Genre, modernisation soviétique et usage des « langues de religion » en Asie centrale (Ouzbékistan et Tadjikistan)

• Main Author: Habiba Fathi
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Université de Provence 2008-11-01
• Series: Revue des Mondes Musulmans et de la Méditerranée
• Online Access: http://journals.openedition.org/remmm/6027

In a secularizing context, the relationship between gender, Soviet modernization and uses of « languages of religion » (Arabic, Persian and Tchaghatay Turkish) is explored. The main focus is the role of Muslim women in the trans-generational transmission of religion. Women of religion are the ones who mediate the rediscovery of the Muslim heritage. This rediscovery is taking place within the broader context of re-Islamization and revalorization of national languages of Uzbekistan (Uzbek with Latin script) and Tadjikistan (Tadjik with Cyrillic script) ; both independent states were formerly part of the Soviet Union. The author retraces the main axes of the modernization politics through two main domains: linguistic policies and the emancipation of Muslim women. The paper focuses on the old and new Muslim educational systems in these two newly independent Central Asian states and highlights these counstries’ tendency, due to their fight against Islamism, to refuse all religious change. This means all religious trends are rejected, even those that would enable the regions’s Muslim societies to leave behind their traditional orientation.