Religion (1999) 29, 275–286Article No. reli.1999.0173, available online at http://www.idealibrary.com on

FIELD REPORT

In Search of Islam in Kyrgyzstan

M G

The aim of this article is to give an overall picture of the ‘renaissance’ of Islam inKyrgyzstan. We have little information about the Islamisation of this old nomadicpeople. Kyrgyz living in the Ferghana Valley started to adopt Islam in the lateseventeenth century. A Soviet Socialist Republic was formed in 1936. During theSoviet period, religious activities outside those approved by the Government wereprohibited. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Islam is slowly coming back to lifein Kyrgyzstan. ? 1999 Academic Press

IntroductionThe Soviet city planners had obviously different ideas about the aesthetic of whatCentral Asian cities should be. When you are walking on the streets of Bishkek, thereis no doubt that you are in the ex-Soviet Union. In fact, one could be almost anywherein the former Empire. The Central European and Baltic countries are, however, adifferent case. As usual, one can admire the numerous grey buildings—without sayingugly—and walk on the same grandiose boulevard where tanks have enough room toshow their latest tricks. There is the similar central square where you find theunmistakable statues of Lenin, generally not too far from the usual theatre and circus.Overall, there is the same everything that you typically think of when having urbannightmares. Since the unwanted independence of Kyrgyzstan from the defunct SovietUnion, things have not really changed that much in Kyrgyzstan. Of course, there aremore Western products available, more Mercedes-Benz cars with suspicious darkwindows, but the minds of the people are generally still tuned to Soviet channels.

However, there is something different about Bishkek. In fact, there is something thatyou do not find anywhere else in the former Soviet Union. I discovered it whilewalking along Manas street. The name of the street is intriguing enough, and it is arefreshing change from the usual names such as Mosckovskaya, Leninsky, Sovietskayaand Engelsa. On this Manas street there is a huge statue in front of the concert hall. Thestatue represents the Kyrgyz epic hero called ‘Manas’. He is sitting on a galloping horseand charging an imaginary adversary with a sword in his hand. Somehow the entirescene reminds me of Don Quixote sitting on Rossinante, charging the famous windmill.

Strangely enough, a few blocs away, there is a monumental statue of the camaradeLenin. Obviously, the statue resisted the fall of the ‘evil’ empire. In his usual posture,Lenin is depicted with his finger pointing to the horizon. One should note that, in theformer communist symbolic world, the finger points in the direction to be followedin order to reach the parinirvana of the proletariat: the classless society. The statuereminds me, again, of Don Quixote pointing to Sancho Pancha the direction of thewindmill.

If you look more closely at Manas, Lenin and Don Quixote, you see that they sharemany common features. Except for their beard, it is their power to create imaginary

? 1999 Academic Press0048–721X/99/030275+12 r30.00/0

276 M. Gardaz

worlds that strike the observer. During the Soviet epoch, artists depicted the camaradeLenin, and the revolutionary exploits of the working class. But times have obviouslychanged. Manas has become, since the independence of the country, the new icon ofartists. Numerous painters are now passionately representing the imaginary exploits ofManas. The rare art galleries of Bishkek are now bursting with paintings of Manas. Onehas the impression that the entire artistic community has the sacred mission ofportraying Manas in all possible postures.

It is not only the artists that follow the new Manas fashion. Many televisioncommercials use characters drawn directly from the epic. Bakai, for example, a relativeof Manas, is considered a wise man. Bakai is now the name of a prominent businessventure in Kyrgyzstan. Publicists use a character like Bakai in order to tell the peoplewhere to do their banking, where to shop, and other messages of this type. Also, folksingers dressed in traditional outfits sing every night on local television, and the‘manaschi’ (bards) recite episodes of the Manas. All of these characters seem to havecome directly from the epic story.

In this Manasmania, where is Muhammad, the prophet of Islam? At first glance, thereis no obvious sign that Islam is the official religion of the Kyrgyz. When you walk in thestreet of the capital, you feel only the cold breeze of ‘Scientific Atheism’ blowing inyour face. One would be tempted to believe that Manas is the real prophet of theKyrgyz people. Is Kyrgyzstan a Muslim country or not? In order to answer the question,let us look at some historical facts and at some general features of the country.

Wandering in the SteppesWe have relatively little information about the history of this very old nomadic people.The origin of Kyrgyz is lost in the wilderness of the steppe. A myth says that forty youngwomen came back from a walk and found their camp destroyed and the populationexterminated. The young girls didn’t want to stay alone, so they decided to mate withdogs. Another version of the myth claims that the women mated with cows. Theoffspring created by this union were the first Kyrgyz. This myth would later adopt a newform in order to account for the Islamisation of Kyrgyz.

