Uzbeks and Islam: Their contemporary political culture. An empirical study

The purpose of this dissertation is to determine whether, after more than seventy years of communist rule, the traditional Islamic political culture has survived in Uzbekistan. The extensive literature on the "Soviet" political culture does not deal with the sub-cultures of the Muslim population of the former Soviet Union. On the other hand, area-study literature on Central Asia and the other Muslim regions in the former Soviet Union is laden with unsubstantiated propositions about the continuing political viability of Islam. The contribution of this study is expected in two areas: (1) to help fill in the gap that exists in the literature of Communist-dominated countries regarding the sub-cultures of the Muslim population of the former Soviet Union and (2) to verify the propositions about the present political importance of Islam in Central Asia.;Several types of statistical analyses were employed to test hypotheses on the effect of four independent variables on the level of attachment to traditional Islamic political culture. The variables were: age, gender, level of education and place of residence. The results revealed that all the participants have a relatively high level of attachment to the Islamic culture, but that age was positively correlated with the participants' level of attachment; the political attitudes of older people seem to be more shaped by the traditional Islamic culture than those of the younger. Level of education revealed significant, but unexpected, correlation with the degree of attachment. Participants with high levels of education are more attached to the Islamic culture than those who were less educated. The effect of gender was contrary to what was expected. Males' political attitudes are more shaped by the Islamic culture than those of females. There were no statistically significant differences in the level of attachment between urban and rural residents.;Finally, the study makes it clear that recent warnings of a threat of fundamentalism in Uzbekistan were exaggerated and unjustified. (Abstract shortened by UMI.);The study examines the contemporary political attitudes of Uzbeks, who constitute the largest Muslim population in the former Soviet Union. Its goal is to determine if those attitudes are shaped by their traditional Islamic political culture. A questionnaire was administered during a field trip to Uzbekistan in January and February 1992. More than 700 individuals participated in the study.