Abstract
This article re-examines the early spread of Islam in South Kazakhstan through a comparative analysis of Arabic-Persian frontier narratives, nasab- nama (genealogical charter) traditions, and archaeological evidence from the Syrdarya, Otrar, Turkestan, and Sayram regions. It argues that Islamization in South Kazakhstan did not begin as a single act of conquest or mass conversion, but as a gradual frontier process shaped by military expansion, political realignment, migration, sacred-lineage formation, and urban transformation during the Umayyad (661–750 CE) and early Abbasid (from 750 CE) periods. The study applies a triangulatory method, distinguishing between contemporaneous frontier narratives, retrospective sacred genealogies, and archaeological indicators of settlement disruption. The results show that the Syrdarya frontier entered the operational sphere of early Islamic politics earlier than models focused on the later Samanid (819–999 CE) and Karakhanid (from the mid-tenth to the early thirteenth century) periods suggest. Archaeological evidence from the Otrar and Turkestan oases indicates contraction and spatial reorganization rather than uninterrupted urban continuity. The article concludes that the earliest spread of Islam in South Kazakhstan was historically traceable but regionally uneven, unfolding through the interaction of frontier politics, sacred memory, urban restructuring, and devotional territorialization.
Recommended Citation
Kozha, Mukhtar and Kuranbek, Asset
(2026)
"Reassessing Islamization in South Kazakhstan through Written, Genealogical, and Archaeological Sources,"
Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe: Vol. 46
:
Iss.
9
, Article 10.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.55221/2693-2229.2887
Available at:
https://digitalcommons.georgefox.edu/ree/vol46/iss9/10