The data for this paper was compiled from October 2002 to June 2003, while a visiting faculty, teaching anthropology, at the American University-Central Asia in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. The research was carried out in Bishkek, Narin and Osh.

F. Heyat, Azeri Women in Transition: Women in Soviet and post-soviet Azerbaijan (London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2002), p 106.

A. B. Elebaeva, Mezhetnicheskie Otnoshen iya v Postsovetskikh Gasudarstvakh Dinamika Razvitiya (Ethnic Relations in Post-Soviet States of Central Asia: Dynamics of Development) (Bishkek: Ilim, 2001).

Interview with the assistant mufti in Bishkek, Nimatullah Ali Jeenbekov, March 2003.

C. M. Abramzon, Kirgiz jana Kirgizstan Tarikhi boyunja Tandama Emgekter (Selected Works on the Kyrgyz and Kyrgyzstan History) (Bishkek: Soros Kyrgyzstan Foundation, 1999); L. Polonskaya and A. Malashenko, Islam in Central Asia (Reading, UK: Ithaca Press, 1994).

J. During, ‘The foundations of religiosity and the transmission of spiritual forces in Central Asia’, in Collection of Materials: UNESCO International Forum “Culture and Religion in Central Asia”, (Kyrgyzstan: National Commission of the Kyrgyz Republic for UNESCO, 1999).

B. G. Privratski, Muslim Turkistan: Kazak Religion and Collective Memory (Richmond, Surrey: Curzon, 2001).

J. Baldick, Animal and Shaman: Ancient Religions of Central Asia (London: I.B. Taurus, 2000).

I. B. Moldobayev, ‘Kyrgyz religious beliefs (From ancient times to the present)’, in Collection of Materials UNESCO International Forum ‘Culture and Religion in Central Asia’ (Kyrgyzstan: National Commission of the Kyrgyz Republic for UNESCO, 1999).

The phrases in Kyrgyz that reflect this include: Tangri jalkasin (may the sky protect us), Tangri koldoi ker (support me, sky), Tangri ursun (may the sky punish you).

According to some of my informants, when sighting the new moon one should bow three times.

Abramzon, op cit, Ref 5.

A. Tabyshalieva, ‘A glance at the religious situation in Kyrgyzstan’, in Collection of Materials UNESCO International Forum ‘Culture and Religion in Central Asia’ (Kyrgyzstan: National Commission of the Kyrgyz Republic for UNESCO, 1999).

S. Poliakov, Everyday Islam: Religion and Tradition in Rural Central Asia (London: M. E. Sharp, 1992).

Abramzon, op cit, Ref 5.

F. Bowie, Anthropology of Religion: An Introduction (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000), p 198.

T. Zarcone, ‘Religious syncretism in contemporary Central Asia: how Sufism and Shamanism intertwine’, in Collection of Materials UNESCO International Forum ‘Culture and Religion in Central Asia’ (Kyrgyzstan: National Commission of the Kyrgyz Republic for UNESCO, 1999).

Abramzon, op cit, Ref 5.

Moldobayev, op cit, Ref 9.

Bowie, op cit, Ref 16.

UNDP, National Human Development Report: Democratic Governance: Alternative Approaches to Kyrgyzstan's Future, 2001, (Bishkek: A UNDP Publication), also available at: http://www.undp.kg.publications.

UNDP, National Human Development Report: Democratic Governance: Alternative Approaches to Kyrgyzstan's Future, 2001, (Bishkek: A UNDP Publication), also available at: http://www.undp.kg.publications.

Trafficking in Women and Children from the Kyrgyz Republic, Bishkek, Kyrgyzsstan: International Organisation for Migration, November 2000.

Trafficking in Women and Children from the Kyrgyz Republic, Bishkek, Kyrgyzsstan: International Organisation for Migration, November 2000.

Trafficking in Women and Children from the Kyrgyz Republic, Bishkek, Kyrgyzsstan: International Organisation for Migration, November 2000.

Social Monitor 2002, The MONEE Project CEE/CIS/Baltics, UNICEF publication Florence, Italy.

Social Monitor 2002, The MONEE Project CEE/CIS/Baltics, UNICEF publication Florence, Italy, p 22.

J. Nazpary, Post-Soviet Chaos: Violence and Dispossession in Kazakhstan (London: Pluto Press, 2001).

G. A. Bakiyeva, ‘Islam as a socio-cultural code’, in Collection of Materials UNESCO International Forum ‘Culture and Religion in Central Asia’ (Kyrgyzstan: National Commission of the Kyrgyz Republic for UNESCO, 1999).

G. A. Bakiyeva, ‘Islam as a socio-cultural code’, in Collection of Materials UNESCO International Forum ‘Culture and Religion in Central Asia’ (Kyrgyzstan: National Commission of the Kyrgyz Republic for UNESCO, 1999).

The hijab at this Institute, as in the Osh Theological Faculty and other Islamic higher educational institutions, is interpreted as a head scarf along with loose tunic and trousers. However, among the Hizb-Ut-Tahrir followers and other fundamentalists it is expected to be a larger scarf enveloping the face and ankle length robe-like dress. Among the most extreme followers a face veil is also worn.

E. W. Ozorak, ‘The power, but not the glory: how women empower themselves through religion’, Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, Vol 35, No 1, 1996, pp 17–29. This study, carried out among women participating in religious activities of different Christian and Jewish faiths, revealed that being aware of the inequities for women was tangential to their predominantly satisfying faith experience. The fact that women were less glorified or represented within these religions was not critical, given that the religious community itself was not perceived in terms of its hierarchy but its sharing. Power emanated from the support of the community.

The animosity of Wahhabism towards Shiites is well known and was also commented upon in A. Rashid, Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam in Central Asia (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2002). However in Kyrgyzstan, as in most of Central Asia, there is no sizeable Shiite population.

Otinchas (in Uzbek Otines) are the women mullahs, operating mostly among the Uzbek population in Central Asia. They have traditionally been responsible for the religious education of girls and conducting prayers at life-cycle ceremonies among women. For more details on this see H. Fathi, ‘Otines: the unknown women clerics of Central Asian Islam’, Central Asian Survey, Vol 16, No 1, 1997, pp 27–43.

Rashid, op cit, Ref 33, p 45.

For a detailed study of this group see the publication by International Crisis Group (ICG): ‘Radical Islam in Central Asia: responding to Hizb ut-Tahrir’, 30 June 2003. Also found at: www.crisisweb.org.

According to the Independent Human Rights Organisation of Uzbekistan, of the 7600 political prisoners in the summer of 2001, 5150 were HT members (Rashid, op cit, Ref 33, p 126).

‘The IMU and the Hizb-ut-Tahrir: implications of the Afghanistan campaign’, an ICG publication, Central Asia Briefing, Osh/Brussels, 30 January 2002. Also found at: www.crisisweb.org.

‘The IMU and the Hizb-ut-Tahrir: implications of the Afghanistan campaign’, an ICG publication, Central Asia Briefing, Osh/Brussels, 30 January 2002. Also found at: www.crisisweb.org, p 7.

G. Massell, The Surrogate Proletariat: Moslem Women and Revolutionary Strategy in Soviet Central Asia (1919–1929) (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1974).