ISLAMIC REVIVAL IN KAZAKHSTAN: STATE POLICY

Abstract

It is widely known that Islamic revival is behind numerous national security threats, religious tension and political challenges. This is confirmed by the fact that practically all terrorist acts are committed by extremist and terrorist groups, which reproduce and execute specific projects of Islamic revival, the Islamic Caliphate being one of the pertinent examples. Fully aware of the threats rooted in the radical and extremist ideas of Islamic revival, the state has no choice but an active and determined opposition. In the 2005-2020, Kazakhstan adopted several normative legal program documents and took certain organizational measures to improve the regulation of the religious situation in the Republic of Kazakhstan. Many of these laws and organizational measures, however, stirred up heated discussions: the opposition insisted that the state should secularize the society, securitize Islam, etc. Much has been said about the efficiency of opposition to radical and extremist models of Islamic revival. Together, this creates a varied and even contradictory background for the state policy related to Islamic revival and calls for closer attention to the situation unfolding among the Muslims of Kazakhstan. We are already in the third decade of the 21st century, an important stage at which the religious and political environment created by Islamic revival and the relations between the state and confessions should be assessed. In this article, we analyze the state policy in the context of Islamic revival and offer its conceptual analysis as a multifaceted phenomenon. A modernist trend, which often prevails, is developing along with the fundamentalist trend within the framework of the Islamic revival. Accordingly, the authors argue that state policy is not directed against the Islamic revival as such and does not aim for the securitization of Islam or the secularization of society; on the contrary, it seeks to preserve the historically formed recontextualized Islam, which is rooted in the fundamentals of Islam and is simultaneously consistent with modernization and national heritage. In the concluding part of the article the authors touch upon a scholarly discussion of whether state policy of opposing the extremist Islamic revival models is efficient and to which extent. Our discussion and conclusions are supported by sociological data on the religious situation in the Muslim community, obtained through comparison of the religiosity level and the extent of people’s respect for the country’s authorities.