Islam is by far the dominant religious faith in Uzbekistan. In the early 1990s, many of the Russians remaining in the republic (about 8 percent of the population) were Orthodox Christians. An estimated 93,000 Jews also were present. Despite its predominance, Islam is far from monolithic, however. Many versions of the faith have been practiced in Uzbekistan. The conflict of Islamic tradition with various agendas of reform or secularization throughout the twentieth century has left the outside world with a confused notion of Islamic practices in Central Asia. In Uzbekistan the end of Soviet power did not bring an upsurge of a fundamentalist version of Islam, as many had predicted, but rather a gradual reacquaintance with the precepts of the faith.
Data as of March 1996