Religious harmony and tolerance of the urban residents of Kazakhstan: Results of the sociological research

Abstract

Researchers believe that in recent decades in Kazakhstan the religious situation has changed, which was manifested in an increase of the number of believers who follow religious precepts and build their lifestyle according to them. Kazakhstan is a multi-ethnic country, where representatives of different ethnic and religious groups live. It is important to study the level of tolerance and religious harmony between different social groups. The article presents the results of the sociological study of tolerance and religious views in Almaty - the most populated city of Kazakhstan - based on the method of individual standardized interview. The results of the survey show the prevalence of tolerant relations for the majority of respondents said that they had not experienced any problems or insult based on their religious views. At the same time, the refusal to accept a person of another religion or other religious views as a member of one’s family is more typical for Moslems, namely of Kazakh and Uzbek ethnicity, and also for people with a low level of education and low incomes of the household. On the one hand, there is a clear desire for religious harmony; on the other hand, there are transformations of religious practices based not so much on the phenomenon of faith but on national traditionalism. The results of the survey prove that level of religious harmony is influenced to a certain extent by social-economic conditions.