Iran, saudi arabia and turkey: Emerging religious identity of azerbaijan
Battalov A. Kozhirova S. Suleimenov T.
2021CA and C Press AB
Central Asia and the Caucasus
2021#22Issue 3157 - 167 pp.
The authors discuss the evolution of religious identity of Azerbaijan and the impact of Middle Eastern actors (Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey) on the pro-cess. Today, the pro-Islamic leaders of the Middle East are attempting, with the persis-tence that can hardly be overestimated, to move into the Southern Caucasus, one of the world’s strategically important regions. Thus, the uncompromising rivalry of religious ideologies is hardly surprising. It means that the national and religious identities of post-Soviet Azerbaijan have come to the fore in the context of Iranian-Turkic, Iranian-Arab and Shi‘a-Sunni confrontation. Today, there are enough drivers be-hind the already obvious awareness of their religious identity among young Azeris. The complicated search for national and religious identities in independent Azerbaijan is driven by an outburst of national and religious sentiments during the protracted Karabakh conflict and two wars with Arme-nia (in 1992-1994 and 2020). The process is unfolding under the huge influence of theocratic Shi‘a Iran, the closest neighbor with its twenty-five million-strong Azeri diaspora; proliferation of the puritanical Wahhabi teaching of Saudi Arabia and Salafism as its export variant throughout the Caucasus, and, last but not least, strategic rapprochement with Turkey that is moving away from nationalism towards Islamism. This has made Azerbaijan a fertile soil for a confrontation within the multipolar Islamic world, which is expanding the geography of its conflicts to the Southern Caucasus. The proxy wars in Syria and Iraq, in which the Shi‘a-Sunni confrontation is also obvious may destabilize the Caucasus in the future. Here the authors assess the impact of the Middle Eastern heavyweights—Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey— on the process of shaping the Azeri religious identity as an Islamic political factor.
And Turkey , Increasing religiosity in Azerbaijan , Influence of Iran , Khomeinism , Muslim Brotherhood , Religious identity , Salafism , Saudi Arabia , Shi‘a-Sunni conflict; Karabakh conflict; political Islam , The Southern Caucasus
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Academy of Public Administration under the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan, Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan
International Scientific Complex Astana, Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan
Institute of Diplomacy of the Academy of Public Administration under the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan, Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan
Academy of Public Administration under the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan
International Scientific Complex Astana
Institute of Diplomacy of the Academy of Public Administration under the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan
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