Five Pillars Of Islam

Dariya Oryn

“Muslimness”

In Kazakhstan, Islam is accepted as one of the major religions. Its role and status is authenticated due to several factors such as, a large number of people follow and recognize Islam as being their religion, and also Islam plays a significant role in Kazakhs’ history as well as culture. In this essay I will explore how purely Muslims in the country follow the established set of rules. I will focus on people’s knowledge and fulfillment of Five Pillars of Islam. I think that this is an important as well as interesting topic to investigate because, identifying themselves as Muslims; Kazakhs, paradoxically, do not know these Five Pillars of Islam, which is the foundation of the religion. It is worth mentioning that, those

They illustrate that all of those who were interviewed self-identified as Muslims, but the majority of them do not know the Five Pillars of Islam. Despite that, the older generation shows their intention to walk the way of God one day. In accordance to various statistics, 52% to 65% of those who believe in God say that they are Muslims. Nonetheless, the great number of these people self-identified as Muslims because they think that Islam is rooted in their culture. Thus, the majority of them observe Islam rather lightly. In most of the cases, they do not perform all the duties related to the canonical Islam. Both the literature review on the role of Islam in people’s life and interviews have highlighted that Kazakh Muslims perceive Islam as an essential part of their daily lives. People, indeed, closely relate their ethnic identity to their religious identity, but still their religious convictions and conduct merge together with the handed-down beliefs and spiritual understandings. So, from here we can understand the nature of localized form of Islam in Kazakhstan, in the sense that there is a blend of puritan Islam and traditional customs and principles such as, believing in spirits of ancestors. In general, the development as well as predominance of heterodox type of Islam in the country can be explained by referring to the extended and unbalanced course of Islamization, also restrictions in religious teachings by the subsequent political systems. Kazakhs were superficially converted to Islam, because their religious views and perceptions are influenced by the remembrance of nomadic forefathers as well as the Sufi saints. Thus, people’s understanding of scriptural Islam remains misrepresented and bounded as Kazakhs treat the customs and traditions of their ancestors as a kind of religion