[Bilimsel Haber] PUBL.- Islamic Revival in Azerbaijan, Bayram Balci (in French)

[Gonul Pultar]

PUBL.- Islamic Revival in Azerbaijan, Bayram Balci (in French)

Posted by: Stephané Dudoignon <dudoignon at aol.com>

We are pleased to inform you of the publication of the following item:

Bayram BALCI
Le renouveau islamique en Azerbaïdjan: entre dynamiques internes et
influences extérieures

Paris: CERI (Les Etudes du CERI, 138), 2007, 37 p., bibliography, map

Abstract:

Post-Soviet Azerbaijan is the theater of an Islamic revival in the 
public sphere, a direct consequence of exiting from the empire and 
achieving independence, which involved the rehabilitation of religion, 
and even the integration of Islam in a new national identity policy.
Azerbaijan stands out from the rest of the former USSR by the fact that 
it is the most secularised Muslim country due to its early entrance into 
Russia's bosom and the fact that is was for long the ground for an 
ideological clash between the Shiite Persian and the Sunni Ottoman 
Empires. It is through the convergence of internal factors - a preserved 
Islam despite the anti-religious Soviet policy - and external factors - 
the influence of neighbouring countries: Turkey, Iran, and the Arab 
world - that Azerbaijani Islam has been reconfigured since the end of 
the Soviet era.  Eager to preserve the country's secularity - the pride 
of the elites - and to ensure that the religious revival does not turn 
into a source of tension between the two essential components of its 
population (Shiites and Sunnis), the state has - with difficulty and 
sometimes with a lack of subtlety - set up a religious policy that is 
far from receiving general approval. However, even if its handling of 
Islam is disputed, the Azerbaijan government controls the religious 
phenomenon through a policy that alternates between tolerance and 
repression.

Information:

Dr. Bayram Balci
Institut Français d'Etudes sur l'Asie Centrale
Service de la valise diplomatique
128 bis, rue de l'Université
F-75007 Paris SP

Email: balci at ifeac.com.uz
Please do not write to the address of the sender of the present message.



Distrib. by: Central-Eurasia-L - Announcement List for Central Eurasian 
Studies