: Islam in the Post-Soviet Newly Independent States: the View from Within

Aleksei Malashenko and Martha Brill Olcott, Eds. July 2001. 320 pp. In Russian

The book analyzes a wide range of problems related to the Renaissance of Islam in the post-Soviet space and its influence on politics, international relations, security, law, culture, and religion itself. There is a struggle over the role of Islam in the community, whether it should be the foundation of law and morality or not. This struggle exists in states that are multi-confessional as well as those that are mono-confessional. At the core is the question of whether a Muslim society can in fact ever become a truly secular one, or is secular a phenomenon of the Christian world. Each of the authors brings in extensive field research, or in-depth practical knowledge to the problem, so that the reader gets a sense of the multi-faceted nature of the problem.