Usually, Kazakhstanis “inherit” religious beliefs. If parents are Muslim, their children will also practice Islam. If adults are Catholics, their children will follow their path, too. But there are those who choose religion “not by inheritance.”
CABAR.asia spoke to Kazakhstanis who changed religion. They told why they decided to do it and how their families and friends took their changes.
— I have been drawn to God since childhood. At the age of 16, I was the novitiate in the Orthodox church, planned to become a monk, but realised in time that it was not my way. Despite my separation from the church, I continued to study philosophy, read religious books, including about Islam. I was impressed by the works of Idries Shah, it is one of the Sufi sheikhs. I have read works of other Sufis – Rumi, Ferdowsi.
For me, faith in God has always been similar to the Tengrism, i.e. wider outlook, but I have always tried to avoid ritual manifestations. Of course, I was familiar with the Christian symbols and used it when I prayed. If you pray with all your heart, you still mention God and all saints from the religious system you belong to and you know the best.
I travel a lot across Kazakhstan and I have always been interested in the sacred component of our country – we have so many sacred places, mostly related to Islam. I have been there and reported on them, and prayed there.
In holy places, I often talked to priests there, and they often asked: why don’t you convert to Islam? But I was distant from Islam because of my internal conflict. For me, God is the perception of the world and I try to distant myself from its manifestation in the world. But Islam is one of the religions with the strictly regulated conduct. I used to think that if I make my choice deliberately, it would mean that I must practice five prayers, fast, avoid haram. Meanwhile, in recent years, when I felt bad, I tried to visit Turkestan, where I felt the spiritual uplift. The Mausoleum of Khoja Ahmed Yasawi became a place of power to me. I was the Christian, but it did not stop me from praying in Muslim holy places because God is one, but ways to him are different.
Last year, I was on my business trip to Shymkent, and I visited again the Mausoleum of Khoja Ahmed Yasawi. My acquaintance, with whom I went there, suggested that I should convert to Islam. He was a practicing Muslim. I thought about it carefully and decided it was the right time. We went to the town of Saryagash, where the large Islamic centre was located. And there I became the Muslim.
How my relatives took it? Absolutely normal. My parents are used to my quirks, when I attended church. Moreover, my father respects the Quran, and reads it along with the Bible. My mother also took it well. My wife is the art historian by education, and has taught world literature for a long time, wrote her PhD thesis on Sufi poetry, and she knows all the canons very well.
I did not want to announce my conversion to Islam much, but some information leaked and my friends started to call me and ask: did you convert to Islam? I could not stand it and wrote about it on Facebook. I hope the matter was closed. A couple of my acquaintances took me cautiously as if suspecting that I could start destroying petroglyphs as pagan manifestations or go to Syria to fight.
But my conversion to Islam was mainly taken absolutely normally. This is why I like the Kazakhstan society – we have such a cultural mix here that a person’s conversion to another religion is taken as a private matter by majority. Everyone has their own way, and everything is done by the will of God.
— I was born in a common Kazakh family. Formally, my parents consider themselves Muslims, but they attend the mosque only on holidays. In 2001, Pope John Paul II visited Astana, and I saw his visit on TV on air. It was the greatest event for me and I understood that I wanted to be a Catholic. I was 10 years old back then. Years went by, but my intention did not go anywhere: from time to time I said to my family that I wanted to convert to Christianity, but they did not take my words seriously.
I bought the children’s bible, a small red book, for my pocket money, and it quickly became my handbook – I took it everywhere with me and literally learned it by heart. When I graduated from school, my desire to convert to Catholicism became even more conscious.
After long time of searches (back then, not everything was available on the internet), I finally found the church of the Holy Trinity in Almaty. At first, I just attended the service, and watched what parishioners were doing. It was the period of adjustment. At some point I decided to get baptised.
I asked the priest and he said that I should attend the courses in catechism, where they taught the fundamentals of religion, and then I could be baptised. In spring 2013, I finally became the catholic.
My relatives took my Catholicism intelligently as I prepared them for it for a decade. Other acquaintances reacted differently. Some took it literally with hostility calling me the renegade, some tried to talk to me and make me change my mind. Others took it neutrally: did you get baptised? Well, it’s your own business. And there were people who became interested in me: “So, you became a catholic? That’s wonderful. Share your experience, please.”
After christening, my life changed drastically. I attend church several times a week, confess my sins to the priest, whenever there’s the need, and I try not to commit sins, actually. The main thing is that I feel myself a Christian not only in church, but also beyond it, in my deeds, mainly.
Main photo: Akhmet Isaev