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Islam is the dominantreligion inUzbekistan. Islamic customs were broadly adopted by the ruling elite, and they began patronage of scholars and conquerors such asMuhammad al-Bukhari,Al-Tirmidhi,Ismail Samani,al-Biruni,Avicenna,Tamerlane,Ulugh Begh, andBabur. Despite its predominance and history, the practice of Islam has been far from monolithic since the establishment of theUzbek Soviet Socialist Republic.
The Muslim Board of Uzbekistan holds the Mushaf Othmani, the earliest existing copy of theQuran.[1]
Almost 90% of the population is Muslim.[2] The CIA Factbook estimates 88%, mostly Sunni.[3] The country is regarded a cultural and religious hub in the Central Asian region.[2]
Another estimate states thatMuslims constitute 87% of the population while 9% of the population followRussian Orthodox Christianity, 4% other religious and non-religious.[4][5] An estimated 93,000Jews were once present.[citation needed]
According to a 2009Pew Research Center report, Uzbekistan's population is 96.3% Muslim,[6] around 54% identifies asnon-denominational Muslim, 18% asSunni and 1% asShia.[7] Around 11% say they belong to aSufi order.[7]
Islam was brought to ancestors of modern Uzbeks during the 8th century when theArabs entered Central Asia. Islam initially took hold in the southern portions ofTurkestan and thereafter gradually spread northward.[8] Islam also took root due to the zealous missionary work of theIranianSamanid rulers as a significant number ofTurkic peoples accepted Islam. The territory became a world leading center of science, medicine, philosophy and invention, ushering in the period of theGolden Age of Islam.[9] In the 14th-century,Tamerlane constructed many religious structures, including theBibi-Khanym Mosque. He also constructed one of his finest buildings at the tomb ofAhmed Yesevi, an influential TurkicSufisaint who spreadSufism among the nomads. Omar Aqta, Timur's courtcalligrapher, is said to have transcribed theQur'an using letters so small that the entire text of the book fit on asignet ring. Omar also is said to have created a Qur'an so large that awheelbarrow was required to transport it.Folios of what is probably this larger Qur'an have been found, written in gold lettering on huge pages. Islam also spread amongst the Uzbeks with the conversion ofUzbeg Khan. Converted to Islam by Ibn Abdul Hamid, a Bukharan sayyid and sheikh of theYasavi order, Uzbeg Khan promoted Islam amongst theGolden Horde and fostered Muslim missionary work to expand acrossCentral Asia. In the long run, Islam enabled the khan to eliminate interfactional struggles in the Horde and to stabilize state institutions.[citation needed]
Notable scholars from the area today known as Uzbekistan includeImam Bukhari whose book,Sahih Bukhari is regarded bySunni Muslims as the mostauthentic of allhadith compilations and the most authoritative book after theQur'an. Other Muslim scholars from the region includeImam Tirmidhi andAbu Mansur Maturidi who was one of the pioneers[10] of Islamic Jurisprudence scholars and his two works are considered to be authoritative on the subject.[11] InSamarqand, the development of sciences in the Muslim world greatly prospered, waving theTimurid Renaissance. The work ofAli Qushji (d. 1474), who worked atSamarqand and thenIstanbul, is seen as a late example of innovation in Islamic theoretical astronomy and it is believed he may have possibly had some influence onNicolaus Copernicus due to similar arguments concerning theEarth's rotation. The astronomical tradition established by theMaragha school continued at theUlugh Beg Observatory atSamarqand. Founded byUlugh Beg in the early 15th century, the observatory made considerable progress in observational astronomy.[citation needed]
The immediate founder of Jadidism wasCrimean Tatar educator and politicianIsmail Gasprinsky,[12] which in 1883 began to publish the newspaper "Translator -Terjiman" in the Crimean Tatar and Russian languages. In the same year he opened the first Jadid school inBakhchysarai. Gasprinsky paid great attention to the education of women.[citation needed]