These people lived in the Yenisei valley in Siberia for a long time before becomingnomadic. In the tenth century, they ventured into the Mongolian steppes, but wereeventually chased away. Around the sixteenth or seventeenth century, the advance ofthe Russian, other sources say the Kalmuks, pushed the Kyrgyz toward what would laterbecome Kyrgyzstan. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the Kyrgyz wereunder the rule of the Oirat Mongols. After the defeat of the Oirats by the Manchuarmies in 1757–8, Kyrgyz became, it seems, the ‘nominal subjects’ of the Chinesedynasty. A thousand years after losing the decisive battle of Talas (751), the Chinesearmies conquered what is now called the Xianjiang province. The Uighurs have sincethen lived under the rule of the Celestial Empire.

In the nineteenth century some Kyrgyz tribes took to the nomadic life on theterritory controlled by the Khanate of Kokand. The fortress of Pishpek, built in 1825,is the precursor to modern Bishkek. The city has been known since 1926 as Frunze. Themajority of residents of this small settlement are Uzbeks. However, the Kyrgyz ‘pitchtheir yurts’ around the outskirts of the city. The fortress later fell to the Russianinvaders. In 1882, the first census counted 2135 persons, mostly Uzbeks and Tatars.1

The Kyrgyz numbered only six! The Russians and later the Soviets became thearchitects of the future capital of Kyrgyzstan.

In Search of Islam in Kyrgyzstan 277

The Kyrgyz were easily swallowed up by the Russian Empire. After the Revolutionof 1917, Soviet power was gradually established upon the region. Later, an autonomousrepublic was formed and became a Soviet Socialist Republic in 1936. Like their Kazakneighbours, the Kyrgyz suffered heavy losses during collectivisation. In the case ofKazaks, about one quarter of the population died in the process. Later, the Kyrgyzpolitical opposition suffered from the purges of Stalin.

Since August 31 1991, this newly created country has been, for the first time, free tochoose its own path. However, the majority of the population had no desire, accordingto what I have often been told, to become independent. In fact, many regret the end ofthe Soviet Union. President Askar Akayev has held power since the independence, andthe next election is scheduled for the year 2000. Akayev won the last electionunopposed. Surprisingly enough, he was not a member of the prior Communist regimebut a member of the Academy of Science.

Today, this small land-locked country, slightly smaller than South Dakota, has apopulation of about 4 600 000 people. According to the figures at hand, the main ethnicdivisions are as follows: Kyrgyz account for about 53% of the population, the Russians22%, and the Uzbeks 13%. There are also other minorities such as Ukranians, Germans,Uighurs, Tatars, and so on.

The economy of Kyrgyzstan is based on agriculture. According to an old figure(1989), 62% of the population live in rural areas. Kyrgyzstan is the poorest, afterTajikistan, of all Central Asian countries. However, it has hydroelectric energy,significant deposits of gold, some minerals, even small oil and gas deposits. Officially, theunemployment rate is 6 or 7%. But these figures do not come close to reality. InBishkek, I was told by different unofficial sources that unemployment stands at about40%. In order to explain this discrepancy, one should look closely at the government’sshrewd definition of employment. The average monthly salary is in the range of r20 tor30 per month. It should be also mentioned that the drug trade—cannabis and opiumpoppies—in the Ferghana valley is quite important. The numerous military check-points surrounding the city of Osh indicate how serious this problem is.2

The Lost MemoryThe Islamisation of the Kyrgyz people is not fully understood. Scholars seems to agreethat this process occurred gradually. In other words, the Kyrgyz did not convert to Islamen masse, like the Karakhanids in the tenth century.

The oral tradition of this nomadic people has partially forgotten an important episodeof their history. I asked two different groups of students about the Islamisation of theirancestors. Surprisingly, no one knew anything about the subject. Many students whoidentify themselves as Muslims do not know even the basics of their religion. Some ofthem did not know the meaning of the arabic words Islam and Qur’an. In one group,three students among thirty-five had vaguely heard about Sufism. No one had heard ofthe Naqshbandis, the most important order of Central Asia.

According to my interview with the imam of the central mosque of Bishkek, someKyrgyz belong to the Naqshandis order. According to the imam, the number of Sufis isgrowing, mainly in the Ferghana Valley. However, they do not ‘reveal’ themselves, hesays, to others. In short, it is difficult to know the present situation. There are noup-to-date figures. The material written on the subject prior to the collapse of theSoviet Union needs revision.

