Testing Islam: Ethnographic Study of Religious Tradition among the Contemporary Tobolo-Irtysh Tatars

Abstract

The article presents results of a complex ethnographic field survey of Islamic religious tradition examined in a particular historical and cultural region. It discusses the case of rural communities inhabited by the Tobol-Irtysh Tatars, a distinct group of the Siberian Tatars settled mostly in the North of Omsk province and in the South of the Tyumen region. The investigation aimed to identify the formation of ethnic and religious Islamic culture and to discuss issues of local Islamic identity. Basing on collected data we argue that ethnic culture of the group in question is closely associated with the Islamic factor, and therefore Tatars’ ethnic and cultural identity to a large extent coincides with their Islamic religious identity.