Columbia International Affairs Online: Working Papers

CIAO DATE: 10/2008

Islam in Uzbekistan: Religious Education and State Ideology

Martha Brill Olcott, Diora Ziyaeva

July 2008

Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

Abstract

Islam in Uzbekistan: Religious Education and State Ideology is the fourth paper of the ongoing series on Islam in Central Asia. It provides a historical overview of religious education in Central Asia, focusing on the hujra system and its founders, and assesses the efforts of the Uzbek government to define the content of Islam that has been presented in public life since independence was obtained in 1991. It examines the presentation of Islam in the schools—especially in Tashkent Islamic University, seen as the premier training institution for secular teachers of Islam—and the presentation of Islam in the mass media.