'Proper' Muslim against 'authentic' Kyrgyz: The formation of Islamic field and secular challenges in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan

In this study, I examine the oppositional configuration of public figures around the poles of "proper" Muslimness and "authentic" Kyrgyzness in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. I ask: Why are public actors defining their positions in opposition to the other? Why do such opposing positions tend to crystallize around two poles: "proper" Muslimness versus "authentic" Kyrgyzness? Why cannot one be a "proper Muslim" and an "authentic Kyrgyz" in Kyrgyzstan today? Why do Islamic actors choose to collaborate with each other? Why do we not see more competition among Islamic actors in Bishkek when it is a common phenomenon among Muslims in other parts of the world?;Based on ethnographic research, I look at the process of turning public figures into two opposing groups around two opposing poles by focusing on the encounter between the post-Soviet present and the legacies of Soviet history. I demonstrate that Soviet nationality and religion policies made Muslimness subordinate to Kyrgyzness, which is defined through language, customs, and values unique to the Kyrgyz. With the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the institutions that created and maintained the definition of Muslimness as such have also collapsed. In addition, the liberal policies post-Soviet Kyrgyzstani governments introduced in matters of religion and economics opened the country to outside world and provided the Kyrgyz with new opportunities and means to challenge the identification of Islam with Kyrgyz traditions and to promote a view of Muslimness that is no more defined within the limits of Kyrgyzness but more parallel with the global trends of Islamization. Yet, such efforts by particular Kyrgyz to create a new definition of Muslimness with the new means at hand are challenged by the intelligentsia who are the products of the very system that had subordinated the religion to ethnic identity and that had assigned the intelligentsia as the promoters and guardians of Kyrgyzness. Motivated by an overriding sense of urgency and desperation to save the Kyrgyz people from post-Soviet chaos, they promote new narratives of national identity and position themselves in opposition to the Islamic actors whom they think threaten their efforts to construct an authentic Kyrgyzness.;I examine the process of polarization between Islamic actors and the intelligentsia by using Bourdieu's theory of fields and Giddens' concept of "ontological security".