ISLAM

In the late Soviet period about 55 million people called themselves Muslims, a number of believers second only to those who followed Russian Orthodoxy. Most Muslims lived in Central Asia, though important enclaves existed in the Caucasus and other parts of the country. As with other religions, the state limited the number of places of worship and the amount of religious activity. From the early 1920s, the govenunent tried to ward off a movement toward religious and cultural unity among its Muslim citizens by creating six separate Muslim republics: Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, and Azerbaijan. The state permitted mosques in most of the bigger cities of Central Asian republics and the Azerbaijan Republic, but their number slipped from 25,000 in 1917 to about 500 in the 1970s, to about 400 in the mid-1980s, with only two madrasahs (Muslim religious schools), which produced about 60 graduates annually. As with the finest Russian Orthodox churches, the state appropriated the most beautiful mosques, turning them into museums. In 1989, at the twilight of Soviet power and under the influence of Gorbachev's more liberal policies toward religion, some government-closed mosques were given back to Islamic believers.

Soviet Muslims comprised a wide variety of ethnic groups: Turks (Azerbaijanis, Uzbeks, Tatars, Uygurs, etc.), Iranians (Tajiks, Ossetians, Kurds, Baluchi), Caucasians (Avars, Lezgins, Tabasarans), and some smaller groups. About 50 million Soviet Muslims spoke a Turkish language; most others spoke a Persian dialect. Adding to this diversity was the fact that some were city people while others were newly settled nomads or still followed a nomadic or seminomadic life. Some educated Muslims could communicate with each other in Russian, but most were not fluent in that language, a circumstance that was a big obstacle to advancement in Soviet society.

Muslims are expected to carry out the "five pillars of the faith": recitation of the creed that "There is no god but God [Allah], and Mohammed is his prophet," daily prayer, charitable donation to the poor (zakat), fasting during the Islamic ninth month of Ramadan, and pilgrimage to Mecca (the hajj). Fortunately for Soviet Muslims, Islam also recognizes that one does what one can; circumstances may not always allow completing all five requirements. Permission to travel to Mecca was doled out at the rate of about 20 Muslims per year, and the privilege was allotted only to high-level religious dignitaries. Zakat wus forbidden. Observant or not, most Soviet children of Muslim parents thought of themselves as Muslims, but

Those who felt freest to openly practice their religion were pensioners with no jobs or careers to worry about. For Muslim students and employees, as for other citizens, open religiosity could put education and career at risk. Nevertheless, Muslim rituals such as circumcision, Ramadan fasts, religious marriages, and burials were widely practiced. The early 1980s saw some lifting of state controls. A few new mosques opened; it became possible for a handful of young men to go to Cairo or Damascus to study to become clergy; some Islamic monuments were being restored at state expense. Unofficial Muslim congregations began meeting in teahouses and homes, often led by a self-taught mullah. Some of these unofficial groups began leaning toward Sufism, a mystical branch of Islam. Soviet Sufis joined secret societies called tariquas and practiced their religion clandestinely. Members ran underground religious schools and underground mosques in people's homes. As a substitute for the forbidden hajj, they organized pilgrimages to the graves of local heroes.