The Islamic and cultural project Uzbekistan is leading today cannot be understood without understanding the period that preceded independence.
After centuries of Islamic flourishing, the region entered a new phase in the nineteenth century with Russian expansion.
The Russian Occupation
Russian expansion into Central Asia proceeded gradually.
Tashkent fell to Russian forces in 1865, after which Russian influence expanded over the region’s khanates, culminating in the annexation of Kokand in 1876.
Large areas of Central Asia thus entered the framework of the Russian Empire.
This did not lead to the disappearance of Islam, but it did shift the balance of power.
Schools and Endowments
Islamic institutions relied heavily on religious endowments (waqf) and traditional schools (madrasas).
With the intervention of the Russian administration, some of these institutions faced restrictions and changes to their resources and administration.
Over time, traditional Islamic education began to lose some of its capacity to keep pace with social and political changes.
But this period also witnessed an important phenomenon: Islamic reform.
The Jadids: An Islam That Wanted to Learn
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the Jadidist movement emerged.
The Jadids sought to reform Islamic education and introduce modern sciences into schools.
Among their most prominent figures was Mahmud Khoja Behbudi.
The Jadids were concerned with language, journalism, education, theater, and printing.
They believed that the weakness of Muslims was not caused by Islam itself, but by backwardness, ignorance, and weak educational institutions.
Hence their call for science and learning.
This aspect is highly significant for the contemporary Uzbek renaissance project, since official discourse today rediscovers the Jadids as part of a continuous chain of intellectual renewal.
The Center for Islamic Civilization’s materials note that the Jadid movement became a symbol of the struggle for education, science, journalism, and public awareness, and that many of its figures paid with their lives for their ideas.
The Bolshevik Revolution
After the Russian Revolution of 1917, the region entered a much more difficult phase.
The new Soviet state was built on a secular ideology hostile to religion.
Large numbers of mosques and religious schools were closed.
Endowments were confiscated.
Scholars were subjected to surveillance, arrest, and persecution.
Under Stalin, the pressures were especially severe.
The goal was not only to control the religious establishment, but to reshape society itself on a new ideological basis.
Did Islam Disappear?
No.
This is perhaps the most important fact of that period.
Many institutions disappeared, but Islam survived within society.
Families preserved religious holidays.
Marriage, circumcision, funerals, and social rituals continued.
The memorization of the Qur’an continued within limited circles.
Some Sufi traditions continued informally.
In other words, Islam moved partly from the public institution into social memory.
This explains why the country was able, after independence, to recover its Islamic identity relatively quickly.
World War II and the Shift in Soviet Policy
With World War II, some Soviet policies shifted.
There emerged a need to regulate relations with Muslims, and limited official religious institutions appeared.
Tashkent later became an important religious center for the Muslims of Central Asia.
But activity remained bound by state restrictions.
Independence in 1991
With the collapse of the Soviet Union, Uzbekistan gained its independence.
A major question lay ahead:
How to build a new national identity after seventy years of Soviet rule?
One answer was to restore history.
The names of al-Bukhari, al-Tirmidhi, al-Maturidi, Ibn Sina, al-Khwarizmi, and Ulugh Beg returned to the forefront.
Religious and historical sites were restored.
But the state did not want this to be merely a return to the past.
From Religion to Civilizational Heritage
In recent years, particularly since Shavkat Mirziyoyev’s rise to the presidency, there has been a clear trend toward the institutional, scholarly restudy of the Islamic heritage.
Specialized research centers were established.
Institutions associated with al-Bukhari, al-Maturidi, and al-Tirmidhi developed.
The role of the International Islamic Academy of Uzbekistan grew stronger.
Then came the larger project: the Center for Islamic Civilization in Tashkent.
2017: The Turning Point
On September 19, 2017, President Mirziyoyev addressed the United Nations General Assembly, speaking of Islam as a religion that calls for goodness, peace, knowledge, and enlightenment, and linking this to the project of establishing a Center for Islamic Civilization in Tashkent.
This moment is highly significant.
The project moved out of a purely local framework and into an international one.
The idea was no longer simply to build a museum in Tashkent.
It became a political and cultural message to the world: Islam has a scientific, civilizational, and humanistic history, and Uzbekistan wants to be one of the centers for studying and presenting this history to the world.
What Does “Islamic Renaissance” Mean in Uzbekistan Today?
It should not necessarily be understood as a project to establish a religious state or a political movement.
Current official discourse uses a different set of concepts: knowledge, enlightenment, tolerance, dialogue, heritage, education, scientific research, and confronting ignorance and extremism.
This differs from many other Islamic political experiences around the world.
It is closer to a project of cultural and scientific renaissance with an Islamic frame of reference.
Why Does This Matter Globally?
Because the Islamic world faces two parallel problems.
On one hand, extremism, which reduces Islam to political conflict.
On the other, Islamophobia, which reduces Islam to an image of violence.
Uzbekistan is trying to offer a third narrative: Islam as a civilization that produced hadith, jurisprudence, mathematics, medicine, astronomy, philosophy, and literature.
Here, the names of al-Bukhari, al-Khwarizmi, Ibn Sina, and al-Biruni become tools for civilizational dialogue.
From Renaissance to Institution
What most distinguishes the current phase is that it has moved from celebrating names to building institutions.
There are research centers. Educational institutions. Manuscript centers. Restoration projects. International conferences. And finally, the Center for Islamic Civilization itself.
By March 17, 2026, the project became a reality with the center’s official opening.
In June 2026, the presidency announced that the center had received nearly half a million visitors since its opening through June 1 — a rate of about six thousand visitors a day.
These figures reveal that the project has moved beyond the idea of a symbolic building.
What Might the Next Phase Look Like?
The current renaissance could develop in three directions.
First: producing new knowledge — not merely reprinting the works of al-Bukhari or al-Khwarizmi, but critically editing manuscripts and studying old scientific methods in comparison with modern science.
Second: internationalizing the heritage — building partnerships with universities, museums, and global Islamic institutions.
Third: building a new generation. This is the hardest challenge.
Civilization does not return simply by displaying manuscripts. It returns when society produces scholars, researchers, translators, and thinkers capable of adding something new.
Here comes the role of the Center for Islamic Civilization.
It is not the end of the story.
It may be the institution through which Uzbekistan hopes to move from recovering memory to producing knowledge.
This is the subject of Episode Five: the story of the center itself — from the idea proposed in 2017, to the laying of the foundation stone, through years of construction, to its opening in March 2026, then the International Forum on Islamic Civilization in July, then the International Media Forum in August, and finally the biggest question: could the Center for Islamic Civilization become the nucleus of a new Islamic renaissance in Central Asia?
