Bearing Tradition: The Difficulty of Leaving Islam in Post-Soviet Central Asia

What may be involved in a Muslim’s aspiration to leave Islam? How can experiences of leaving Islam complicate our conceptions of Islam as an object of scholarly inquiry? I ask these questions by drawing on fieldwork among non-observant Muslims in Kyrgyzstan—those estranged from key aspects of Islamic observance by the Soviet state. I focus particularly on the story of Begimai, a woman in her fifties who, after an unpleasant encounter at a mosque, attempted—but did not succeed—to convert to Christianity. I examine several experiential fields that mediated Begimai’s relationship with Islam, including the conceptual legacy of Soviet secularization, the post-Soviet Islamic revival, and the agency of Begimai’s deceased ancestors. This exploration illuminates a relational web of forces through which Begimai’s (in)ability to imagine a future without Islam was articulated. The paper concludes with a broader argument about how non-observant or ambiguous ways of living Islam may be conceptualized.