Paper long abstract:

The paper introduces the overlooked yet growing role of women actively shaping and disseminating Islamic knowledge in Kyrgyzstan. Analysis of formal and informal learning experiences of women demonstrate well that female Muslims in Kyrgyzstan did not confine their learning only to private study of life circle rituals, but make great efforts to take their positions as teachers and students in both - Islamic Educational institutions and house based study sessions known as taalim, where they creatively contribute to production of Islamic knowledge. Being involved in all types of learning and teaching, including public lectures of prominent imams, preaching tours of Tablighs, taalim, madrasa teaching etc. they are focused on scriptural Islam. However, engaged learning of textual Islam doesn't distance them from modern real life context making them conservative practitioners, instead lead them to learn Islamic texts to respond to their modern real life needs. Because of this different types of study circles for women as well as public lectures of prominent religious teachers are able to attract more and more women of varying socio-economic and cultural backgrounds.

Paper long abstract:

The paper will present a school privately organized by the members of the Islamic movement in Russia and accommodating the children and youth within this school and youth club within the same premises. The paper deals with knowledge circulation in a migrant setting: looking into semi-religious schools in Moscow, focusing on discourses and purposes behind the schools and the question will be asked whether these schools aim only to educate the youth or there are also other aspects of being Muslim in general define those goals.

Informal schooling in form of home schooling or in form of half formal schooling arrangements is provided mainly in the big cities in Russia. An example of home schooling in the premises of a youth centre is a small school with 20 to 50 children self-organised by Muslim teachers and parents with administrative support of NGOs which is registered as a youth centre. The school attendees are formally registered in state school where they successfully pass all state exams and other tests but learn at the facilities of small school for Muslim children. During the schooling times children learn not only state required subjects but also about Islam and Arabic. The children are taught in mixed groups but wear proper Islamic clothing as the teachers also do. Islamic education and the way of proper Islamic lives are the fundamentals of the schools.

The attendants of these schools do not only grow up learning about being a Muslim but also are better in the subjects of state schools since the schools offer a more individualised approach (repetitorskiy podhod) to the pupils of the schools. There are also bigger schools which are organised in the same way within Islamic centres where the number of pupils are higher and education is much more formalised such as the facility itself with grading system, curriculum, and fixed strict schedules.

Paper long abstract:

Since the formation of a democratic state in Afghanistan in 2002, the local discourses about education and concepts of knowledge have been greatly shaped by return migrants who have received their education in exile. At a time when not few have been radicalized in religious schools (madrasahs) in Pakistan, another class of educated, reform-oriented Muslims emerged in schools and universities under the influence of different mujahidin groups as well as foreign actors. Most characteristic for this new class is the aim to bridge the traditional divide between "religious" and "secular" education through encompassing formation.

Among the supporters of such models, knowledge (ilm) gains its validity only through its ethical application for the sake of Muslim society. Thus, an appropriate educational system in their view would have to impart knowledge within an Islamic ethical framework. Besides formal Islamic tuition (Islyamiyat), they expect institutions to uphold and teach Islamic values ranging from gender segregation and "appropriate" dress to "proper" ethics (adab) among teachers and students. At the same time, teaching methods are supposed to be "modern" (asri), while keeping certain idealized ethical features of the madrasah, such as a close relationship between teacher and student as well as a broad knowledge of foundational religious texts.

By drawing on ethnographic data collected around various educational institutions in Kabul and Eastern Afghanistan, the paper discusses local normative discourses around education. It examines the ways how teachers of Islamic subjects reflect their experience with different forms of education during their earlier careers and how this affects their own work as well as their assessment of the Afghan educational system. Secondly, it examines how education and knowledge are being evaluated through certain symbols, which surprisingly often features the emphasis on girls' education. Finally, the paper inquires the social implications of "knowledge" itself, i.e. ideas of how the imparted knowledge is supposed to affect society as such.

It is argued that "knowledge" in this context has two interrelated meanings: "religious" knowledge is complete and only open to discussion and interpretation within certain confines. Through its ethical dimension it encompasses and gives meaning to all other forms of worldly knowledge, which in itself can be studied and researched. A "knowledgeable" person gains status through his alma mater, where education features "modern" methods of instruction and where "religious knowledge" is not only taught but convincingly embodied through certain behaviour.

Paper long abstract:

In the decades since Kyrgyzstan's independence, a growing number of people have been increasingly practicing Islam based on a specific notion of Islamic knowledge (ilim) implying the strict adherence to the holy scriptures and prescribed practical and moral guidelines. While recent publications have explored how religious knowledge generally is acquired by individuals and made meaningful in their everyday lives (e.g. Rasanayagam 2011; Montgomery 2016), accounts covering the attempts of institutionalizing this specific, normative understanding of Islamic knowledge (ilim) have so far been absent from ethnographic descriptions.

In this paper, I pursue two aims: First, I offer an account of what I call the "religious infrastructure" in present-day Kyrgyzstan. I highlight how mosques, madrasas and Islamic funds together with religious agents such as imams and members of the Tablighi Jama'at movement (davatchy) engage in the ultimate goal of providing religious knowledge "ilim" to a broad audience throughout the country. I show how this is achieved through the interplay of formal and informal processes at local, regional, national and global levels.

Second, contrary to accounts emphasizing foreign influences in this kind of "Islamic revival" (Khalid 2003; Abramson 2010), I stress the role of local initiatives involved in knowledge production and circulation. While activities of the davatchy lay preachers figure prominently in recent publications (Nasritdinov/Ismailbekova 2012; Toktogulova 2017; Mostowlansky 2017; Pelkmans 2017), I shed light on the activities of Islamic funds within the country. Taking the local fund "Adep Bashaty" as an example, I show how its members engage entrepreneurial endeavour in promoting religious knowledge throughout the country, at the same time seeking to reconcile discourses on its proclaimed incompatibility with "traditional" Kyrgyz national identity.

This paper is based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted both in Kyrgyzstan's capital Bishkek as well as the rural Yssykköl region during a total period of twelve months in 2014/2015.