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According to Bennigsen, Kyrgyz converted to Islam quite late. Those living in theFerghana Valley started to adopt Islam in the seventeenth century and during the firstquarter of the eighteenth century. Kyrgyz had close contacts with Tajik and Uzbek, butit is the missionary activities of the Yasawis and the Naqshbandis that played the key rolein their Islamisation.3 Others claim that the Kyrgyz were only converted in thenineteenth century. The Tatars mullah operating from Russian bases also seem to haveparticipated in the Islamisation process.4

Regarding Sufism, let us say briefly, that some of the most important orders ofCentral Asia began their activities as early as the twelfth century.5 Born in the twelfthcentury, the poet Ahmad Yasawi help to convert nomads. Part of his success stemmedfrom his incorporation of shamanistic practices into his teachings. His tariqah was alsoactive in the Ferghana Valley. Tamerlane built him a splendid mausoleum in the city ofTurkestan in modern Kazakhstan. According to Bennigsen, following the repression ofBasmachis, the Yasawiyah created a new suborder, Chachtuu Eshander, for the Kyrgyz.This suborder was highly political, and was accused by the Soviets of terrorism andfanaticism.6

Najm al-Din Kubra, the founder of the Kubrawiyah, was killed by Mongols in 1220.His tariqah was active in Khorezm, and seems to have survived in the Aral Sea area.7 Itis now possible to visit his mausoleum in Konye-Urgench (Turkmenistan). I was told ofthe recent pilgrimage of Kubrawis to the mausoleum of Naqshband in Bukhara.

The Qadiriyah was established in Central Asia in the thirteenth century. However,the influence of this order declined in favour of the Naqshbandis. According toBennisgen, the Qadiriyah order was divided in the nineteenth century into threesuborders: Bammat Giray, Batal Haji and Chim Mirza. In 1943, the deported Chechenand In-rush reintroduced the Qadiriyah to Central Asia. In 1950, the Chim Mirzabrotherhood gave birth to a fourth sub-tariqah, Vis Haji, which is the most puritanicalof all Sufi orders. The followers of this order seem to concentrate their activities inKyrgyzstan.8 I never heard any mention of the activities of this group or of the suborderChachtuu Eshander. In my interview with the imam of the central mosque of Bishkek, thenames of these orders were never mentioned.

Finally, the name of Baha al-Din Naqshband was associated with a tariqah that was notfounded by him. The order has gained immense prestige in Central Asia. The mostrecent leader of the Naqshbandi order died last year. At the time of writing, his successorhad not yet been determined. Muhtor Abdullo Oghli is in meantime directing theorder. In 1993, the Government opened a museum celebrating the 675th anniversary ofthe birth of Baha al-Din Naqshband. It is said that the President of Turkey, TurgutOzal, gave r45 000 to help build the museum. Israil Subhonov is the Director of theCentre for Nakshbandi, funded by the Uz-bek government.

It should be stressed that Naqshbandis do not presently seek, as the Wahhabis do,political power. In the past, they were the instigators of revolts against Russian and laterSoviet rule. Naqshbandis played also a leading role in the Andijan revolt in 1898, andtook an active part in the basmatchi movement. The size of this movement grew fromthe Ferghana Valley in 1918, and spread into the north of Central Asia. It was finallycrushed ten years later. It is doubtful that the actual President of Uzbekistan, IslamKarimov, would tolerate ‘in his country’ any upsurge of this kind. For example, after thekilling of several policemen—they were beheaded—in Namangan (in the FerghanaValley), the Government decided to close more than sixty mosques across the country.The daily call for prayers is at present illegal. An informant told me that the militsia areeven cutting the beards of those suspected to be associated to the Wahhabis. In fact, the

In Search of Islam in Kyrgyzstan 279

Wahhabis are accused by the Government of killing the policemen. Others say it wasdrug dealers.

From Soviet to ZenThe former Soviet Union was not only a secular state but also an atheistic one.Religious activities and all religious publications outside the official channels wereprohibited. There was also massive anti-religious propaganda, and the Soviet bureaucratscontrolled all the religious activities. They severed the link with the rest of the Muslimworld.

The attempt by Muslims to join force with their co-religionists outside Central Asiawas feared by the Russians. In order to prevent a pan-Islamic sentiment, the strategy ofthe Russians, followed later by the Soviets, was twofold. First, they divided the Muslimcommunity into different ethnic groups. They were so successful that we still makethese distinctions. Second, they sought to preserve the conservative education andinstitutions of Central Asian Muslims. This strategy was successful, and on the eve of the1917 Revolution, Central Asia was probably the most conservative area in the entireMuslim world.9 When one examines the state of Islam during the Soviet period, it isdifficult to believe that Transoxiana, under the rule of the Samanid and Timuriddynasties, was once a important cultural centre.

