The Administration of Religion in the Newly Independent Republics

Abstract

Faced with an Islamic revival from the inside and incoming foreign Islamic trends, leaders in Central Asia and the Caucasus have developed specific policies for a better management of Islam. With a new attitude toward Islam, different from the Soviet approach to religion, the new leaders have developed their own “national” Islam, also called a traditional Islam, one that accepts the control of the State. Security and stability of the country are the first parameters determining management of Islam by the government. For that, Islamic education and the existence of appropriate committees are the main tools and instruments that help the regimes to control the transformation of Islam.