An estimated 95% (5,800,000) of Tajikistan’s citizenry consider themselves to be Muslims, although their degree of religious observance varies widely. Only an estimated 10 percent regularly follow Muslim practices, such as the salat [daily five prayers], eating according to halal [dietary restrictions] and atten-ding congregational services at mosques. About 3 percent of all Tajik Muslims are Ismailis, almost all of whom reside in the remote Gorno-Badakhshan region of the Pamir mountains.[1]  The rest of the Muslim population is Sunni. There is no religion-based conflict between these two groups.

Mosques play an important cultural and spiritual role in the life of Tajik Muslims. According to statistics of Religious Affairs Department, as of July 1, 2004 there were 231 main mosques, 3,082 smaller mosques, 20 madrasas [religious academies], one Islamic institute and 96 religious primary education organizations registered in Tajikistan.[2] There are two types of mosque in Tajikistan: the main or cathedral-type mosque is called jama’a [literally: group/congregation], and is where the Jumuah Friday prayer is performed; the other type is simply called masjid [literally, “place of prostration”], which are tinier and local wherein the complete salat is performed everyday. Most villages have their own masjid wherein faithful residents go to pray whenever their local imam-khatib [head of mosque], who, beckoning like a church bell, sings out the cry of the faithful according to the day’s salat schedule.

During the Soviet era, regional and local governments rarely interacted with mosques out of the belief that an active Islam would promote the collapse of Communist ideology. This is also why the authorities never financed mosques. As a result, the Central Asian peoples built their houses of prayer in their own villages, independent of the government. This remains the case today, for Central Asian governments still do not construct and finance mosques like other states with large Islamic populations. The Tajik government in particular does not finance mosques supposedly because the Tajik Constitution separates the state from religion. While it is true, generally speaking, that the wealth of Tajik mosques is connected to the well-being of the nation, today the administration of the mosques and related charities are financed by rich patrons, social gatherings, and in some cases, by those mosques themselves that are fortunate enough to have come into the possession of their own farmlands. Thus, the Islam of Tajikistan is essentially an enterprise of the people themselves.

The size of a Tajik mosque depends on the amount of residents in surrounding villages and mahallas [urban neighbourhoods]. For example, Kulmunda, a village in the Hissor district with a population of 2000 people, has one mosque whose architectural dimensions are designed to accommodate a daily attendance of 20-30 believers. Meanwhile, there exist mosques in Tajikistan capable of housing more than 20,000 believers. One such mosque is in Dushanbe, called the Central Mosque of Hoji Yakub. Originally constructed to house more than 10,000 people, today the mosque can serve 300 visitors daily; on Fridays this numbers swells by ten times.

In Tajikistan, the regular mosque attendees are pensioners and the unemployed. These individuals often go to mosques five times a day. Meanwhile, most of the population attend mosques only in the evenings; during the daylight hours they pray at their office or in the agricultural fields. Nonetheless, the importance of mosques in Tajik social life cannot be overstated, for persons tend to go there not only to pray to God but also, after the prayer, they eat and discuss the day-to-day existence of village life, including the problems faced by their communities and possible solutions. For instance, mullas [teachers] will go over with the congregants the percentage of unmarried and divorced persons in their areas, so as to facilitate marriage pairings. (The mullas also decide who marries whom.)

Mosque attendees are generally divided into several categories that almost always sit and have food separately from each other. The most respected group are the hojis [those who have performed a pilgrimage to Mecca], typically aged 50-80 years, as well as religiously educated individuals. The second group is comprised of individuals aged 30-40, and the third group is comprised of those possessing little education and property, as well as those from poor income families. The social stratification within mosques is best exemplified by memorial meals. In Tajik culture, if someone dies, in accordance with Shari’at [Islamic customary laws], his or her family is obliged to bring food to the mosque each Thursday for a certain term of time. The best food is given to the most respected group, and if there are any leftovers, then it is handed out to the second group, and finally the third group, all as tabaruki [dedication/blessings] from the hojis.

Incidentally, these days, because of the civil war in the 1990s and widespread poverty, there is an immense number of families donating memorial foods, which means that mosques are now capable of hosting larger meals. This is very important, for after the meal the congregants engage in serious political, social and economic discussions. This mostly happens in the evenings, around dinnertime, when more believers come together after their working day. Criticisms of the central government are a main topic, and sometimes one can hear about world news or prices at the markets.

Rural inhabitants attend mosques more frequently than their fellow citizens in the cities, such as Dushanbe. Most of Tajikistan’s citizenry are quite used to calling themselves Muslims even if they do not follow Shari’at rules. In fact, many “Muslims” do not pray five times a day, do not perform ruza [fasting], drink alcohol and watch pornography (prohibited by the Shari’at.) Most of those who sin in these ways, however, do make the attempt to wash themselves spiritually clean during Ramadan, the month of fasting, by dutifully reading the Quran, performing the salat, not eating, drinking or thinking sinful thoughts during the daylight hours, and generally refraining from actions and thoughts generally considered sinful.