The anti-Muslim campaign of 1924–27 which included the repression of the ulemas,the closing down of numerous madrasa and the prohibition of travelling abroad, cut theMuslims of Central Asia off from all foreign influence.10 In 1943, the Soviets created the‘Muslim Spiritual Board of Central Asia’, with its headquarters in Tashkent. They hadunder their control all of the registered clerics who were permitted to perform religiousrites. In order to train the clerics, there were two institutions in operation: theMir-e-Arab madrasa of Bukhara which was reopened in 1948, and the Imam BukhariInstitute in Tashkent.11

In Kyrgyzstan, all Islamic schools and most of the mosques were closed. Thepilgrimage to Mecca was reserved for chosen persons only. The survival of Islam mayhave been the result of the underground activities of the Sufis. The different Sufi orderswere persecuted by the Soviets, and the shrines were closed. According to Zarcone, themausoleum of Baha al-din Naqshband, near Bukhara, Uzbekistan, was even transformedin 1978 into a museum of anti-religious propaganda.12 It was only in 1989 that theshrine resumed its activities. It was only in 1993 that the holy site was officiallyrehabilitated by President Karimov.13 In brief, it is difficult for Western scholars toknow what happened in Central Asia during the Soviet epoch. In fact, it is still difficult.

The Day AfterSince the end of the Soviet Union, Islam is slowly coming back to life in Kyrgyzstan.Some countries and Islamic movements are trying to spur its ‘renaissance’. Saudi Arabiaand Turkey, for example, gave a significant amount of money for the construction ofschools, mosques and madrasas. Many students also complete their religious formation inone of these two countries.

Turkey is the most active country in all of Central Asia. According to Zarcone,Turkey would like to impose its own model of Islam: a lay state conscious of its Muslimidentity.14 Turkey has supposedly 6000 religious advisers and ‘religious attachés’ at itsdisposal in Central Asian and Balkans embassies. It has also financed numerous projectssuch as the monumental mosque of Ashghabat (Turkmenistan), and the restoration

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project of the mausoleum of Yasawi (Kazakhstan). In Kyrgyzstan, the influence ofTurkey, at least from an economical point of view, is significant.

It is useful to divide Kyrgyzstan in two regions: Bishkek in the North, and theFerghana Valley in the South. Islam is much more present in the south than in thenorth. It has a long history in the Valley, and the Uzbek cultural presence is quitesignificant. In general, Muslims in the Ferghana are more conservative, and manywoman wear scarfs—something that I rarely saw in the capital. Some claim that thereare about a thousand registered mosques in operation in the country, about half of themin the Ferghana.

In the northern part of the country, Islam is quite superficial for the average Kyrgyzliving in the Bishkek. According to the imam of the central mosque, there are 14mosques in Bishkek, but only eight are in operation. About 1000–1500 people are saidto attend the Friday prayer in the central mosque. Examining the dimensions of themosque, it is hard to believe that 1000 people could squeeze into such a small space.

There are two main expressions of Islam in Kyrgyzstan: the traditional one, and thegovernmental version of it. Kyrgyz politicians want a clear separation between religionand politics. In their view, the religious identity of Kyrgyz must be reconstructed fromthat perspective. A Wahhabi or Iranian model of government is for them not onlyunacceptable but unthinkable.

The political version of Islam promoted by the Government (the actual politicalstructures are partly inherited from the Soviet era) is promoted by the mufti. One of hisfunctions is to find a ‘middle path’ between Islamic practices and the Government’sview of the place of religion in society. Mullah Abdysatar, the present mufti, was electedin 1996. Some scorpion tongues say that his predecessor liked vodka a little too much.

The Government created a special committee on ‘Religious Affairs’ in August 1995.This committee is composed of seven members. According to my interview with agovernment official, there is no specialist of religion among these members. The officeof the committee has no reference materials or library concerning ‘religions’ in general.I was shown photocopies of a German textbook on world religions. There is noprogramme of religious studies in the numerous universities of the capital. It does appearthat there are a few scholars working on subjects related to religion in some departmentsof ‘Oriental Studies’.

Surprisingly, there is a Faculty of Theology at the State University of Osh, in theFerghana Valley. It is the only Faculty of Theology in Kyrgyzstan. Many claim thatthe faculty receives money from Wahhabis. In fact, there are many stories about theinvolvement of Wahhabis in religious affairs. I posed the question during my visit andwas told that the faculty is a joint-venture between the Turkish and the Kyrgyzgovernments. There are no signs of Wahhabis. The first students (males and females)graduated in the summer of 1998. There were, at the time of my visit, 122 studentsenrolled in the programme. The first two years of the programme had to be held inTurkey, and the last three in Osh. Students take courses on Qur’an, Arabic, Russian,English, the history of Islam and related subjects, about twenty hours a week of classes.

To return to the Religious Affairs Committee, it was created in 1995 but started tofunction only in 1996. President Akayev requires every religious group, which is termeda ‘sect’, to register with the bureau of Religious Affairs. The short-term goal of thecommittee is to write a report about the current situation and to define the officialpolicies regarding these groups. According to my interview, the official seemed unawareof the present situation. There has been no prior research, and no statistics are available.Even if information was available, it is doubtful that it would be shared with a non

In Search of Islam in Kyrgyzstan 281

government official, a legacy of the Soviet system. There was a pile of files on the floorof the almost empty office of the Religious Affairs bureau. These files contain all of theinformation concerning ‘sects’ that are now legally in operation in Kyrgyzstan.

