우즈베키스탄의 정치와 종교 관계

Religion and Politics in Uzbekistan: 'Muslim Board Islam' as an Analytical Concept and a Dichotomy between Official and Unofficial Islam

To understand of the post Soviet Muslim republics it is important to know the Islamic heritage of the Soviet Union, which still dominates and influences the contemporary Central Asian Muslim clergy. Since based on the belief that no intermediary between the believer and God, there is no clergy in Islam in Western sense. But in every Muslim society in the Soviet Union the official ulama was considered as clergy. Moreover, Stalin set up four Muslim religious boards in 1942 for Central Asian, Transcausian, Northern Caucasian and Russian Muslims. Being religious administrations, they controlled the ulama, reinforced the moderate and loyal establishment and checked the expansion of the radical-conservative and anti-Soviet Islamic movements. Since the independence of Uzbekistan in 1991, the Uzbek government promotes a national, moderate version of Islam through the control and financing of the Muslim Board of Uzbekistan, which in turn controls the Islamic hierarchy, the content of imams’ sermons, and the Muslim masses. The government’s long-standing campaign against wahhabi, i.e. uncontrolled Muslims continues unabated. In this campaign, the Karimov regime has imprisoned thousands of Muslims who practice their faith outside of state-controlled institutions. The official Muslim clergy is one of main helpers for the government.