Madrasa-based Religious Learning: Between Secular State and Competing Fellowships in Kyrgyzstan

Abstract

Kyrgyzstan has experienced a rapid and diverse expansion of religious educational offerings in the past two decades and presents a fascinating regional case study of the development of Islamic education. Based on a rich ethnographic study, this article explores recently developed processes by which madrasa-based knowledge is established and transmitted. In revealing these processes, the article draws attention to political struggles for control over the transmission of religious knowledge between state and non-state actors on the one hand, and religious actors on the other. It further delves into the material and spiritual world of madrasas as perceived by students motivated to gain education and their families. In the final section, it uncovers how different madrasas use religious education, under the varied concept of ‘service to community’, to establish and maintain networks of graduates, which are necessary to the further rooting of Islamic fellowships into society, politics and the economy.

Anthropology of Transformation

“…Recent anthropological work on religious-secular contestations in the post-socialist space sheds additional light on the entanglements of religion and politics beyond the common tropes of 'instrumentalisation of religion,' or the 'Orthodox symphonia' between church and state (Köllner 2020). Such ethnographies delineate several levels of relatedness between religious and political actors and a space of institutional-organisational dynamics between lived religion and the state (Halemba 2015;Doolotkeldieva 2020;Tocheva 2018). These arrangements complicate the image of 'civility' Hann proposed, pointing to the historical and institutional dynamics that allowed for 'civility' to emerge in its various forms in the first place.…”

“…Central Asia remains a predominantly Muslim region, but the diversity of ways in which Islam is interpreted and lived out has grown significantly in the twenty years since the research of the Civil Religion Group was carried out. Increased contact with other parts of the Muslim world, the proliferation of movements like the Tablighi Jamaat and the investment of foreign Muslim donors in the region, combined with an established network of local Islamic schools and greater access to Islamic materials at home, has led to a variegated religious sphere (Botoeva 2018;Doolotkeldieva 2020;Nasritdinov 2012;Nasritdinov and Esenamanova 2017;Pelkmans 2017;Stephan-Emmrich 2018;Toktogulova 2014). Labour remittances and the growth of a middle class in places like Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan has also led to the development of a religious middle class, with its incumbent consumption patterns and tastes (Bissenova 2017;Botoeva 2020;Stephan-Emmrich and Mirzoev 2016).…”

“Are You Married?”: Gender and Faith in Political Ethnographic Research

“…Very few political scientists have used political ethnography to study Central Asian Islam (Yemelianova 2009; Doolotkeldieva 2020) but they do not necessarily address reflexivity during fieldwork. The field remains dominated by anthropologists (Louw 2007; Rasanayagam 2010; Peshkova 2014; Montgomery 2016; Roche 2019).…”

Construction of Girls’ Educational Projects in Kyrgyzstan from the Intergenerational Perspective

“…The growing influence of Islam is vividly manifested at the state and 1 3 family levels. In the latest years Kyrgyzstan has observed a rapid growth in the number of religious educational institutions, which today reached the following numbers: 102 madrasahs and 9 religious higher educational institutions (Borombaeva, 2019;Doolotkeldieva, 2020). The views related to the role of women in the society have changed towards more traditional (Joldoshalieva and Shamatov, 2008;Olimova and Tolipov, 2011), especially in rural areas of the country, where girls' future is considered through the lens of "marriageability" (Schröder, 2020, p. 162).…”