He points out that the Hanafi trend within Sunni Islam followed by most Muslims in Kazakhstan is less well positioned to defend its followers from the appeals of politicized Muslim leaders unless they are influenced as well by Sufism which helped spread of Islam among Kazakhs.
Unfortunately, he says, the government of Kazakhstan like many of the other post-Soviet states has not come up with “specific and effective measures” to oppose “the ideology of Wahhabism.” Instead, these regimes have focused “on the consequences rather than the causes” of this phenomenon.”
Sufism can be especially effective in opposing Islamist radicalism in Kazakhstan because Sufism and the Kazakh people share so many values: respect for the dead and family, support for popular traditions, and promotion of the arts, all things the Islamist radicals oppose, Smagulov argues.