Government officials are particularly nervous about the presence in the streets ofBishkek of numerous Western Christian ‘sects’. We find among these ‘sects’ numerousBaptists, Jehovah Witnesses and, in fact, the same groups that are generally present inany Western city: Scientologists, Hare Krishna and Baha’i (a member of the lattercommunity told me that there are fewer than 100 members). Missionaries of all types areelbowing one other to convert the souls of the ‘atheists’. For these crusaders, theex-U.S.S.R. is a kind of lost Jerusalem, with competition to show the path of Heavento the former Communists. Local television and radio broadcast the ‘The Good Word’to local viewers, and young preachers hang around the doors of the universities anddistribute the usual literature.

A government official told me that Christian groups are very active among womenand young people. As a result, many conflicts arise in traditional families. We can easilyimagine the picture of a Kyrgyz woman going to church, while her Muslim husbandremains at home. In theory, it is impossible for a Muslim to convert to another religion.With regard to the new generation, I have been told that one of the reasons thatChristianity is popular among the young is simply because Christianity is a so-calledWestern product, and the West, of course, is in fashion.

The same government official told me also that it is not really the Western religious‘sects’ that trouble the sleep of politicians. It is the Wahhabis. The Governmentconsiders them a political threat. The imam of the central mosque of Bishkek even toldme that they are ‘the enemies of Kyrgyzstan’.

This movement was created by Muhammad Abd al-Wahhab (1703–92), and it istoday the official ideology of Saudi Arabia. Wahhabis want to return to the so-calledoriginal teachings of Islam. They claim that there is only one Islam, and they areintolerant of any other expressions. Wahhabis are in direct opposition to onefundamental characteristic of Islam in Central Asia: Sufism. Among the local population,this particular issue raises a major problem in the Wahhabi’s crusade against incorrectinterpretations of Islam.

Some 250 Kyrgyz students were sent recently to Saudi Arabia to further their studies.Will they come back good Wahhabis? The Government hesitates before sendingstudents to the kingdom of the Wahhabis, because they often return with an unwantednew interpretation of Islam. It should be noted that Saudi Arabia partly funded theconstruction of the central Mosque of Bishkek.

A conference with the interesting title of ‘For the Unity of Islam’ was recently heldin Bishkek. The first of its kind, the conference was an initiative of the ‘ClericalAdministration of Muslims of Kyrgyzstan’. The chairman of the State Committee onReligious Affairs supervised the event. There were no representatives from Uzbekistan,Turkmenistan or Tajikistan. Only representatives from Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan werepresent. One may wonder about the concept of unity of the Central Asian States, whenonly two countries out of five send delegates. Those who attended the conferencecondemned the activities of the Wahhabis throughout Central Asia. Some even claimthat the Osh region is a hideout for Wahhabis.

The President of Uzbekistan said recently that Osh is the ‘capital’ of Wahhabism.15

Many preachers have been expelled as recently as May 1998 from Uzbekistan. TheWahhabis appear to concentrate their activities in the Ferghana Valley. Thus one mightsay that Wahhabism represents a ‘geo-religious’ problem for Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and

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Tajikistan. I should point out that the so-called Wahhabis of Osh are in general Uzbeksand not Kyrgyz. Also, local governments are identifying as fundamentalist any form ofreligious activity that do not follow the norms established by them.

Let us not forget that Wahhabis want political power. It goes without saying that thishas created major problems with the politicians of Central Asia. The Kyrgyz govern-ment accused Wahhabis of many crimes. For example, a bomb attack killed severalpeople in Osh in June 1998. The government and the newspapers claimed that theWahhabis were responsible. However, I been told that the so-called bomb attack wasonly, in reality, a freak accident caused by a defective fuel tank. In brief, there are manyrumours about the illicit activities of the Wahhbis in Kyrgyzstan.

Regarding the future of Wahhabism in Kyrgyzstan—and also of Uzbekistan—I donot see any great shining future for the fundamentalist militants. The politicians now inpower in both countries do not tolerate any form of fundamentalism in their respectivecountries, especially Uzbekistan. The explosive combination of religion and politicsdoes not have much chance of detonating in the near future.

I have not mentioned the influence of Iran in the region. The presence of Iran isalmost invisible in the vast Sunni ocean of Central Asia. One should note that there areseveral thousand Shias living in Samarkand and Bukhara, and that there are between300 000 and 400 000 Ismailis in the Pamir mountains (Tajikistan).17 I been told by aTajik informant that the general knowledge of Islam of an average Ismaili is minimal.They have been, according to him, almost completely ‘Sovietised’. The presentsituation of the Ismailis is also quite precarious. In order to keep the small communityalive, the Aga Khan Foundation regularly sends food from their base in Osh. Finally, theonly trace of Iran that I found in Bishkek was a kind of propaganda bureau thatdistributed different types of religious literature.

