page_title: Uzbekistan
section_title: Religion
hierarchical_section_title: Uzbekistan / Demographics / Religion
caption_attribution_description: La mosquée Kalon ou "grande mosquée" (à droite) est la "mosquée du vendredi" de Boukhara. C'est l'une des mosquées les plus anciennes mais aussi les plus vastes de l'Asie centrale. Elle pouvait accueillir 10.000 fidèles. La première construction sur ce site date de 795 par les conquérants arabes. Le bâtiment actuel a été achevé en 1514, par la suite il a été embelli puis restauré au cours de l'époque soviétique. Le minaret Kalon (à gauche) a été construit en 1127 par le Karakhanide Arslan Khan. Haut de 48m, il servait à appeler à la prière mais également, au 17ème siècle, à jeter dans le vide les condamnés à mort. Une autre fonction était de servir de phare pour les caravanes arrivant du désert car un feu était allumé à son sommet chaque nuit. De forme conique, il est décoré de motifs géométriques réalisés en briques. Le minaret a été restauré dans les années 1930 puis dans les années 1970 à la suite d'un tremblement de terre. Le minaret est le symbole de Boukhara, "Perle de l'Islam, oasis au coeur du désert Kyzyl Kum et ville sainte, une cité mystérieuse interdite aux infidèles durant plusieurs siècles.
context_page_description: Uzbekistan, officially the Republic of Uzbekistan, is a country in Central Asia. It is surrounded by five landlocked countries: Kazakhstan to the north; Kyrgyzstan to the northeast; Tajikistan to the southeast; Afghanistan to the south and Turkmenistan to the south-west. Along with Liechtenstein, it is one of two doubly landlocked countries.
  As a sovereign state, Uzbekistan is a secular, unitary constitutional republic. It comprises 12 provinces and one autonomous republic, Karakalpakstan. The capital and largest city of Uzbekistan is Tashkent.
  What is now Uzbekistan was in ancient times part of the Iranian-speaking region of Transoxiana and Turan. The first recorded settlers were Eastern Iranian nomads, known as Scythians, who founded kingdoms in Khwarazm, Bactria, Sogdia, Fergana, and Margiana. The area was incorporated into the Iranian Achaemenid Empire and, after a period of Macedonian Greek rule, was ruled by the Iranian Parthian Empire and later by the Sasanian Empire, until the Muslim conquest of Persia in the seventh century. The Muslim conquest in the 7th century converted the majority of the population, including the local ruling classes, into adherents of Islam.
context_section_description: Islam is the dominant religion in Uzbekistan, although Soviet power (1924–1991) discouraged the expression of religious belief, and they were repressed during its existence as a Soviet Republic. The CIA Factbook estimate that Muslims constitute 88% of the population (mostly Sunni) while 9% of the population follow Russian Orthodox Christianity, 4% other religious and non-religious. While a 2010 Pew Research Center report stated that Uzbekistan's population is 96.5% Muslim. Russian Orthodox Christians comprised 2.3% of the population in 2010. An estimated 93,000 Jews lived in the country in the early 1990s.
  In addition, there are about 7,400 Zoroastrians left in Uzbekistan, mostly in Tajik areas like Khojand.
  Despite the predominance of Islam and its rich history in the country, the practice of the faith is far from monolithic. Uzbeks have practised many versions of Islam. The conflict of Islamic tradition with various agendas of reform or secularisation throughout the 20th century has left a wide variety of Islamic practices in Central Asia. 96.3% are Sunni Muslim and rest secular or non-believers; 1% are Shias.
  The end of Soviet control in Uzbekistan in 1991 did not bring an immediate upsurge of religion-associated fundamentalism, as many had predicted, but rather a gradual re-acquaintance with the precepts of the Islamic faith and a gradual resiurgence of Islam in the country. However, since 2015 there has been a slight increase in Islamist activity, with small organisations such as the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan declaring allegiance to ISIL and contributing fighters abroad, although the terror threat in Uzbekistan itself remains low. (See Terrorism in Uzbekistan).
caption: Mosque of Bukhara
exif: {"Image Make": "NIKON CORPORATION", "Image Model": "NIKON D200", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "300", "Image YResolution": "300", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS4 Windows", "Image DateTime": "2011:04:15 23:14:24", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "240", "GPS GPSVersionID": "[2, 2, 0, 0]", "Image GPSInfo": "896", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "1010", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "4488", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/1000", "EXIF FNumber": "16", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "800", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2011:03:21 05:29:44", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2011:03:21 05:29:44", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "4", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "18/5", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire", "EXIF FocalLength": "18", "EXIF SubSecTime": "82", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "82", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "82", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1793", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1200", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "864", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CVAPattern": "[0, 2, 0, 2, 1, 0, 2, 1]", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "27", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "Low gain up", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "0"}