Islam in Kazakhstan

Islam is the largest religion practiced in Kazakhstan, with estimates of about 78.5%^[1] of the country's population being Muslim. Ethnic Kazakhs are predominantly non-denominational and Sunni Muslims of the Hanafi school.^[2] There are also small numbers of Shias.^[3] Geographically speaking, Kazakhstan is the northernmost Muslim-majority country in the world,^[4] and the largest in terms of land area. Kazakhs make up over half of the total population, and other ethnic groups of Muslim background include Uzbeks, Uyghurs and Tatars.^[5] Islam first arrived on the southern edges of the region in the 8th century from Arabs. According to the Constitution, The Republic of Kazakhstan proclaims itself as a democratic, secular, legal and social state whose highest values are a person, his life, rights, and freedoms.

Although Kazakhs identify with their Muslim heritage, religious practices are generally very moderate, and displays of religiosity, such as the wearing of the headscarf or daily attendance in mosques, are rare.^[6]

According to a survey by Central Asian Affairs, Kazakhs who self-identify as Muslims rose from 79% in 2007 to 93% in 2012, however the share of people praying daily and attending mosque weekly were found to have declined during the same period, from 22.94% to 18.20%.^[7] According to another study in 2012, 10% of the Kazakhs practice Islam in its totality and stated youth were frequenting mosques more often."^[8] In 2019, there were 2500 mosques in the country, a number which increased 37-fold since the fall of the Soviet Union.^[9]

Islam was first brought to the southern fringes of modern day Kazakhstan in 8th century, when the Arabs arrived in southern parts of Central Asia. Then it gradually spread across the Kazakh Steppe over following centuries.

The initial push to spread was given by the Battle of Talas in 751 AD, where nomads of Karluk Yabghu state allied themselves with Abbasid Arabs to stop the Chinese Tan dynasty advance.
Following years, Islam took hold in the southern portions of Turkestan and thereafter gradually spread northward.^[10] Islam also took root due to zealous subjugation from Samanid rulers, notably in areas surrounding Taraz^[11] where a significant number of indigenous people converted to Islam.

In 1000s, Khoja Ahmad Yasawi, a Turkic poet and religions leader of Sufi Order made a big impact in spreading Islam among both sedentary and nomadic peoples of Central Asia, by writing in Middle Turkic language. He was widely regarded as one of the great spiritual leaders of the region. Which lead Timur to erect a Mausoleum in his name several centuries later.

The Dasht-i Qipchaq region as a whole had been Muslim since the first half of the 14th century, with Kazakhs already considering Islam their ancestral religion adopted by their ancestors in the distant past.^[12]

During Golden Horde period, the first ruler to convert to Islam was Berke Khan, a grandson of Genghis Khan. However Berke did not promote it to his subordinates.
Only in 1321, ruler of the Horde - Özbeg Khan publicly converts to Islam by Ibn Abdul Hamid, a Sunni Sufi Bukharan sayyid and sheikh of the Yassawi order. Further he makes the Islam official religion of the state, and starts promoting it among his subordinates. From that point on, all of the khans adopt Islamic names following Turco-Mongol tradition.
Following centuries, after dissolution of Golden Horde, all khans of Kazakh Khanate being from Jochi lineage would continue to have Islamic names.

During the 18th century, Russian influence rapidly increased toward the region. Led by Empress Catherine, the Russians initially demonstrated a willingness in allowing Islam to flourish as Muslim clerics were invited into the region to preach to the Kazakhs whom the Russians viewed as "savages", ignorant of morals and ethics.^[13][14]

The growth of Islamic institutions among Kazakh nomads occurred alongside a broader Islamic revival that had been taking place among Muslim communities in the Volga-Ural region and Siberia since the late eighteenth century. The spread of Islam across the steppe, particularly by Muslim merchants from Russia, was closely connected to the Kazakh steppe’s incorporation into the Russian economic sphere.^[15]

Catherine II's late 18th-century policies institutionalized Muslim religious life, with Russians appointing an akhund for Orenburg by 1742. Beginning in 1782, Empress Catherine subsidized mosque and madrasa construction in steppe settlements like Orenburg, Troitsk, and Petropavlovsk, staffed by politically reliable Volga-Ural clerics. These towns became major commercial and Islamic learning centers that attracted Kazakh nomads. ^[12] The establishment of the Orenburg Muslim Spiritual Assembly (OMSA) in 1788 made officially registered imams responsible for encouraging congregant loyalty to the Russian state, integrating Kazakhs into "Russian Islam" institutional structures.^[16]

During the first half of the 19th century, Russian administrators typically appointed Volga-Ural mullas as imams of Kazakh administrative units. Large numbers of Volga-Ural Muslims emigrated to cities on the northern periphery of the Kazakh steppe, bringing Islamic institutions and educational structures that educated Kazakhs through madrasas and itinerant teachers in nomadic encampments. The Volga-Ural-centered Islamic publishing business produced inexpensive Islamic books and pamphlets in Kazakh vernacular specifically for the Kazakh market.^[12]

