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The Islamic Impact on Traditional Kirghiz Ethnicity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Guy Imart
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Extract

The relationship between Islam and ethnicity has generally been studied almost exclusively from a theoretical (theological) and/or practical (historical) viewpoint of the Muslims themselves. If we observe this problem from another point of view, that of the Islamized natives, we discover that there exists a tacit consensus as to the three levels or degrees according to which Islamized peoples can be classified: (a) a maximum or even total confluence of Islam and ethnicity, as in the Arab lands and in Daghestan; (b) a partial distinction between Islam and ethnicity, stemming from a certain ‘ethnicization’ of Islam, as in Shia Iran; and (c) a somewhat vague decentralization between these two focal points, as in Turkestan, Subsaharan Africa and Southeast Asia.

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Articles
Information
Nationalities Papers , Volume 14 , Issue 1-2 , Spring-Fall 1986 , pp. 65 - 88
Copyright
Copyright © 1982 by the Association for the Study of the Nationalities (USSR and East Europe) Inc. 

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References

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