To summarise the current situation of Islam in Kyrgyzstan, that the southern partof the country is relatively active after seven years of independence, whereas thenorthern part is slowly awakening from a long sleep. In short, the Qur’an speaks a lotabout ‘signs’, and one should look closely for these. I think I found one; onemorning, when I woke up, and learnt that I did not have to go to work. The reason:the Kyrgyz government had suddenly decided, for the first time in its young history,to allow a holiday to celebrate the end of Ramadan. I guess that the Chinesephilosopher who once said that a day of a thousand steps begins with one wasprobably right.

Once Upon a Time . . .A shortened version of a book published originally in 1979 gives an overview of thecontent of the ‘Epos Manas’.18 According to the brochure, there are at least sixty-fiverecorded variants of the epic. The story is said to be unique in size. In one variant, itsurpasses the Iliad and the Odyssey ‘taken together more than twenty times’, and ‘twoand a half times’ the size of the Mahabharata. Radlov was the first scholar to record inwriting all of the episodes. His work was published in 1885 in Saint Petersburg.19 BeforeRadlov’s pioneering work, the epic story was transmitted orally. Like many otheraspects of the Kyrgyz history, the origin of the epic is surrounded by a cloud ofuncertainty.

In order to convey the content, let me say briefly that ‘a group of traditional episodes[are] found in every variant’, these episodes are: ‘the defeat of Kyrgyz by foreigninvaders and their banishment; the birth and childhood of the hero; his first historic

In Search of Islam in Kyrgyzstan 283

deeds; the migration of the Kyrgyz from Altai to Ala Too; Mana’s marriage; a greatmarch; Manas death and the erection of a monument to him’.20

According to the author of the brochure, Manas is an ‘unique literary monument’.The content covers ‘all sides of the peoples’s existence’, ‘the deepest layers of the Kyrgyzworld-view’. It is an ‘encyclopaedia’, a long ‘history’ of the struggle of the Kyrgyz andtheir ‘main spiritual treasure’. While many of these characteristics are true, what isinteresting about the presentation contained in the brochure is the Soviet perspective. Itis not the fact that the first footnote refers to the complete works of Marx and Engelsthat left me wondering, but the author’s enthusiasm towards the epic story. There mustbe something about the epic that triggers such a Machiavellian enthusiasm from theSoviet ideologist.

If I may venture in the land of speculation, I would suggest that the so-calledSoviet intelligentsia probably preferred to encourage the Kyrgyz to read Manasinstead of the Qur’an. The author of the brochure does not emphasise that Manas inthe epic was Muslim. The reading of the epic is harmless, but the reading of theQur’an could spark some ideas in the minds of half-asleep Muslims. The numerousrevolts of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries are a reminder of suchpossibilities.

In fact, the Epos is not only the memory of the Kyrgyz people but a kind of virtualreality. Fiction is often mixed with reality, and history is confused with fairy tales. Forexample, students told me that some of their professors refer to the epic story as onewould refer in the West to a history book. There is no doubt that much of thepopulation treats Manas, as a whole, as a history book. In the brochure it is said that‘only real facts of the past are included in Manas . . . the people’s love for the epos andits characters is so great, that the Kyrgyz consider them to be not an artistic composition. . . but real facts and real personalities’.21 How about the ‘wise giant Koshoi’, thecyclops and the three hundred foot dragon?

As a source of national pride, the ‘Epos Manas’ is by far more important than theQur’an. To illustrate this point, President Akaev uses the epic hero and not Muhammadas a model for all Kyrgyz. Also, in his so-called reforms, he takes his inspiration from the‘Epos Manas’ and not from the Qur’an to establish what he calls the seven fundamentalprinciples of the future Kyrgyz ideology. These principles are: the unity of the nation,the national pride and patriotism, the ethnic friendship, work and education as aprerequisite for prosperity, humanism, harmony with nature, and the protection of theKyrgyz State. There is no mention of the Qur’an, the Shariah or the Hadith.

In the same stream of thought, a new course of philosophy was designed at BishkekHumanities University. The subjects discussed are not the ontological argument ofAnselm or the division of mind and body in Descartes but the ‘philosophical principles’found in the ‘Epos Manas’. I spoke to the professor in charge of the new course andconcluded that it was probably better to talk about the epic than of deconstructionisttheories about windmills. After our conversation, I imagined a professor at theUniversity of Athens elaborating, for the first time in Greek history, on a course ofphilosophy using the Odyssey of Homer.

