Hanafi School as the Most Tolerant Direction Towards the Pagan Myths and Traditions of the Kyrgyz
Kyrgyz Ayil - an Obstacle on the Path of the Islamization of the People.
As historical experience shows, the most freedom-loving peoples tend to fiercely and consistently preserve their national cultural traditions. This is done to avoid assimilation with other ethnic groups, especially in critical moments when the survival of the ethnic group as such is at stake. The Kyrgyz are no exception to this rule. It was the Kyrgyz ayil, with its age-old foundations and customs, that was the greatest obstacle on the path of the Islamization of the people. As a result, out of the four branches of Sunni Islam that existed in Central Asia, the Kyrgyz chose Hanafi as the direction most tolerant of pagan myths and traditions. Notably, one of the requirements of this Sunni school was that Islamic rituals should not complicate the everyday life of the believer. The spread of such a "lightened" version of Islam in the region had far-reaching consequences. Had the Kyrgyz nomads found themselves surrounded by Islamic states dominated by radicals, the history of the region would have been marked by brutal and bloody religious wars. However, what is most important for us is that in such an environment, the phenomenon of Kurmandzhan Datka would hardly have come to fruition.
As for the rulers of Kokand, followers of a completely different, harsher, and more uncompromising branch of Sunni Islam, their influence extended only to the economic and administrative aspects of the nomads' lives and did not touch their spiritual culture.
However, whether the Kyrgyz were completely "enslaved" in the material sphere is a contentious issue. Since only representatives of the local tribal nobility, who were part of the governance system of the khanate and had been its officials, were fully within the reach of Kokand's power. The feudal lords, who were only nominally considered subjects of the khan, had a completely different status. Separated from the Fergana Valley by inaccessible mountain ranges, these regional rulers merely tolerated the khan's tax emissaries. Moreover, local self-governance was autonomous. The tribal leaders managed everything at their discretion, only taking into account the customs and traditions of their ancestors. Naturally, this circumstance also reflected on the spiritual culture.
When discussing the influence of the Kokand rulers on the material culture of the Kyrgyz, the following must be noted. First of all, Kokand's rule significantly affected the traditional economic sector of the Kyrgyz nomads - animal husbandry. The influence of the khanate on the livestock economy of the Kyrgyz should be considered from two aspects: firstly, the influence on those households that were closely integrated into the overall orbit of the economic development of the khanate and were located near its economic and political centers; secondly, on those households that were far from the khanate itself, households that only interacted with colonial khanate fortresses and lived autonomously within their tribal system under the leadership of bay-manaps.
In the first case, the conquerors could interfere in the economic life of the local population, but often did not have the opportunity to do so, while in the second case, such influence was felt only through the tax system - an increase in the collection of various types of livestock.
In the first case, Kokand officials and khans still intervened in the regulation of pasture use among the Kyrgyz, while in the second case, they were limited to a formal act of recognizing a particular manap as the supreme ruler or tribal leader, while the actual management of pastures and regulation of the pasture use process remained entirely in the hands of Kyrgyz feudal lords. In the practice of economic life, there were often individual clashes and deviations from these general provisions.
How did the star of Kurmandzhan Datka rise in the Islamic world?
