1 Turkey and Azerbaijan: One Religion—Two States? Sofie Bedford As a result of Soviet anti-religious campaigns, the Azerbaijani Muslims were at the time of independence to a large extent not very knowledgeable about their Islamic faith. Because of this, foreign religious influences played an important part in the country’s post-Soviet religious revival. Due to its predominantly Muslim demography and geographic location, missionaries from neighboring Iran and Turkey, as well as some of the Gulf countries, arrived in the country en masse in the early days of the 1990s. This foreign religious influence and new approaches to religion increasingly became seen as something that could harm the unique nature of ‘Azerbaijani Islam’ that was perceived as distinctively intra- and inter-religiously tolerant, non-aggressive and apolitical. While the authorities portrayed brands of Islam from North Caucasus, Iran and Saudi Arabian as dangerous, work of Turkish Islamic groups for a long time was seen as less threatening and as such faced fewer restrictions. Considering that Turkish groups in general are advocates of the Sunni branch of Islam, while the majority of the Azerbaijani Muslims traditionally adhere to the Twelver Shia School, this appears counterintuitive. This chapter is set to provide a more thorough understanding of what made ‘Turkish Islam’ the preferred choice for the political leaders of independent Azerbaijan as well as highlight and attempt to explain the fact that this amicable reception of Turkish religious representatives seems gradually to be coming to an end. It is argued that even though the religious aspect has never been the most significant in Turkish-Azerbaijani relations, the dynamics within the religious terrain underlying the interaction between the two states can be viewed as a function of the ‘politicization’ of the issue. Put differently, because the embrace of Turkish Islam on the elite level came as a political decision, transformation of and change in the political parameters underlying bilateral relations—both intra-state parameters within Turkey and Azerbaijan respectively and, to some extent, the nature of political dynamics between the latter two states—prompted change in the official status of Turkish Islam in Azerbaijan. The first section of this chapter contextualizes Islam in Azerbaijan within various historical époques to highlight the processes by which the notion of ‘unique Azerbaijani Islam’ developed. The second section discusses the Turkish input into Azerbaijan’s post-