A visit to the mausoleum of Manas in the city of Talas may convince many scepticsthat the Kyrgyz take their epic story seriously. If you cannot make the trip there, youcould have at least a look at the mausoleum on the twenty som note. I have been toldthat some pilgrims come to pray on the tomb of Manas. Also, the city is famous becauseit was the scene of two major events. One was the Battle that changed the history ofCentral Asia in 751, the victory of the Muslim army against Imperial China. The other

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event is called ‘Manas 1000’. The year 1995 was declared the ‘International Year of theManas’. This costly extravaganza was to celebrate the anniversary of the Epic. I havebeen told that there is already a committee working on Manas 2000. I guess it is betterto prepare in advance.

I have been also told that in this almost sacred city numerous women have beenkidnapped. Bride-kidnapping, as it is called in Kyrgyzstan, still occurs in rural areas. Itis not the romantic love described in the chivalrous literature popular in the MiddleAges. Nor is it another story of a windmill narrated by Don Quixote. It is a real story.The scenario is something like this: a man decides to get married, and tells his family andfriends the good news. The bad news is that he will force any unmarried woman of hischoice to tie the knot with him. He may drive into town with his friends and shop fora bride. When he chooses the one, he will move in, generally in a Lada, with his buddyand kidnap the young girl. They will bring her, against her will, directly to the weddingceremonies. The mother-in-law will then put a scarf on her head, and proceed with thecelebration. In order to prevent an escape by the bride, the groom often rapes his futurewife. After losing ‘her honour’, as they say here, the young women will generallycomply with the so-called tradition. The family of the bride will be later informed of themarriage of their daughter. Generally, the family of the bride will make no attempt torescue their daughter. A female resident of Talas told me that the ‘majority’ of womenliving in this small city have been kidnapped.

ConclusionBishkek is a city full of surprises. While exploring other streets of the capital, Idiscovered that the Government changed the name of the street ‘Leninsky prospekt’ to‘Chuy prospektisi’. Why, then, keep the statue of Lenin on the main square whilechanging the name of the street? In order to answer my question, I searched for cluesalong the street. For a while, I contemplated the usual decaying grey buildings until Ifinally stopped in front of a huge white building called ‘The White House’. Thisbuilding is located between the statues of Manas and of Lenin. This fact convinced methat the answer to my question lay in front of me. After inquiring about this suspiciouswhite building, I was told by a typical unfriendly militsia that it was the parliamentbuilding! Somehow, this unexpected revelation put me momentarily in a state of trance.

I had a kind of vision, like that experienced by Don Quixote, of a colossal cyclops.I thought immediately of Maktel, the one-eyed monster described in the ‘Epos Manas’.After looking closely at him, I saw, as one would see in a crystal ball, the different ‘evils’floating around the ‘White House’. I saw, for example, the shallow faces of thousandsof corrupted civil servants. In the old days, bandits wandered the Silk Road lootingmerchants. Today, the bandits are still pursuing their plundering activities, but in ChuyProspektisi.

I also saw another evil, one that might be called ‘Balkanisation’. The nationalisticsentiment is floating, more acutely, in the southern part of the country. In 1990, theclash between Uzbek and Kyrgyz near Osh left hundreds, some say thousands, dead. Toprevent potential clashes, the Government has to exorcise the wicked practices oftribalism and nepotism.

The ugliest face of evil that I saw was the legions of unemployed people haunting thestreets of the capital. The local government needs a Manas with strong economicstrategies. The actual state of the economy seems to have been planned by a disciple ofDon Quixote. The future of Islamic fundamentalism in Kyrgyzstan will I believe, be

In Search of Islam in Kyrgyzstan 285

proportional to the economic performance of the country, and the popularity of theso-called Wahhabis, will probably follow the up and downs of the stock market. Thefailure of liberalism could push the masses towards a more radical expression of Islam.One should keep in mind the tragic example of Algeria.

Subjects related to economy have the power of bringing me back to reality. Myimaginary cyclops suddenly disappeared, and here I was, in the front of ‘The WhiteHouse’. I was tempted to ask the militsias guarding the look-alike cavern of Ali-baba,who is the real prophet of Kyrgyzstan, Manas or Muhammad? I didn’t dare ask, just incase.

At the time of writing, a large percentage of the Kyrgyz population do not identifythemselves as Muslim. It seems that the Soviet ideologists made a good job of erasingfrom the collective memory of Kyrgyz their former, some scholars would say superficial,Muslim identity. As Shakespeare would have probably said, to be a Muslim, or not tobe, seems to be the real question. Shakespeare died on the same day as the author whowrote the amazing adventures of Don Quixote. Cervantes and Shakespeare probablywent together, on that doleful day, in search of the land of the big windmill.

