Questions of research history of religious confessions in Uzbekistan (from 1991 till 2000 in the XX century)

At present, national history is an integral part of the ideology of any independent state and becomes a true educator of the nation. The focus is on the human rights of interpersonal relations. Increased interest, it is natural that it pays attention to the problems of freedom of conscience, the history of religion and religious confessions, the deeds of outstanding figures, combining religious outlook and encyclopedic education. "Our great ancestors: Imam Bukhari, At-Termezi, Naqshbandi, Khoja Ahmad Yassavi, Al-Khwarizmi, Beruni, Ibn Sino, Amir Temur, Ulugbek, Babur and many others had made a huge contribution to the development of the national culture, to our truly pride people". In this regard, recently the study of the problems connected with the spiritual and religious heritage of our people has become especially important and urgent.

Many cultural and scientific figures, religious scholars and publicists, clergymen and lawyers express different points of view on how relations between religious organizations and the state should develop, the place of freedom of conscience in the system of universal values, democratic rights and freedom. A special place in the public dialogue on religious confessions is the issue of the practice of exercising freedom of conscience at various stages of the formation and development of our country.

Historical literature, in which the historiographical aspects of the topic are reflected in one way or another, should be divided into the following groups: a) works written about the philosophical side of religious confessions; b) research of scientists, undertaken after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the creation of independent democratic republics, in particular the Republic of Uzbekistan; c) works of foreign authors.

Decisive changes in the nature and methodology of scientific knowledge were determined only after Uzbekistan gained independence. In the historiography of this time, as in all of Russian historical science, we can trace the beginning of the process of revival, the first steps without the influence of totalitarian ideology in the direction of objective scientific analysis. In the first years of independence, many scientific papers did not set the task of historiographical analysis of the history of religious confessions. However, as the literature developed, the authors went deep into the history of the study of religion, revealed little-known or completely forgotten names of researchers, determining their contribution to the studies of religion and thereby, recreated a broader understanding of the history of religious studies.

In particular, the attitude towards foreign religious studies, which was declared unscientific, idealistic, anti-communist, etc., was changed in Soviet times. Now, in the era of democratization, the views on foreign religious studies, in particular, on Islamic studies, have changed. It was recognized that in the stagnant years around many themes, whole historical periods and personalities there was a kind of conspiracy of silence; that the past and the future of religion under socialism, the national question and the influence of the religious factor on it have practically not been adequately reflected in Soviet literature. Denying the achievements of the foreign social scientists, looking for only class and anticommunist manifestations in them, Soviet researchers have largely impoverished themselves, have come to the same scholasticism, dogmatism and conservatism, for which our social scientists are now criticized. A more detailed scientific study of this issue can be traced to the works of D.A. Alimova devoted to the classification and systematization of the historiography of women's issue.

The study of foreign religious concepts gradually becomes objective, to replace criticism for the sake of criticism comes a constructive study of the history of religious confessions. The philosophical and methodological foundations of foreign religious studies were not analyzed, only Sovietological concepts were studied that were criticized as part of a clerical attitude.

In the monograph by G.R.Baltanova considered the latest foreign research on the current state of the Muslim religion; a comparative analysis is conducted with Soviet religious studies; the place and role of Islam in the history, culture and civilization of people is defined in a new way.

G.R.Baltanova emphasizes that the central place in the theoretical development of Western scholars is the concept of "Muslim renaissance," the beginning of which has been determined since the late 70's. It was then that a kind of renaissance of Muslim themes began not only on the pages of scientific foreign publications, but also in the mass media.

In the number of works on national ideology and generally accepted principles of scientific knowledge, where different aspects of the history of religion are examined, including questions of religious radicalism in the modern world and its features in the Central Asian region and in Uzbekistan, it is possible to include publications by B.Talapov, O.Abdullajanov, B.Babadzhanov, A.Taksanov, A.Abbasova, V.Ponomarev, and others, the specific features of the religious situation in Uzbekistan at the turn of the 80's and 90's and the early 90's of the twentieth century, in particular, the appearance in time and "restructuring" of underground and semi-religious groups and institutions; reasons for the activation of Islamic forces in politics in the late 80's; the role of individual religious figures in this; the activities of the “Adolat” movement in the early 1990s; the role of various radical ideologies that contributed to the emergence of fanatical views among some of the clergy, etc.

A significant contribution to the formation and development of new ideas about religion and religious confessions was made by such domestic scientists as A.Mansurov, S.Ishanov, S.Boltabaev, B.Babajanov, A.Rakhmonov, E.Karimov, and others.

The above information indicates that dozens of works of different significance are devoted to questions of the history of religious confessions, to the principles of the confessional policy of Uzbekistan and its features, but they generally offer only a partial description of the historiography of the issue under consideration. With all the many publications that deal with some or other aspects of the problem, in domestic historiography there is still virtually no work devoted to a comprehensive analysis of the available literature on the problem under study for the period 1917-2000.

At the end, I would like to draw conclusions, the main of which are as follows:

• -    Articles published in the period of independence, monographs, conference materials contain valuable facts on the problem under study and represent a significant historiographical interest. The most important task raised at the level of state policy was the revival of the priceless spiritual and cultural heritage of the people.

• -    Confessional policy of the state is aimed at providing free development of spiritual culture to all people living in Uzbekistan.

Based on the results of this article, we consider it expedient to set forth the following proposals and recommendations:

• -    it is necessary to continue targeted scientific research in search of solutions to the problems of history and religious confessions in the period of new and modern times;

• -    pay special attention to the study of life and activities of representatives of national religious thought and to study the role of religion in the history of Central Asian civilization;

• -    conducting a deep source study and historiographical analysis of the history of religion and religious confessions in Central Asia and conducting a comprehensive study on the problem of "Islam and Power in the Modern World";

• -    Development and publishing educational and methodological literature on the history of religious confessions in Uzbekistan.