The discourse on Islam in former Soviet republics with predominantly Muslim populations was long dominated by a perception of a ‘regional extremist threat’ often dubbed ‘Wahhabism’. One can not deny that there is a radical, violent fringe that wreaked havoc in the region. Some, spin-offs of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan or militant groups from Chechnya, for instance, could do so again.

The question is, however, if that fringe has a strong military-political capacity and a real base and ideological impact among the region’s population. As important: what does and could Islam, both as a religion and a social-normative system, actually mean for the region and its at least nominally Muslim population?

Over the years, the ‘Islamic threat’ in Muslim Eurasia has been inflated by some local regimes to justify authoritarianism and obtain international loans and military aid. It was also inflated by the Russian security establishment and yellow press. Again, this is not to deny the existence of radical fringe groups. But let’s face it: the chances that any Muslim Eurasian country becomes an Islamic state or that sizeable portions of their societies become receptive for a ‘Wahhabi’ kind of Islam are marginal.

What if one looks at Islam in Muslim Eurasia in terms of opportunity rather than as a threat or an outcome of poverty and repression? Of course, one should not over-estimate the overall position of Islam in the region. Three generations of Soviet rule and -education obviously left their impact on the perception and practice of religion in general. Yet today, a majority of the people identify themselves as Muslim to one degree or another while there is increasing interest in religion at least in some areas and parts of society.

It will soon be one and a half decades since the Muslim-majority countries in Eurasia obtained independence. Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, a generation grew up in a cultural-social void. Yet sooner or later, Muslim Eurasia’s socially mobile, opinion leaders and even parts of the elites and the larger population will ask: «Who are we, what do we want, where do we want to go? The Soviet Union is gone, and even if its impact and popular nostalgia are strong, it is dead as a project for the future. Do we want to become ‘neo-Third World’ tossed around by Russia, China and the West? Or do we want to get respected, respect ourselves and find a place in the modern global reality? »

What the vast majority of the region’s people want is clear and fair: a decent life and a minimum of social justice and security for themselves and their families. Opinions may differ on the way that is going to be achieved for the majority, yet there is sense in a statement made by Samuel Huntington in ‘The clash of civilisations’: «People do not live by bread and reason alone. They cannot calculate and act rationally in pursuit of their self-interests until they define their self. Interest politics presupposes identity.»

What is, or could be, that identity? Muslim Eurasia’s regional identity has two key components: a continuing Russian influence due to the common Soviet-colonial experience; and a geographic position on the edges of the Muslim world combined with a historical legacy nevertheless rooted in Islam – and Sufism, its mystical form, in particular – the cultural sphere that was dominant during the region’s heyday. These may seem strange bedfellows yet the common denominator for, say, an Azerbaijani, Tajik, Dungan or Uzbek is, that they are Eurasian Muslims with a common Soviet past and Russian as lingua franca.

Another question is, what the position is of civil society and the middle class, the part of society that basically ‘carries’ a society’s identity and social framework. In his article ‘Soviet legacies and Western aid imperatives in Central Asia’, Olivier Roy wrote: «(It is more fruitful to) engage with the real actors in the region’s new republics, even when they do not share exactly the same agenda: apparatchik-farmers, entrepreneurs and local notables and religious figures, when they have a social agenda. Building civil society is going to be more meaningful if it is predicated on the social fabric as it exists, rather than on window-dressing civil society based on abstract, perceptual models derived from elsewhere of what civil culture ought to be.»

Perhaps it is there that a suitable form of Islam could bring a constructive input in Muslim Eurasia, at least in certain areas and segments of society where Islam is more prominent. Much remains speculative at present, yet a few core characteristics of a Eurasian Islam can already be identified. First, it will be Russian-speaking. Second, it will be an Islam that is not so much revolving around formal religiosity or politics, but one that serves as a social-normative system and a catalyst for social initiaves instead; in fact, this is compatible with what many former Soviet Muslim appreciate in the Islamic religion, as is show by empirical studies like those by sociologist Tahir Faradov did for Azerbaijan, for example. Third, its international vectors will not come from the Arab world; instead, Russian Muslims and Turkish faith-based civil society are better placed because of the existing economic and linguistic ties with most Muslim-majority ex-Soviet countries.

Such a Eurasian Islam can be part of a new identity at a time when ethnic traditions and Soviet codes of conduct erode. It can be part of a social framework for an emerging middle class at least in parts of the region and foster a higher level of resistance against social decay. It could also inspire initiatives to build certain social services where overburdened governments can not. Let’s not act as if it’s a ‘threat to stability’ or ‘Islamic radicalism’ if social networks around mosques, Sufi groups or Muslim faith-based charities take care of impoverished pensioners, addicts or help to set up sports’ facilities and computer classes.

We should not be naïve or idealist about the position and role of Islam even as outlined above. Yet the question is to what extent the main alternatives have been so gratifying over the last one and a half decades: stagnating regimes with mothballed secular nationalist ideologies, and ‘imported’ Western norms and concepts that, in this region, are often too far out of their element to be viable or credible.

Either way: the challenge for Muslim Eurasia and its people is not to have to choose between ‘Westernisation’ and ‘Wahhabism’. It is, first of all, to get out of its acute identity crisis and find a place in today’s global reality. The role that a Eurasian form of Islam could play in that might be more relevant than many believe.