Yet, despite this generally high rate and constancy of religious observation in the country, 99% of Muslims in Tajikistan do not know Arabic. Thus, like so many Muslims in Central Asia, Tajik Muslims suffer from a peculiar form of liturgical and theological illiteracy: they do not understand what they are saying to God when they pray, nor are they able to teach themselves the meaning of the Quran from the Quran itself. Instead, they simply content themselves by memorizing and reciting a few suras [Quranic chapters] without much attention to what it is being said. Infinitely more dangerous than that, they rely upon the second-hand knowledge of mullas for their beliefs. The level of education of mullas (and consequently believers as a whole) remains low because there aren’t many books of Islamic theology, ritual, ethics or philosophy—much less works debating the finer points of Islamic belief—in the Tajik language. In the first half of 1998, there was an attempt by the Tajik presidency to counteract this by publishing a Tajik version of the Quran in both the Cyrillic and Arabic scripts. Editions of these texts were printed in Iran and sold through an Iranian bookshop in Dushanbe. However, these texts were priced expensively, and were not widely distributed throughout Tajikistan.

Because of widespread religious ignorance, not all mosques play a positive role in the society. For instance, members and propagandists of the Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan (IRPT), a theocratic political party, often also serve as imam-khatibs and mullas, which many Tajiks see as a crude violation of the secularism laws of Tajikistan. Emomali Rakhmonov, Tajikistan's president, has sharply criticized the IRPT. When addressing the second conference of the Tajikistan's National Unity and Revival Movement, he stated, “contrary to the law on political parties, some members of the IRPT are engaged in indoctrinating people tending towards extremism, which could lead to a split in society.”[3]



Rakhmonov also expressed concern over the fact that the number of unregistered mosques has grown rapidly, and that they have become centers of religious propaganda. For example, in the Isfara district alone, with its population of 200,000 people, 192 mosques have been built over the past few years, whereas the law permits one mosque per 15,000 residents. Before a new mosque can open it must register with the Department of Justice. However, many believers do not wish to be registered because they would then have to pay a special tax each month, and the clergy also loathe registration because then imam-khatibs would be examined so as to gain certification from the Ulem [religious scholars] Council of Tajikistan, an official body regulating religious life in the country. According to residents of the town Chorku, Isfara district, the authorities also deliberately delay the registration process, often for years.

There exists a demographic reason behind the ongoing explosion of unregistered mosques: a single main mosque services many 10,000-strong towns and their districts. Consequently, many people, and in particular elderly and invalids, cannot go to prayer services. Thus, more and more villages have decided to establish mosques closer to home. According the Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR), the government recently inspected 250 mosques and 20 madrasas across the country and examined the clergy and madrassa teachers for their knowledge of Islam, teaching methods and for their grasp of the laws governing religious life. The inspection’s certification committee discovered several unregistered mosques. The IWPR reported that these mosques’ imam-khatibs claim they have been forced to work illegally because the authorities create obstacles for them, or simply refuse to register their institutions.[4]

The head of the Department of Religion branch for the Isfara district administration, Ismajon Puladov explained that “the overwhelming majority of mosques were closed because they were not registered at the district Department of Justice.” He reported that most of the mosques closed down were small, though one was a cathedral mosque serving several districts of the town of Chorku, 15 kilometres (10 miles) south of Isfara. Puladov claimed that under Tajikistan's law on religion, unregistered mosques have no right to operate. He also said that according to the law on religion only one cathedral mosque was recommended per 15,000 people. “There are 30,000 people living in Chorku, but there were three cathedral mosques operating there, and so we closed one of them in line with the law.”

Recently, Dushanbe's mayor, Mahammadsaid Ubaidulloev, chaired a meeting of the municipality to review the work of all the city's services over the past year. At the meeting, Ubaidulloev spoke out sharply against the unofficial operation of over 120 mosques in Dushanbe: “The number of mosques is already greater than the number of schools in the capital,” he complained. “As of today the doors of all unregistered mosques should be sealed and together with other unapproved constructions they are subject to demolition if they do not meet the requirements of the city planning department.”[5]

Although the government is putting pressure upon unregistered mosques, nevertheless these mosques persist, and in fact their congregations are growing. Thus, the remedy to this problem does not lie in bans from on high. The republic’s mosques, as the spiritual and cultural centers of Tajikistan’s religious society, should be brought into closer cooperation with other social and state organizations and contribute to the development and intellectual wealth of the nation’s believers (and unbelievers.)