Islam in contemporary Central Asia and Afghanistan

 Islam is considered to be one the most influential religion at present. It was born around the seventh century and after the death of Prophet Mohammed (PBUH) spread all around Asia. Gunn’s article on “Shaping Islamic Identity” shows, how Islam has gone through many stages of decline and how it rose to power. “A vast majority of central Asians consider Islam to be part of their social identity”. But due to rise of Soviet power it destroyed many Islamic learning institutions, leaving many people unaware of Islamic teachings. They converted many of the Islamic institutions to museums and factories, which lead Islam to seek existence. Although the Soviet Union almost wiped out Islamic learning and knowledge, it did not eliminate the population’s self-perception as having an Islamic identity. There are many factors that helped shape Islam including the “Hanafi school of Sunni Islam, Sufism, Shi’sm and other islamist movements”. The conflicts in central Asia are not conflict between civilizations but conflicts with in. “The most salient conflict has been between Islamist and the states that have attempted to suppress them”. Through time everything came back to normal and many institutions that were converted during the reign of Soviet Union were restored back to its original state.

            Hirschkind on his article follows the Feminist Majority's Campaign against the abuse of Afghan women. It shows how badly these women are treated. They forbade women from all kinds of institutions including schools, colleges and any governmental establishments. Many of them were even forced to wear “burqa”, which is covering from head to toe. Freedom was taken away from them and they had no other options available. Their main concern is not just rescuing the women in Afghanistan but to “address the larger set of assumptions and attitudes undergirding this campaign and that are reflected widely in American public opinion: attitudes about the proper place of public religious morality in modern Islamic societies, and in particular how such morality is seen to shape and constrain women’s behavior”. We need to think about Muslim women outside the simple opposition. We should all help them break free from the constraints of political superiors and aid them to find their true self.