Soviet and Muslim: The Institutionalization of Islam in Central Asia

Central Asia was the sole Muslim region of the former Russian Empire that lacked a centralized Islamic organization, or muftiate. When Soviet leader Joseph Stalin created such a body for the region as part of his religious reforms during World War II, he acknowledged that the Muslim faith could enjoy some legal protection under Communist rule. From a skeletal and disorganized body run by one family of Islamic scholars out of a modest house in Tashkent's old city, this muftiate acquired great political importance in the eyes of Soviet policymakers and equally significant symbolic significance for many Muslims. Relying on recently declassified Central Asian archival sources, most of them never seen before by historians, Eren Tasar argues that Islam did not merely "survive" the decades from World War II until the Soviet collapse in 1991, but actively shaped the political and social context of Soviet Central Asia. Muslim figures, institutions, and practices evolved in response to the social and political reality of Communist rule. Through an analysis that spans all aspects of Islam under Soviet rule-from debates about religion inside the Communist Party, to the muftiate's efforts to acquire control over mosques across Central Asia, changes in Islamic practices and dogma, and overseas propaganda targeting the Islamic World-Soviet and Muslim offers a radical new reading of Islam's resilience and evolution under atheism.

About the Author :
Eren Tasar is Assistant Professor of History at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Review :
"Soviet and Muslim is a splendid work, vivid in documentation, compelling in analysis and argumentation, and transformative in the vision of Soviet Muslim religious life it draws from the rich archival data. In challenging assumptions that essentialize and juxtapose the 'Soviet' vs. the 'Islamic, ' it reshapes the conceptual framework underlying scholarship on Soviet Islam, and offers a dramatically revisionist understanding of the history of Islam in twentieth-century Central Asia."--Devin DeWeese, Professor of Central Eurasian Studies, Indiana University "Eren Tasar has written an extraordinary study of religious institutions in post-war Central Asia-one that breaks new ground on almost every page. Soviet and Muslim illuminates how these organizations interacted and paradoxically grew, sometimes despite themselves. Using a rich trove of archival materials, Tasar eloquently shows how state and non-state actors converged-and even established an 'alliance'-shaped by the bureaucratic, political, and cultural logics in which they operated."--Douglas Northrop, Professor of History and Near Eastern Studies, University of Michigan "Eren Tasar tells the story of how the Soviet state, formally committed to eradicating religion and spreading atheism, shaped Islam in Central Asia in surprising ways. Based on a treasure trove of newly declassified documents in multiple languages, Soviet and Muslim transforms our understanding of the complexities of governing Muslim life and institutions. It will be read with great profit by scholars interested in Soviet history, Central Asia, and the global dimensions of Islam."--Eugene M. Avrutin, author of Jews and the Imperial State: Identification Politics in Tsarist Russia