by M. Sadiq M.Y., Chairman of the Muslim Religious Board for Central Asia and Kazakhstan
In April 1991 — two months before the failed coup that would accelerate the Soviet Union's dissolution — Soner Yamen, a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin, posted an excerpt from a letter he had obtained to soc.religion.islam. The letter was written by M. Sadiq M.Y., the Chairman of the Muslim Religious Board for Central Asia and Kazakhstan, the Soviet body responsible for overseeing the religious life of millions of Muslims across five republics: Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Turkmenistan.
The letter describes the institutions and activities of the Board — its 400 Juma mosques and nearly 1,000 local prayer houses; its religious schools in Bukhara and Tashkent; its international relations with Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Jordan, Egypt, Syria, Libya; its publishing activities, including the magazine "Muslims of the Soviet East" in six languages, read in 90 countries. The tone is formal, diplomatic, optimistic about perestroika.
The document is remarkable for what it represents: a glimpse into Soviet Islam in the final months of the USSR, written from the inside. The Muslim Religious Board was itself a Soviet creation — established in 1943 under Stalin to manage (and monitor) Islamic practice — but its chairman here speaks in the register of a religious leader addressing a global community of co-religionists, not as a Soviet official. The religious and the institutional exist side by side, matter-of-factly.
Within a year of this letter, the Soviet Union was gone, and the five republics were independent states. The religious landscape described here — carefully managed, internationally connected, full of plans — entered a new and turbulent era.
The Muslim Religious Board for Central Asia and Kazakhstan, of which I am Chairman, is guiding the religious life of Muslims in five Soviet Republics: Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Turkmenistan.
Our work is wide and many-sided. It covers a set of most important aspects, the first of them being the management of Mosques. We have 400 major Juma Mosques under our guidance, as well as nearly 1000 small local praying houses, where everyday and Friday prayers are performed. Nearly all Mosques are manned by Imams, who received their education in our religious schools. They fluently speak Arabic and possess a deep knowledge of the Islamic sciences.
We leaders of the Board keep the work of the Mosque under our permanent supervision, watching that their activity should develop on the principles of the Holy Qur'an and the Sunnah of our Prophet Muhammad, may peace be upon Him.
We often remind our believers the words of our Prophet: "After my death two things will be left for you: the Holy Qur'an and the Sunnah. If you adhere to them you will never deviate from the right path." Our Department of Fatwa helps to keep our people along the path of the Holy Qur'an and Sunnah.
Education and Training
The second aspect of our work is the training of religious functionaries. Young Imams are trained in two institutions of learning: the Medressah 'Mir-Arab' in Bukhara and the Islamic Institute bearing the name of Imam al-Bukhari in Tashkent. Many workers of our Religious Board have received their education in Islamic Universities in Egypt, Syria, Libya, and Jordan.
Now in connection with the policy of perestroika, the field of our activities has become considerably enlarged. We plan to build many new mosques and praying houses in places where they are needed. We shall have to train more well-qualified religious workers. For this purpose we must enlarge our religious schools in order to be able to admit a larger number of students. New buildings for the Tashkent Islamic Institute and the Medressah 'Mir-Arab' in Bukhara will be constructed.
International Relations
The Board considers that peace-making activity is its foremost duty. We therefore aim our efforts at the consolidation of friendship and mutual understanding among nations, and at fruitful collaboration and solidarity of all peace-loving forces of our world. Contacts are kept by means of personal meetings, through correspondence, and participation in conferences, seminars, and symposia, held in the Soviet Union and abroad.
Every year several Muslim delegations visit our country at the invitation of the Board. They come from Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Jordan, and elsewhere to get acquainted with the life of Muslims and with the activities of our religious organisations. They receive firsthand information about the position of religion in the USSR.
The Islamic conferences we periodically convene enjoy great popularity. We invite prominent scholars and religious leaders from Muslim countries. The last Islamic International Conference was held in 1986 in Baku. Its motto was: "Muslims in the struggle for peace." Six hundred delegates took part along with numerous guests from 60 countries of Asia, Africa, Europe, and America. Leading international organisations such as the United Nations Organisation, the Muslim World League, Makkah al-Mukarramah, the World Muslims Congress in Karachi, and others were represented.
The representatives of our Religious Board often take part in international forums convened by the World Peace Committee, the Afro-Asian Solidarity Organisation, the World Council of Churches, and many others. Members of our Board are invited to participate in the meetings of the Supreme Council of Mosques in Makkah, in the seminars of the "Islamic Thought" in Algeria, and in the annual sessions of the Royal Academy in Jordan.
Publications
We have a large number of correspondents with whom we exchange letters and religious literature. We exchange greetings on the occasion of Islamic holidays; our friends from abroad write to us about their problems, about the work they carry out in their corresponding regions. These letters and the printed materials they send acquaint us with the situation of Muslims in different parts of the world.
We publish the magazine "Muslims of the Soviet East" in six languages: Arabic, English, French, Persian, and Dari. It is being read in 90 countries. As we know from the letters of our readers, it enjoys great popularity, because it conveys true information about the life of Soviet Muslims and their activities, as well as supplying data about the history of Islam and Islamic monuments of architecture concentrated in Samarkand, Bukhara, Horezm, and many other places of Central Asia. We plan to make our magazine still more informative and print more copies.
To satisfy the need of the believers for religious literature we reprint periodically the Holy Qur'an and publish the works of our prominent scholars of the past, who are known and respected throughout the world. Thus we have published Sahih al-Bukhari, Al-Adab al-Mufrad, and a book by Imam al-Termezi, "Shamail an-Nabaviya." From the works of our contemporary authors we have published a book by our late Mufti Z. Ibn Ishan Babakhan, entitled "Islam and Muslims in the Land of Soviets." We plan, of course, to increase the number of our publications in the future.
I wish to ask the readers of this article to write us, if they have any questions concerning our activities.
May the Almighty Allah be merciful to all of us, may He reward us with His love and benediction.
Colophon
Written by M. Sadiq M.Y., Chairman of the Muslim Religious Board for Central Asia and Kazakhstan, Tashkent, USSR. The letter was posted to soc.religion.islam on 15 April 1991 by Soner Yamen, a student at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, who noted it was an excerpt from a longer piece.
The Muslim Religious Board for Central Asia and Kazakhstan was established in 1943 and was headquartered in Tashkent. It was one of four regional boards created by the Soviet government to administer and oversee Islamic practice within the USSR. Despite its institutional origins as a Soviet control mechanism, it also served as a genuine interface between Soviet Muslims and the broader Islamic world. The magazine "Muslims of the Soviet East," described here, was a real publication — issued in Arabic, English, French, Persian, and Dari — and circulated internationally.
The Soviet Union dissolved later in 1991. The five republics in which this Board operated — Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Turkmenistan — became independent states. The religious institutions described in this letter entered a new era of rapid transformation.
Preserved from the Usenet archive for the Good Work Library by the New Tianmu Anglican Church, 2026. Original Message-ID: [email protected].
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