703 DOI: 10.4324/9781003021803-56 CHAPTER FORTY- SIX USING EXPERIENCE DIFFERENTLY Religion, security, and anthropology in Central Asia David W. Montgomery Religious persons have often, though not uniformly, professed to see truth in a special manner. – William James 1 The most important ambiguity in the concept of religious experience emerges not from the term religious but from experience. – Wayne Proudfoot 2 Most people have views on religion – about what it means, where it belongs, and its role in society. These views are not always grounded in any deep knowledge about religion; people often hold positions with limited knowledge but nonetheless make sense of what they understand in relation to the experiences that have framed a par- ticular worldview. As such, positions on religion are often quite personal, even when presented in normative terms. Even among those who claim indifference toward reli- gion, such feelings are generally limited to the extent religion is seen to impact their lives; as certain religious norms begin to saliently influence the overarching structures of social life, indifference often gives way to a stronger position of support or oppos- ition. People seldom begin from a position of neutrality. They “know” something about religion, and while that may have little to do with a nuanced understanding of doctrine or theology, it is often discussed as a knowledge rooted in experience. Experience is, of course, an endless endeavour. Some experiences come to be held as more formative than others, but there too is a degree of negotiation that takes place over time; people evolve in relation to their surroundings and the ongoing accumulation of navigated experiences. The point for our purposes, however, is that in how experience shapes perspective, it also sets in place a bias for how future infor- mation is interpreted. This matters, for how one situates life in relation to religion, influences how the role of religion in society is understood. Here, I focus primarily on Kyrgyzstan, and how people use diverse points of experience to frame the role of religion generally, and Islam specifically, in society. Of particular interest is how various narratives of Islam’s role in society become framed in terms of security that can carry on lives of their own. These reflect more an