Notes1 D. Prior, Bishkek Handbook: Inside and Out, Bishkek, Literary Kyrgyzstan 1994.2 For more details, see M. B. Olcott, Central Asia’s New States, Washington, Institute of Peace

Press 1996, pp. 87–112; E. Huskey, ‘Kyrgyzstan: the Fate of Political Liberalisation’, in K.Dawisha and B. Parrott (eds), Conflict, Cleavage, and Change in Central Asia and the Caucasus,Cambridge, Cambridge University Press 1997, pp. 242–76; A. O. Filonyk, ‘Kyrgyzstan’, in M.Meshbahi (ed.), Central Asia and the Caucasus After the Soviet Union: Domestic and InternationalDynamics, Gainesville, University of Florida Press 1994, pp. 148–63.

3 A. Bennigsen and C. Lemercier-Quelquejay, Le Soufi et le commissaire, Paris, Seuil 1986, pp. 204.4 V. Fourniau, Histoire de l’Asie centrale, Paris, PUF 1995, p. 78.5 A. Bennigsen and F. Bryan, ‘Islam in Central Asia’, in M. Eliade (ed.), The Encyclopedia of

Religion, New York, Macmillan 1987, vol. VII, pp. 376–7.6 Ibid., p. 377.7 Ibid.8 There was for a time a relatively successful reform movement known as jadid. The reforms in

question were not only religious but also cultural. Gasprinskii (1851–1914) elaborated a newpedagogy for Muslim schools. The first one opened in Crimea in 1883. Before the advent of thismovement, Central Asian Muslims were far behind the rest of the Muslim world. In someschools, teachers were using material dating from the Timurid period. In short, the goal of themovement was to prepare the Muslim youth for the modern world. The movement startedtheir activities in Central Asia at the beginning of the twentieth century. According to Zarcone,there is another movement of reform now active in Central Asia. In some ways, it is relativelysimilar to the jadid movement. Nourdjouisme (in French) is a moderate Islamic movementcreated by Saïd Noursi in modern Turkey. He advocated a modernist brand of Islam. Theirschool is not religious and has a quite liberal curriculum that includes courses of English,Russian, and many scientific subjects. One of their objectives is to hoist Central Asian countriesto the same technological level of the West. See V. Fourniau, Histoire de l’Asie centrale, Paris,PUF 1995, pp. 99–103, and T. Zarcone, ‘L’Islam d’Asie centrale et le monde Musulman:Restructuration et interférences’, Hérodote 84 (1997), pp. 68–71.

9 O. Roy, La Nouvelle Asie centrale, Paris, Seuil 1997, p. 222.10 Ibid., p. 229. Nowadays, there are two madrasas in operation in Bukhara: one for men, and the

other for women. The students are starting their 5 year programme—Arabic, Qur’an, Shariah,and so on—around the age of sixteen. I was told that they will introduce in 1999 a course oncomputer science.

11 T. Zarcone, ‘Turquie et Asie centrale’, in H. Chambert-Loir and C. Guillot (eds), Le Culte dessaints dans le monde musulman, Paris, Presses de l’Ecole Française d’Extrême-Orient 1995, p. 327.

12 Ibid., p. 329.

286 M. Gardaz

13 Zarconne, p. 66.14 See The Economist, February 21, 1998, p. 70. He said later, according to the same newspaper,

that ‘Such people [Wahhabis] must be shot in their foreheads . . . If necessary, I’ll shoot themmyself ’ (July 4, 1998, p. 60).

15 Roy, p. 219.16 S. Musayev, The Epos Manas, Bishkek, Cham 1994. It is a 255-page trilingual brochure:

Russian, English and German. For an English translation of the Epic, see A. T. Hatto (ed.), TheManas of Wilhem Radloff, Wiesbaden 1990.

17 The author of the brochure claims that the study of Manas was only made possible during theSoviet epoch: ‘Thanks to a great attention, the Communist Party and the Soviet Governmentpay to everything that is popular’ (p. 102). Later we read that: ‘There are, however, the attemptsin the works of certain foreign scientists to distort the Soviet reality, to oppose one people toanother and to use the epos for disseminating hostile bourgeois fabrications’ (p. 113).

18 Ibid., p. 144. For more details, see E. Wasilewska, ‘The Past and the Present: the Power ofHeroic Epics and Oral Tradition—Manas 1000’ Central Asian Survey 16 1997, pp. 81–95.

19 Ibid., p. 98.

After completing his Ph.D. (1994) at the University of Ottawa, MICHEL GARDAZundertook postdoctoral studies at the Sorbonne (1994–95) and at the Institute for theAdvanced Study of Religion of the University of Chicago (1995–96). He has publishedseveral articles in relation with the development of ‘orientalism’ in nineteenth-centuryFrance. His current research deals with the contemporary situation of Islam in theformer Soviet Republics of Central Asia.

1696 Walnut, St-Hubert, PQ, J4T IG4, Canada.