Securitization of Islam: A Vicious Circle.