Kyrgyzstan

     
 

1. Kyrgyzstan
[By CIA THE WORLD FACTBOOK]
Ethnic groups:
 
Kyrgyz 64.9%, Uzbek 13.8%, Russian 12.5%, Dungan 1.1%, Ukrainian 1%, Uighur 1%, other 5.7% (1999 census)
Languages:
 
Kyrgyz (official) 64.7%, Uzbek 13.6%, Russian (official) 12.5%, Dungun 1%, other 8.2% (1999 census)
Religions:
 
Muslim 75%, Russian Orthodox 20%, other 5%
Population:
 
5,496,737 (July 2012 est.)
country comparison to the world:

 


A minaret of the Dungan mosque in Karakol. A small minority in Kyrgyzstan, Dungans are also Muslims

2. Islam in Kyrgyzstan  [By WIKIPEDIA ]

Islam was introduced to the Kyrgyz tribes between the eight and twelfth centuries. More recent exposure to Islam occurred in the seventeenth century, when the Jungars drove the Kyrgyz of the Tian Shan region into the Fergana Valley, whose population was totally Islamic. However, as the danger from the Jungars subsided, a few elements of the Kyrgyz population returned to some of their tribal customs. When the Quqon Khanate advanced into northern Kyrgyzistan in the eighteenth century, various northern Kyrgyz tribes remained aloof from the official Islamic practices of that regime. By the end of the nineteenth century, however, the entire Kyrgyz population, including the tribes in the north, had converted to Sunni Islam. Each of the Muslim ethnic groups has a deep and long tradition of customary law. The ethnic Kyrgyz have also preserved pre-Islamic traditions and customs.