Kumyks

How to read the history of beliefs. Ethnographic records of the 19th–20th centuries preserve ideas about spirits, natural forces and protective actions. They help to study the pre-Islamic heritage, but they are not a complete record of the ancient religion and do not describe the faith of every modern person. Sky, water and well-being. Studies of Kumyk beliefs discuss Turkic ideas about Tengri and local nature cults. Images of different origins could coexist and be reinterpreted. The term “Tengrism” is convenient as a generalization, but it does not prove the existence of a single unchanging system of rites. Agricultural rites. L. B. Gmyrya studies actions for summoning rain among the Kumyks and neighboring Turkic-speaking peoples. The participation of Muslim prayers and local customs shows the historical interaction of practices. The rain rite should not automatically be considered a separate modern denomination. Islamization was gradual. The conquest of a territory, the conversion of a ruler and the everyday religion of the population do not coincide in time. Derbent was an important center for the spread of Islam, but the dates of the Arab campaigns cannot be transferred to the conversion of all Kumyks. South and north: a research version. The authors of a 2026 study suggest an earlier establishment of Islam among the ancestors of the southern Kumyks and link the Islamization of the northern groups to the Golden Horde period. This is a reasoned hypothesis about different rates of the process, not a generally accepted date of a single simultaneous conversion of the people. Mosques, rulers and education. Preachers, scholars and political centers took part in the spread of Islam. The Shamkhals of Tarki combined religious tasks with political interests; Endirey and Lower Kazanishche were centers of learning. Adat and Sharia. Customary law and Muslim legal norms interacted in family and property relations. The study by Yu. M. Guseynova shows the combination, and sometimes the difference, of these norms. Historical description does not turn former rules into mandatory guidance for today's family. Renewal of education. Abusupyan Akaev from Lower Kazanishche combined Muslim scholarship, teaching and publishing work. His Jadidist enlightenment sought to renew education within religious culture, rather than simply abandoning it. Soviet restrictions and repressions. Akaev's biography shows the consequences of pressure on the religious intelligentsia: arrest in 1929, death in 1931 and subsequent rehabilitation. The fate of one enlightener is concrete evidence, not the only model of the experience of all believers. Post-Soviet religious life. Since the end of the Soviet period, open practice and religious education have expanded. Studies of Dagestan consider both the role of Sufi connections and disputes about the norms of faith. The all-Dagestan process does not mean the same position of all Kumyk communities. Modern tradition. For the majority of believing Kumyks, Sunni Islam has historically been characteristic. At the same time, ethnicity does not determine the degree of personal religiosity: the people include people with different beliefs and practices. Native language in religion. Kumyk is used in religious events and educational publications; since the early 1990s, Muslim literature has again been published. This coexists with the role of Arabic in reading the Quran and in religious scholarship.