THE EVOLUTION OF ISLAMIC EDUCATION AND FOREIGN RELATIONS UNDER THE SPIRITUAL ADMINISTRATION OF MUSLIMS OF CENTRAL ASIA AND KAZAKHSTAN (1940S–1980S)
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.55640/Keywords:
SADUM, Soviet Islam, Islamic education, diplomacy, Central Asia, Kazakhstan, religious policyAbstract
During the Soviet period, the Spiritual Administration of Muslims of Central Asia and Kazakhstan (SADUM) became the primary institution responsible for the official representation of Islam within the USSR. Between the 1940s and 1980s, it played a crucial role in restoring Islamic education, maintaining religious leadership, and participating in limited international cooperation. This article explores the evolution of SADUM’s educational policy, its institutional development, and the nature of its external relations with Muslim-majority countries. Despite operating under state supervision, SADUM managed to preserve Islamic scholarly traditions and engage in diplomatic exchanges that strengthened both religious identity and cultural continuity in the region.References
1.Ro’i, Y. (2000). Islam in the Soviet Union: From the Second World War to Gorbachev. Columbia University Press.
2.Tasar, E. (2017). Soviet and Muslim: The Institutionalization of Islam in Central Asia. Oxford University Press.
3.Bennigsen, A., & Wimbush, S. (1985). Muslim National Communism in the Soviet Union. University of Chicago Press.
4.Khalid, A. (2007). Islam after Communism: Religion and Politics in Central Asia. University of California Press.
5.Muslims of the Soviet East (selected issues, 1960–1985). Tashkent: SADUM Publications.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Authors retain the copyright of their manuscripts, and all Open Access articles are disseminated under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 (CC-BY), which licenses unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided that the original work is appropriately cited. The use of general descriptive names, trade names, trademarks, and so forth in this publication, even if not specifically identified, does not imply that these names are not protected by the relevant laws and regulations.

