Columbia International Affairs Online: Working Papers

CIAO DATE: 04/2010

Islam and the International Sector: Negotiations of Faith in the Kyrgyz Republic

Noor Borbieva

December 2009

The Helen Kellogg Institute for International Studies

Abstract

This paper examines the impact of globalization on local religious life in the Kyrgyz Republic, a formerly Soviet republic of Central Asia. The central argument of the paper is that transnational Islamic discourses alter the way Kyrgyz Muslims think about identity and religious authority. The paper draws on the work of Talal Asad, acknowledging important contributions he has made to the anthropology of Islam, as well as exploring the limitations of his approach. The paper follows Asad in viewing Islam as a tradition of competing discourses, none of which are more authentic than any other, but challenges Asad when he limits the study of Islam to competing discourses about belief and practice. Ethnographic material reveals that not only do Kyrgyz Muslims champion an astounding variety of competing discourses about Islam, but with the entrance of transnational Islamic discourses in these contests, they increasingly encompass issues of identity and religious authority.