Islam is the most important
Tajikistan religion. The other prevalent
religions of Tajikistan are the Russian Orthodox faith, Christianity (Seventh-Day Adventists, Roman Catholics, and Baptists) and Judaism. Some Bahais are also found in Tajikistan. The Russian Orthodox community represents the second most popular
religion in Tajikistan after Islam. There is a cathedral at Dushanbe, St. Nicholas, for this religion of Tajikistan. The Russian community abruptly diminished in the the last decade of the 20th century. The Arabs propagated Judaism in Central Asia in the 7th century. The minority communities sharply shrinked in the 1990s, as many people emigrated from Tajikistan.
The majority of the Tajiks are Sunnis, and the rest are Shias. The Shia population, also called the Pamiris, belong to Ismailism. The Sunni tradition is as old as 1,200 years, while the Shia tradition is as old as the early 10th century. The
religion at Tajikistan that is popular only among its urban population is called Sufism. The most important type of Sufism in Tajikistan is Naqshbandiyya. Its followers span out to India and Malaysia.
The repeated blows of the Soviet policy makers on Islam could not diminish the zeal for religion in the region. One of the strongest blows was against religion between late 1920s and late 1930s. The union policy towards Islam at Tajikistan became more lenient in 1941, after the Germans' invasion of the Soviet Union. In the early 1960s, the Khrushchev regime, and in the 1970s and 1980s, the Kremlin leadership inspired an anti-Islamic thought. Islam was related with backwardness and superstition. However, Islam could not be erased. It flourished in Tujik society in the days of the Soviet union and later after its independence. Old and young, educated and uneducated, urban and rural – all Tajiks show a lot of interest in Islam.
To know more about Tajikistan Religion, click on the following link:
