Discovering a sense of well-being through the revival of Islam: profiles of Kazakh imams in Western Mongolia

Cynthia Werner, Holly Barcus and Namara Brede

Central Asian Survey, 2013, vol. 32, issue 4, 527-541

Abstract: Throughout Central Asia, the end of communism has been marked by a significant change in the management and influence of local mosques. In many rural areas, small underground mosques operated by informally trained, elderly moldas have been supplanted by newly constructed mosques led by younger, foreign-educated local imams and financed by governmental and private donations from Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and other countries. From several perspectives, this ‘revival’ of Islam is characterized in a way that implies that increased religiosity and piety is somewhat problematic. In this essay, based on six months of ethnographic fieldwork in Western Mongolia, we argue that such an approach prevents an understanding of how religious changes are enhancing the social and material well-being of certain actors. We explore the utility of the concept of well-being by focusing on the everyday lives of Kazakh imams in Western Mongolia. Approximately 100,000 ethnic Kazakhs live in the Western Mongolian province of Bayan-Ölgii, where they comprise about 80% of the population. Although a significant portion of the population has been migrating to Kazakhstan in the post-socialist period, the Kazakhs who choose to remain in Mongolia have experienced a significant increase in religious freedom. In this context, the new cohort of imams is playing an important mediating role as members of the local population reinterpret and renegotiate their identity as Muslims. In addition to finding spiritual well-being through their knowledge of Islam, these imams are acquiring social status and economic security from their local roles as religious leaders and through their transnational connections with a broader Muslim community.

Date: 2013
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/02634937.2013.862966 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:ccasxx:v:32:y:2013:i:4:p:527-541

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/ccas20

DOI: 10.1080/02634937.2013.862966

Access Statistics for this article

Central Asian Survey is currently edited by Raphael Jacquet

More articles in Central Asian Survey from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().