However, this period also witnessed significant resistance. Kazakh hagiographic sources document numerous conflicts between Sufi ishans and Imperial Russian authorities, with notable examples including Maral Ishan, who led a holy war against Russian expansion from 1819 to 1822. Russian missionary accounts from 1910 accused ishans of "fanatizing" "simple Kazakhs" and inciting disobedience against colonial authority.^[17]

By the second half of the 19th century, Kazakh society was undergoing a profound Islamic revival that reshaped both social structures and collective identity. Although Islam had long been embedded in Kazakh life prior to the 18th century, this period marked a renewed and intensified expression of Islamic identity. Toward the century’s end, Kazakh authors began producing Islamic literature specifically for Kazakh readers, using a deliberately vernacular Kazakh language.^[12]

Russian policy gradually changed toward weakening Islam by introducing pre-Islamic elements of collective consciousness.^[18] Such attempts included methods of eulogizing pre-Islamic historical figures and imposing a sense of inferiority by sending Kazakhs to highly elite Russian military institutions.^[18] In response, Kazakh religious leaders attempted to bring religious fervor by espousing pan-Turkism, though many were persecuted as a result.^[19] During the Soviet era, Muslim institutions survived only in areas where Kazakhs significantly outnumbered non-Muslims due to everyday Muslim practices.^[20] In an attempt to conform Kazakhs into Communist ideologies, gender relations and other aspects of the Kazakh culture were key targets of social change.^[14]

The early Soviet period brought devastating changes to Kazakh Islamic institutions through systematic anti-religious campaigns. Soviet religious policies were initially inconsistent before 1928, with Islamic education banned in 1923 and madrasas effectively closed, while simultaneously placing the Kazakh steppe under the Ufa muftiate's authority and expanding mosque communities. Beginning in 1928, however, authorities systematically closed mosques and destroyed minarets, with virtually all mosques in Kazakhstan ceasing to function by 1932, converted into barns, clubs, and schools.^[17]

Stalinist repression systematically targeted Islamic institutions and religious figures as part of Soviet cultural policy. The campaigns of the 1920s and 1930s targeted not only mosques and madrasas, but also kinship-based religious structures central to Kazakh social organization.^[21] Soviet authorities specifically targeted religious leaders including the ulama and Sufi ishans, along with their families, threatening the survival of entire religious lineages.^[22] This repression fell particularly heavily on Kazakh society, where holy lineages constituted a prominent feature of social organization.^[21] The First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Kazakh АSSR Filipp Goloshchekin in 1930 accused ishans and clergy of leading opposition to collectivization, while the Joint State Political Directorate (OGPU) documents specifically targeted "bandit bay-ishan elements" and made hereditary ishan status sufficient grounds for persecution. Political repression intensified in 1937-1938 against prominent religious leaders, with persecution continuing through the Stalin era.^[17]

With the outbreak of World War II in 1941, Stalin's religious policy shifted toward liberalization, allowing Muslim communities including Kazakhs greater religious expression to support the war effort. Kazakh Muslim religious leaders adopted the wartime practices of Volga-Ural and Crimean leaders from World War I, organizing fundraising efforts and offering religious endorsement for the Soviet war effort, which fostered the development of Soviet patriotism expressed through Islamic frameworks.^[16] Many Kazakhs maintained an integral collective identity that simultaneously encompassed being Kazakhs, Muslims, Soviets, and Red Army soldiers, demonstrating how Islamic identity could coexist with Soviet patriotism during wartime.^[22]

Despite initial persecution, ishans and khojas gradually developed a complex accommodation with Soviet authorities. While the state could not openly acknowledge religious authority, it found it necessary to involve these figures in projects requiring popular cooperation, as ishans and khojas continued serving their religious communities. This accommodation accelerated during World War II, when war exigencies led to a temporary halt in anti-Sufi persecution. When a small number of mosques were reopened, some members of previously persecuted ishan lineages secured positions as officially appointed religious leaders. The pursuit of Soviet education in medicine and engineering by many ishan lineage members facilitated their integration into the official workforce while introducing new technologies and scientific knowledge to their communities. Their ancestral religious prestige, combined with historical associations with these professions, enhanced community acceptance of Soviet modernization through the added authority of academic and professional achievements. For the ishan lineages themselves, this fusion of religious standing with Soviet professional credentials constituted evidence of the Islamization of Soviet institutions and the system as a whole.^[16]

In more recent times, Kazakhs have gradually employed determined effort in revitalizing Islamic religious institutions after the fall of the Soviet Union. Kazakhs continue to identify with their Islamic faith,^[23] and even more devotedly in the countryside. Those who claim descent from the original Muslim warriors and missionaries of the 8th century command substantial respect in their communities.^[24] Kazakh political figures have also stressed the need to sponsor Islamic awareness. For example, the Kazakh Foreign Affairs Minister, Marat Tazhin, recently emphasized that Kazakhstan attaches importance to the use of "positive potential Islam, learning of its history, culture and heritage."^[25]

