Domestic and Foreign Islamic Studies in the 1980s and the Soviet–Afghan War

Abstract

Abstract The author of this article holds that the entry of Soviet troops into Afghanistan was used by the opponents of the Soviet Union both in the West and in Central Asia to revive pan-Turkic ideas and to present the Soviet Union as an opponent of Islam in all its manifestations. To a certain extent, this situation was based on a serious study of the history and current state of Islam abroad. Soviet Islamic studies turned out to be on the far periphery of scientific interests. In the context of the outbreak of the conflict, domestic Islamic studies were found to be catching up. Research did not support knowledge at the level necessary for making political decisions. Politicians did not listen to experts; on the contrary, scientists tried to guess what the government wanted to hear from them.