Islam in Kazakhstan

Islam is the largest religion practiced in Kazakhstan, with estimates of about 74%[1] of the country's population being Muslim. Ethnic Kazakhs are predominantly Sunni Muslims of the Hanafi school.[2] There are also small numbers of Shias.[3] Geographically speaking, Kazakhstan is the northernmost Muslim-majority country in the world,[4] and the largest in terms of land area. Kazakhs make up over half of the total population, and other ethnic groups of Muslim background include Uzbeks, Uyghurs and Tatars.[5] Islam first arrived on the southern edges of the region in the 8th century from Arabs. According to the Constitution, The Republic of Kazakhstan proclaims itself as a democratic, secular, legal and social state whose highest values are a person, his life, rights, and freedoms.

Kazakhs performing Salah in Mosque.

Although Kazakhs identify with their Muslim heritage, religious practices are generally very moderate, and displays of religiosity, such as the wearing of the headscarf or daily attendance in mosques, are rare.[6]

However, observers have also noted a rise in religiosity and an overall Islamic revival (like in the region as a whole), Kazakhs who self-identify as Muslims rising from 79% in 2007 to 93% in 2012,[7] while as of 2012, 10% of the Kazakhs practice Islam in its totality (praying five times a day and observing the Hijab for women), the youth also frequenting the mosques more often, whereas their number "appears to be growing every year."[8] In 2019, there were 2500 mosques in the country, number which "increased 37-fold in the span of 25 years."[9]

  1. ^ "Religious Composition by Country, 2010-2050". Pew Research Center's Religion & Public Life Project. 2015-04-02. Retrieved 2020-10-29.
  2. ^ International Religious Freedom Report 2006 Archived 2008-06-22 at the Wayback Machine U.S. Embassy in Astana, Kazakhstan
  3. ^ "KAZAKHSTAN: Ahmadi Muslim mosque closed, Protestants fined 100 times minimum monthly wage". Forum 18. Retrieved June 7, 2014.
  4. ^ Muslim-majority Tatarstan lies further north of Kazakhstan, but is a non-sovereign federal subject republic of Russia.
  5. ^ Kazakhstan - International Religious Freedom Report 2009 U.S. Department of State. Retrieved on 2009-09-07.
  6. ^ Section 1. Article 1. THE CONSTITUTION OF THE REPUBLIC OF KAZAKHSTAN
  7. ^ Junisbai, B., Junisbai, A., & Zhussupov, B. (2017). “Two Countries, Five Years: Islam in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan through the Lens of Public Opinion Surveys”, Central Asian Affairs, 4:1, p. 10.
  8. ^ Achilov, D. (2012). “Islamic Education in Central Asia: Evidence from Kazakhstan”. Asia Policy, 14, pp. 85-86.
  9. ^ Bilal A. Malik (2019). “Islam in Post-Soviet Kazakhstan: Experiencing Public Revival of Islam through Institutionalisation”, Asian Journal of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies, 13:3, pp. 7-8.