Soviet authorities attempted to encourage a controlled form of Islam under the Spiritual Administration of the Muslims of Central Asia and Kazakhstan as a unifying force in the Central Asian societies, while at the same time prohibiting true religious freedom. Since independence, religious activity has increased significantly. Construction of mosques and religious schools accelerated in the 1990s, with financial help from Turkey, Egypt, and, primarily, Saudi Arabia.^[26] In 1991 170 mosques were operating with more than half of them being newly built. At that time an estimated 230 Muslim communities were active in Kazakhstan. Since then the number of mosques has risen to 2,320 as of 2013.^[27] In 2012 the President of Kazakhstan unveiled a new Khazret Sultan Mosque in the capital, that is the biggest Muslim worship facility in Central Asia.^[28]

In 1990 Nursultan Nazarbayev, then the First Secretary of the Kazakhstan Communist Party, created a state basis for Islam by removing Kazakhstan from the authority of the Muslim Board of Central Asia, the Soviet-approved and politically oriented religious administration for all of Central Asia. Instead, Nazarbayev created a separate muftiate, or religious authority, for Kazakh Muslims.^[29]

With an eye toward the Islamic governments of nearby Iran and Afghanistan, the writers of the 1993 constitution specifically forbade religious political parties. The 1995 constitution forbids organizations that seek to stimulate racial, political, or religious discord, and imposes strict governmental control on foreign religious organizations. As did its predecessor, the 1995 constitution stipulates that Kazakhstan is a secular state; thus, Kazakhstan is the only Central Asian state whose constitution does not assign a special status to Islam. Though, Kazakhstan joined the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation in the same year. This position was based on the Nazarbayev government's foreign policy as much as on domestic considerations. Aware of the potential for investment from the Muslim countries of the Middle East, Nazarbayev visited Iran, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia; at the same time, he preferred to cast Kazakhstan as a bridge between the Muslim East and the Christian West. For example, he initially accepted only observer status in the Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO), all of whose member nations are predominantly Muslim. The president's first trip to the Muslim holy city of Mecca, which occurred in 1994, was part of an itinerary that also included a visit to Pope John Paul II in the Vatican.^[29]

• 
  The Mausoleum of Ahmed Yasawi
• 
  Nur-Astana Mosque
• 
  Mosque in Semey
• 
  Zharkent Mosque
• 
  Hazrat Sultan Mosque

• Religion in Kazakhstan
• Islam in Central Asia
• Islam in the Soviet Union
• Khoja
• Taza Jol Islam

• Bigozhin, Ulan. (2018). "Local Politics and Patronage of a Sacred Lineage Shrine in Kazakhstan." Central Asian Affairs 5(3): 233–252. https://doi.org/10.1163/22142290-00503003
• Bigozhin, Ulan. (2019). "'Where is Our Honor?" Sports, Masculinity, and Authority in Kazakhstani Islamic Media." Central Asian Affairs 6(2-3): 189-205. https://doi.org/10.1163/22142290-00602006
• Frank, Allen J. Gulag Miracles: Sufis and Stalinist Repression in Kazakhistan. 1st ed. Austrian Academy of Sciences Press, 2019. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvrzgw4t
• Frank, Allen J. Kazakh Muslims in the Red Army, 1939-1945, Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 07 Apr. 2022. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004515383
• Privratsky, Bruce (2001). Muslim Turkistan: Kazak Religion and Collective Memory. London: Curzon.
• Privratsky, Bruce (2004). "'Turkestan Belongs to the Qojas': Local Knowledge of a Muslim Tradition". In Dudoignon, Stephane (ed.). Devout Societies vs. Impious States. Berlin: LIT Verlag. pp. 161–212.
• Karagiannis, Emmanuel (April 2007). "The Rise of Political Islam in Kazakhstan: Hizb Ut-Tahrir Al Islami". Nationalism and Ethnic Politics. 13 (2): 297–322. doi:10.1080/13537110701293567. S2CID 143664088.
• Rorlich, Azade-Ayse (June 2003). "Islam, Identity and Politics: Kazakhstan, 1990-2000". Nationalities Papers. 31 (2): 157–176. doi:10.1080/00905990307127. S2CID 154798096.

• Schwab, Wendell (June 2011). "Establishing an Islamic Niche in Kazakhstan: Musylman Publishing House and Its Publications". Central Asian Survey. 30 (2): 227–242. doi:10.1080/02634937.2011.565229. S2CID 144393697.
• Schwab, Wendell (2012). "Traditions and Texts: How Two Young Women Learned to Interpret the Qur'an and Hadiths in Kazakhstan". Contemporary Islam. 6 (2): 173–197. doi:10.1007/s11562-011-0177-4. S2CID 144474672.
• Schwab, Wendell (2015). "Islam, Fun, and Social Capital in Kazakhstan." Central Asian Affairs 2(1): 51–70. https://doi.org/10.1163/22142290-00201004
• Schwab, Wendell (2016). "Visual Culture and Islam in Kazakhstan: The Case of Asyl Arna’s Social Media." Central Asian Affairs 3(4): 301–329. https://doi.org/10.1163/22142290-00304001
• Schwab, Wendell. (2019). "The Rhetoric of Islamic Debate in Kazakhstani Mass Media." Central Asian Affairs 6(2-3): 166–188). https://doi.org/10.1163/22142290-00602005

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