The Turkmen tribes that converted to Islam during the period of the Seljuks have remained nominally Sunni Muslims; however, many of their religious practices are strongly influenced by tribal and regional elements, which in turn reflect remnants of pre-Islamic beliefs. These elements-cults associated with holy places (mukaddes yerleri) and Sufi saints (pirs), are characteristic of Turkmen Islam and inseparable from it. The Muslim reform movement that surfaced in Bukhara and other parts of the Ferghana Valley at the end of the nineteenth century wrought no changes in Turkmen Islam, nor, apparently, did the determined anti-Muslim efforts of more than seventy years of Soviet rule.
In the nineteenth century much of the region of present-day Turkmenistan was nominally subject to the Emirate of Bukhara; thus Turkmen Islamic institutions, especially the shari `ah courts, were also under the administration of the qazi-kalon, who controlled all such courts in the emirate. In Bukhara’s western vilayets (provincial administrations), including those regions of Turkmenistan under Bukhara’s control, the highest religious authority was the qazi, who was subordinate to the shaykh al-Isldm; the latter was second only to the qazi-kalon, On the local level, prayers and other functions were under the supervision of the mullah. In actuality, the lines of authority were not that clear: the Turkmens had, and have retained, a strong tribalregional tradition, and the tribal structure and the Muslim structure on the local level had often coalesced. It is very common to find religious functionaries, such as the mujavurs (grave guardians), who are responsible for the maintenance of shrines specific to one or another tribe.
In addition to Bukhara’s formalistic Islamic administration, Muslim Sufi movements also carried authority. It is not uncommon for actual decisionmaking to be in the hands of Muslim religious orders such as the Yasawiyah and its offshoot the Khojagon, the Naqshbandiyah, or, further to the north, the Kubrawiyah. The Sflfi communities were under the control of an ishan, and their members are called murids. At present, the Naqshbandiyah is the most widespread in Turkmenistan; its practitioners are referred to colloquially as kalandars.
The Russian conquest of the Turkmens at Goktepe in 1880-1881 had no impact on Muslim practices in Turkmenistan. It was not until the imposition of Soviet authority in the mid-1920s that Turkmen Islam began to be affected. Soviet policy was then directed at separating church and state, nationalizing waqf holdings, and breaking Islam’s financial power. The increasing effectiveness of Soviet atheistic and anti-Islamic propaganda also took a heavy toll; a seeming coup de grdce was administered during the Stalinist purges of the late 1930s, when almost the entire Muslim clergy was liquidated.
Until 1943-1944 Soviet Islam was nominally under the administrative and financial control of the Central Muslim Spiritual Administration in Ufa. In 1944, however, its functions were divided among four newly created spiritual administrations. Official Islam in Turkmenistan then became subject to the Spiritual Administration for Muslims of Central Asia, based in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. Subordinate to the Spiritual Administration was a council responsible for all administrative matters concerning official Islam. In addition, Religious Affairs Councils were established in each republic; these oversaw the adherence of all religious organs to party and state policy. In 1965 a Council of Religious Affairs was formed under the aegis of the USSR Council of Ministers. It had the same functions as the councils in the republics. One consequence of Soviet control over Islam was that by 1985 there were only four official mosques in all of Turkmenistan.
Muslim life in Turkmenistan, however, had little contact with official Soviet Islam; it centered around the tombs of Sufi saints, Muslim graveyards, and holy places. An unofficial Muslim clergyman was referred to as a mollasumak, a derogatory term meaning “pseudomullah.” Many of them were itinerant, traveling from village to village and from shrine to shrine. Muslim pirs, or saints, often had a number of shrines devoted to them. Among the active shrines are those dedicated to Agishan (sometimes called Zengi Baba), who is reputedly an ancestor of a clan of the Tekke federation; one is marked by a grave in Archman village in Krasnovodsk oblast and in Goymat village, near Goktepe where he is identified with the Bekdash clan of the Yomut tribal federation. Shrines to Zengi Baba include a fortress near Sarygamysh and a number of medieval mausoleums in Bakherden Rayon, as well as shrines in Kopetdag and Bekdash. As a remnant of pre-Islamic tradition, Zengi Baba is also known as the patron saint of cattle. Other examples of the eclectic nature of the Turkmen shrines are those dedicated to Babagammar (sometimes Gammarbaba), including one near Kopetdag and another near Yoloten. According to folk tradition, Babagammar is also considered to be the pir of the saz and dutar, traditional musical instruments probably because of the presence at the shrines, present or past, of a sacred tree, the wood of which was used in making them. Other notable shrines and pilgrimage points at the present time include shrines surrounding the graves of Chopanata, Garababa, Gozlibaba, and Saragtbaba. As in the case of Zengibaba and Gammarbaba, these pirs often have multiple places said to be their burial sties.
After the Iranian Revolution the anti-Muslim campaign conducted by the Soviet authorities became more rigorous, though no more effective, than in the past. Since the Soviet Constitution guaranteed freedom of conscience, sanctions were generally applied primarily to alleged members of the Sufi hierarchies: murids, dervishes, kalendars, wahs, pirs, and ishans. Soviet authorities, to avoid giving the impression that they were acting against Islam itself, punished these individuals for crimes unrelated to Islam, such as parasitism, drunkenness, and wife-beating. After 1981 mollasumaks and
Sufis were sentenced to corrective labor in a camp established for that purpose near Neftezavodsk.
In the late 1980s the official attitude regarding all forms of religious belief in the USSR changed. Greater freedom of religious expression was permitted, and mosque construction or rehabilitation resumed. By June 199i more than seventy mosques had opened in Turkmenistan. Hajji Nasrullah ibn Ibadullah, who had originally been appointed kazi-imam of Turkmenistan by the Spiritual Administration for Muslims of Central Asia in Tashkent, discussed in the mass media the advantages of integrating the mollasumaks into the official religious hierarchy, similar to processes already taking place in neighboring Uzbekistan. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, and thus the collapse of Soviet institutions such as the Spiritual Administrations, Hajji Nasrullah ibn Ibadullah, on I June 1992, registered the Kaziate Administration of the Muslims of Turkmenistan with the Turkmen Ministry of Justice. It received full juridical powers, in exchange for which law enforcement officials of the Ministry of Justice “maintain a working relationship with the religious representatives” (Turkmenistan [Ashkhabad], 3 June 1992, p. 3). At the same time, it is forbidden for a religious organization to register as a political party; hence, the influence in Turkmenistan or nongovernmental Muslim organizations, such as the Islamic Renaissance Party, is unknown.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Atanyiazov, Soltansha. Turkmenistanyng geografik atlarynyng diishiindirishli sozlugi. Ashgabat, 1980.
Nissman, David. “Iran and Soviet Islam.” Central Asian Survey 2.4 (December 1983): 45-60.
DAVID NISSMAN
