Proto-religions firmly anchored
The practice of shamanism dates back to the dawn of time. A practice that is as much a matter of tradition and adaptation to the whims of nature as it is a true religion. But among nomads, where the oral transmission of culture is particularly important and binds the generations together, shamanism has remained more firmly rooted than elsewhere. Kyrgyzstan lent itself very well to this trend: rare villages and valleys very isolated from each other, long distances, almost no large cities, no education system ... Shamanism has therefore remained prevalent among the population, until today. Shamans, officially eradicated under communist rule, have resurfaced since independence. Called bakshi, they heal evil by invoking the spirits. Many shamanistic practices also permeate the religions that appeared later in the region, particularly Islam. This Islam will be imbued with shamanic traditions, becoming the majority trend of the population in the north of the country. People still believe in the evil eye, burn herbs to purify the environment and bring good luck, and willingly offer amulets.
The first organized religions
Mazdeism was practiced by the Aryan tribes that populated western central Asia and Iran as early as the second millennium BC. This polytheistic religion recognized Ahura Mazda as the most powerful of the gods. Its rites were carried out by mages who practiced the worship of purifying fire and ritual animal sacrifices. Around the year 1000 BC, Zarathustra reformed Mazdeism and founded Zoroastrianism. Among other things, he opposed the ritual sacrifice and worship of Haoma, the god who gives strength through intoxicating drink, and instead glorified the god of goodness Ahura Mazda, the wise lord, and the struggle between Spenta Manyu, the Holy Spirit, and the destroyer Ahriman. He conceives the universe as the struggle of two principles, Good and Evil, opposing each other like day and night, hot and cold. Although monotheistic, the Zoroastrian religion preserves the Mazdean pantheon, whose deities Mithra and Anahita are the most celebrated in Central Asia.
The sacred texts
The sacred texts of Zoroastrianism are grouped together in the Avesta. These texts, which would have been written in Avestic language in the second millennium B.C., were transmitted orally by the Magi for a long time and then transcribed rather late, probably at the end of the Sassanid period. Fire, water, air and earth are sacred elements that must not be defiled. Thus the dead are neither buried nor burned, they must be exposed in the dakhma, which are sometimes small constructions called nausea, as found in Penjjikent (Tajikistan), or enclosed spaces located on hills, such as the "towers of silence" seen in Iran or Karakalpakia (Uzbekistan). The most important bones, where the souls of the dead are buried, are grouped together in terracotta vessels, the osteotheques, or placed in enclosed spaces called ostadan. Zoroastrianism was the official religion of the Sassanid dynasty; it was widely practised in Sogdiana and Bactria. There are ruins of Zoroastrian temples in the Tajik Pamir and Karakalpakia. This religion is still practiced in Northern India, as well as in Iran.
The expansion of Islam in Kyrgyzstan
The Turkish and Mongolian tribes established in Kyrgyzstan, despite the conversion of many of them to Zoroastrianism, have always practised a religion close to shamanism and animism. The first conversions to organized religions were the work of some Buddhist or Nestorian proselytes who followed the Silk Road between India and China. Initially, the conversion of their khans to Islam must have been quite formal, although Muslims had a special aura, as their missionaries were also warriors. Islam phagocytized the customs and rites of the "infidels" and was able to survive, largely through the proselytizing of Sufi brotherhoods. But after the battle of Talas, in the north-west of present-day Kyrgyzstan, the Muslims stopped their phase of conquest, and Kyrgyzstan, a mountainous country, will always remain far removed from the centres of power and decision-making, and consequently, apart from a later Islamisation than for other peoples, will retain more religious freedom than other better-controlled regions. Today, Central Asian Islam is predominantly Sunni, mixed with Zoroastrian, Manichean, Buddhist or animist beliefs, and still strongly influenced by Sufi brotherhoods.
Bad influences
Islam, which could never be eradicated by the Soviets even though Moscow fought against its practice between 1932 and the Second World War, reappeared very soon after independence. In the early 1990s, extremist movements such as Wahhabism in the Ferghana Valley, which gave rise to the Uzbek Islamist Movement and incursions by Islamist fighters into the Batken region of southern Kyrgyzstan, led to widespread repression by the Uzbek authorities.
Kyrgyzstan has had to deal with armed religious movements in two of its neighbours - Uzbekistan and Tajikistan - while no extremist movement has ever appeared in the Central Asian "Switzerland". But the repeated changes in power and the corruption of the elites, combined with the creation of cells by Daesh in the early 2010's, has changed the situation considerably. This return to an Islam that has never been fanatical or intolerant in the country's history is the classic mark of a search for identity among poor and abandoned populations that religious clandestinity attracts and drives out of control. Fortunately, it is currently the work of only a few isolated individuals, and for the Kyrgyz people as a whole, the "return of the religious" simply means going to the mosque and practising Ramadan. The women are very little veiled, even if there again this practice reappears in the Ferghana valley.
