"Believers don't do politics": the practices of Soviet madrasa students and Soviet cultural policy in the Middle East, 1955-1991

Abstract

In 1943, the Soviet government decided to reverse its policy towards religious communities with the purpose of building alliances during the Second World War. With regard to Islam, it arranged for the establishment of a Central Asian Spiritual Administration of Muslims (SAD-UM) in Tashkent. Eventually, the state used SADUM to establish cultural diplomatic ties with some Middle Eastern countries by sending students of Soviet-based religious schools - the Madrasas Mir-i Arab (1946-1991), Bara-qkhan (1956-1961) and the Tashkent Islam Institute, Oliy Ma’had, (1971-1991) - to study and gain experience in Islamic universities of the Middle East, notably Egypt, Libya, Sudan, Morocco, Jordan, and Syria, between 1955-1991. The main aim of this essay is to study the exchange expe-riences of these Soviet madrasa students in Middle Eastern countries and the ways this exchange became part of Soviet foreign policy. Studying the foreign madrasa education of these Soviet students, their student life abroad, and their activity, will shed some new light on religious policy in the Soviet period. The analysis of the activities of these students is based on their correspondence. Specifically, I argue that these exchanges helped the Soviet Union to strengthen its ties with foreign academic institutions and Muslims in those countries. Strategically, it was to contribute to strengthening Soviet influence in the Middle East which played an important role in its global and regional political calculations. Here, I distinguish between the intended and unintended consequences of those foreign connections. Although the Party and government viewed this activity in primarily instrumental terms, I suggest that the students used the opportunities to exchange ideas with their foreign interlocutors, which also had its own impact on religious discourse and prac-tice upon their return to Central Asia.