Talk:Islam in Turkmenistan

message: I think it is important that information be added to this section regarding President Niyazov's two-volume holy book, the Ruhnama (book of the soul) and it's status in public education and public life.  The article on the Ruhnama includes some of this information, but I feel it cannot be left entirely out of the "Islam in Turkmenistan" section. 
Every student in the public schools is required to study the president's book extensively, and exams over its contents are necessary to qualify for government jobs or even driver's licenses.  The president claims divine inspiration in writing the text, and further states that any student who reads the book three times will gain automatic entrance to Heaven.  
Several years ago, construction was completed on the largest mosque in Cental Asia, located in Gëk-depe, the town of President Niyazov's birth.  The minarets of this Mosque are encircled with quotations, not from the Q'uran, but from the Ruhnama.  The President claims that repeated pilgrimmages to this mosque may substitue for the Hajj to Mecca.   
I am new to wikipedia and hope that a more experienced Wikipedian can help me accomplish what is necessary to organize and link this information properly.
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I am not sure, but I think the intro paraphraph suffers from gross NPOV problems.  No one can make the claim that someone who says they are of someone are non-believers, so I do not know where this author gets of doing so.  I am going to remove such opinionated claims from that parapraph.  12 24 06
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Strongly disagree with the article. I am a citizen of Turkmenistan, who lived all my my in Turkmenistan as well as travelled to different countries quite a bit. I think it is not professional to judje about religiosity of people from the quote of an opposition representative. The quote implied that hardly any Turkmen has ever read a Quran... that Turkmen people do not practice religion... well, perhaps, what some people think is not always the truth. My grandparents (who lived in Soviet times) were praying 5 times a day, we learned islam from our parents and grandparents who may not have had a book of holy Quran at home (due to the religious repressions during the Soviet times), but knew most of it by heart as well as told us the hadeeths for teaching the meaing of Quran. When the Soviet regime collapsed people were finally free to practice their religion openly whithout being afraid. That's when I've seen the actual book of Holy Quran at home; that was the time when the mosques started being built/rebuilt all across the country which are well attended on average days, and are packed for the holiday prayers. 
Religion is a personal issue, nobody is forsed to practice it as well as nobody is forbidden to follow it. Therefore, just like in any other country there are people who do their best in understanding the religion and acting upon it, and there are people living a different lifestyle even while claiming they are muslims. February 5, 2008
I agree with the first poster above. This article as usual, when it comes to Islam lacks citations, references and seems to pick on points that other articles lack. The article takes almost exclusively from a one source, one book, written in 1996, only a number of years after the fall of the Atheistic Soviet Union, and with it the repressive policies towards religion. Most Turkmen are Muslim, are they all religious and observant of Islam, no. Are numbers of them secular, undoubtedly. How many, who knows. But then again this is true all over the world. Approximately 75% of Americans will identify themselves as Christians, do all these attend Church regularly, not at all. Do even half attend church regularly, not at all. In fact many who will identify as Christian actually hold to staunchly secular, and at times agnostic or atheistic beliefs, to them religious festivals such as Christmas are no more than secular consumer holidays. But there is no mention of this in 'Religion in the US article'. 
Cite your references and don't make things up. Much of this article seems to be written from the perspective of one writer, or what they believe, it borders on a POV piece.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.194.21.39 (talk) 19:34, 26 October 2008 (UTC)