Some twenty-five years after the end of the USSR, the time has come to take stock of the changes in the countries and societies that emerged from that multi-ethnic, multi-confessional state. Here we shall be examining the development of Islam in two parts of the region: Central Asia and the Caucasus. At certain points in its history, the Soviet Union projected itself as a Muslim power, and contemporary Russia boasts several million practising Muslims whom it places at the centre of its policy of rapprochement with the Muslim world. The so-called ‘Muslim’ countries that emerged from the Soviet Union—i.e. the republics of Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan, which possess a predominantly Muslim population and heritage—are also affirming a new relationship with Islam. And, whether they like it or not, as sovereign subjects on the international scene they are interacting in a new way with various countries from which they import or experience religious influences. Thus, the initial premise of the present work is that from 1991 onwards the Caucasus and Central Asia joined in the globalization of religion. Consequently, in order to understand changes in Islam there, we need to examine the way in which its states have dealt with various foreign influences and the conduct of public policy on religion in the light of such influences. The latter derive from countries which, prior to Russian conquest and Soviet domination, were in contact with Central Asia and the Caucasus. ...
The Russian Factor in Turkey's Georgian Policy after the Russian-Georgian War (August 2008)
