Mullahs to Sit Religious Tests
Tuesday, 18 September, 2007
Mullahs to Sit Religious Tests
Tuesday, 18 September, 2007
On September 10, Toygonbek Kalmatov, the director of the government’s State Agency for Religious Affairs, announced that plans were under way to test clerics and teachers at Islamic religious schools or madrassahs. Those who pass will receive official certification, while anyone who fails will be banned from teaching and preaching.
Kalmatov said that around 70 per cent of Kyrgyzstan’s 12,000 practising Muslims have never studied at formal religious schools.
He also announced that a recent meeting of Kyrgyzstan’s Security Council decided to reform the legislation concerning faith organisations. At the moment, the regulatory framework consists of presidential decrees, five law codes and seven government orders, creating a situation which Kalmatov said “does not meet the requirements of the present day”.
Around 80 per cent of Kyrgyzstan’s population is Muslim, and the country has more than 2,000 mosques and about 50 madrassahs.
Most of the commentators interviewed by NBCentralAsia welcomed the tests, saying it would help stamp out ignorance and give both mosques and madrassahs a better reputation.
“It’s high time Islamic clerics were given certification. It’s no secret that most of our mullahs have only completed the first two or three years of [primary school] education,” said Aldayar Ajy, the deputy head of the Religious Board of Muslims.
Political scientist Mars Sariev believes there is a great need to educate clerics better, first because of the learning gap created by 70 years of Soviet rule in which religious activity was frowned on, and secondly because in recent years a variety of forms of Islam have emerged, and clerics in Kyrgyzstan now offer differing interpretations of the Koran.
“The poor standard of education of Islamic clerics allows extremist ideas to take hold, and young people can drift towards religious organisations that use Islam for political purposes,” he said.
Religious affairs expert Kasym Amanov agrees, saying that mosque-goers will be more inclined to trust radical interpretations of Islamic theory or the Koran if their usual preacher cannot answer their questions properly.
“The inadequate level to which clerics are educated in our country is one of the reasons why support for Hizb-ut-Tahrir is growing,” he said, referring to an extremist group banned in Kyrgyzstan.
(NBCentralAsia draws comment and analysis from a broad range of political observers across the region)
