Summary: The Soviet Union was an amalgamation of different states spread across Europe and Asia. In an attempt to create a cohesive nation out of the various cultures, religions and peoples included in the U.S.S.R the Communist government worked to erase or mitigate historical and cultural heritages. In Muslim countries ndash; like those of Central Asia ndash; this involved discouraging people from practicing Islam. Those who did want to practice their faith were pushed into a state-sanctioned version of the religion. ldquo;Basically they didnrsquo;t allow practice of any part of your religion,rdquo; says Azamat, a 25-year-old Indiana University graduate student from Kazakhstan. ldquo;But we still hold on to what we believed.rdquo; When Communism fell and the various states within the Soviet Union gained independence there was a rush to reclaim lost heritages. In many of the Central Asian Muslim nations a kind of Islamic Renaissance took place as Muslims began to openly explore and take up the practice of Islam. ldquo;We have an emergence that people are starting to learn the religion back and to realize thatrsquo;s a part of their lives,rdquo; Azamat says. ldquo;There are more people practicing, trying to practice, trying to learn. I can see more use coming to Islam.rdquo; Coming to Islam Growing up, Azamat says he remembers older adults encouraging their children and grandchildren to stay connected to Islam. But it was hard to stay connected to something they didnrsquo;t know much about. It also didnrsquo;t help, he says, that Islam, as well as Kazakhstanrsquo;s culture in general, was portrayed by the Soviets as ldquo;backward.rdquo; ldquo;I wasnrsquo;t a practicing Muslim until I was 18 or 20 years old,rdquo; he says. ldquo;As you know we didnrsquo;t even practice our own language. We have to come back to it [Islam] as if from the start. But I love it. I think it gives me so much in my life; it gives me direction.rdquo; Like the majority of Muslims in Kazakhstan, Azamat is a Sunni of the Hanafi school of Islamic jurisprudence. (There are four schools of law in Islam; the other three are the Shafirsquo;i, Maliki and the Hanbali.) The Hanafi school is quite common in Central Asia as well as in Iraq and Afghanistan. Knew He Was Hanafi While Azamat says he knew he was Hanafi, it wasnrsquo;t until coming to the United States that he began to think about what that meant. ldquo;I knew that Irsquo;m a Hanafi but I didnrsquo;t actually know anybody else who is not Hanafi so itrsquo;s by default so you donrsquo;t actually think lsquo;Oh, I am Hanafi and Irsquo;m different,rsquo; no,rdquo; Azamat says. ldquo;Maybe I could see that difference here but really itrsquo;s a minor thing. Itrsquo;s not something I associate myself with. I donrsquo;t say, lsquo;Well, I am Muslim, but I am also a Hanafi,rsquo; Irsquo;m just Muslim.rdquo; Azamat attends mosque near IU while at school; it, being located in a college town, caters to Muslims from all over the world. Azmat says hersquo;s never noticed any major differences between how he practices Islam and how others do. ldquo;Maybe they have small differences, small changes in details, but thatrsquo;s it,rdquo; he says. ldquo;But I never thought about that before coming to U.S.rdquo;