On August 15, 1905, the Jadidists of Gasprinsky managed to createIttifaq al-Muslimin (اتفاق المسلمين: "Union of Muslims"), whose first congress was held inNizhny Novgorod[13] on the steamer "Gustav Struve" and included 150 delegates[14] from Crimea, Transcaucasia, Urals, Turkestan and Siberia. This party was presented in the Russian State Duma. TheSamarkand muftiMahmudhoja Behbudi[15] took an active part in the work of the party. an example of an enlightened ruler wasTamerlane. Another representative of the Ittifak partyMusa Bigeyev translatedthe Koran intoTatar in 1912 for which he received the nickname “Muslim Luther”. Another party representativeAbdurashid Ibragimov suggested overcoming the strife between Shiites and Sunnis and suggested focusing on the Japanese Empire. In 1905, an associate of GasprinskyNasib-bek Usubbekov created an underground organizationDifai inElizavetpole.[citation needed]
TheYoung Turk Revolution of 1908 gave a certain impetus to the development of Jadidism and contributed to their final politicization. In 1908, the Jadids began inOrenburg to publish the magazineShuro (شورا, "Council"), whereRizaitdin Fakhretdinov pursued the idea of successionVolga Bulgaria,Golden Horde andKazan Khanate. In 1917, on the wave of disintegration of the Russian Empire,Shura-i-Islam ("Council of Islam") was formed inTashkent, and inKokand was proclaimed theTurkestan Autonomy, a secular Republic.[12] The local version of the Jadidists were theYoung Bukharians, who professed similar ideas on the territory ofBukhara Emirate,[citation needed] as well as theYoung Khivans in theKhivan Khanate.
In relation to the Soviet regime, the Jadids took a contradictory position. Some entered into an alliance with the Bolsheviks took part in the formation of Central Asian socialist nations (Fayzulla Khodjaev.[16]Abdurauf Fitrat,Sadriddin Aini,Mirzo Mukhiddin Mansurov,Majid Qadiri), and others joined the anti-SovietBasmachi movement (Usman Khoja).[citation needed]
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The grandmufti who headed the board met with hundreds of foreign delegations each year in his official capacity, and the board published a journal on Islamic issues,Muslims of the Soviet East.[citation needed] However, the Muslims working or participating in any of these organizations were carefully screened for political reliability. Furthermore, as the government ostensibly was promoting Islam with the one hand, it was working hard to eradicate it with the other. The government sponsored official anti-religious campaigns and severe crackdowns on any hint of an Islamic movement or network outside of the control of the state. Many mosques were closed.[17][unreliable source?]
In the early 1990s with the end of Soviet power large groups of Islamic missionaries, mostly from Saudi Arabia and Turkey, came to Uzbekistan to propagate Sufi andWahhabi interpretations of Islam. In 1992, in the town of Namangan, a group of radical Islamists educated at Islamic universities in Saudi Arabia took control of a government building and demanded that president Karimov declare an Islamic state in Uzbekistan and introduce shari‛a as the only legal system. The regime, however, prevailed, and eventually struck down hard on the Islamic militant groups, leaders of which later fled to Afghanistan and Pakistan and were later killed in fights against coalition forces. In 1992 and 1993 around 50 missionaries from Saudi Arabia were expelled from the country. The Sufi missionaries too were forced to end their activities in the country.[18] For the most part, however, in the years after the independence Uzbekistan saw a resurgence of a traditional form of Islam. According to a public opinion survey conducted in 1994, interest in Islam is growing very rapidly. Very few people in Uzbekistan were interested in a form of Islam that would participate actively in political issues. Thus, the first years of post-Soviet religious freedom seem to have fostered a form of Islam related to the Uzbek population more in traditional and cultural terms than in political ones.[citation needed]
The government is against theHizb ut-Tahrir and the followers ofSaid Nursî ofTurkey.[19]
The government blames theMay 2005 unrest in Uzbekistan on an aim to overthrow the government of Uzbekistan in order to make it a Central Asiantheocratic republic. Uzbek PresidentIslam Karimov "placed blame for the unrest onIslamic extremist groups, a label that he has used to describe political opponents in recent years and that his critics say is used as a pretext for maintaining a repressive state."[20] Hizb ut-Tahrir have denied involvement in the unrest, but expressed sympathy and solidarity with the victims of the unrest, firmly laying blame on the repressive practices and corruption of the government.[citation needed]
After the death of president Karimov there was a significant rise of the Islamic piety among the population in Uzbekistan.
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