Ashirbek MUMINOV SACRED PLACES IN CENTRAL ASIA: ATTEMPTS AT THEIR HISTORICAL AND THEOLOGICAL INTERPRETATION According to some estimates, there are approximately 10,000 sacred places in Central Asia. In the Ferghana Valley alone there are more than a thousand sacred places. A sacred place is a primary component of so called “local Islam”. However, not every tomb or mausoleum has a sacred status. A sacred place is usually marked by tugh. Most sacred places are served by a guard (chiraqchi) or Qur‟an‟s reciter (qari). Many sacred places have architectural complexes (mausoleums, khanaqah, madrasa), apartments for pilgrims and necessary infrastructure (mosque, taharat-khana, qari-khana, hotels). There is currently an absence of a list of classification that includes all the sacred places in Central Asia. Thus, recording and studying of sacred places as a phenomenon of local Islam is a very important focus of new research. It remains a salient issue despite the long period of atheism, accompanied by the Soviet administration as well as the fundamentalist challenges of new „ulama‟ (Islamic theologians) groups. 1 The sacred places and their spiritual culture are a distinctive feature of the regional Central Asian Islam. Taking into account the different manifestations of sacred places we can divide them in to three groups: Central Asian, regional, and local ones. A lot of sacred places are connected with each other, and visitations to them make up distinct stages of the pilgrimage. The phenomena of sacred places causes many debates about their “reality” (true historical) or “falsity” (non historical). Such debates take place between upholders of “local,” or “national” Islam and fundamentalists (upholders of “pure Islam”). The Soviet ethnographer - researchers influenced these debates along with Soviet born fundamentalists from the Spiritual Board of Muslims of Central Asia and Kazakhstan (SADUM; 1943- 1 Babadzhanov, B. M., A. K. Muminov, and M. B. Olcott 2004. “Mukhammadzhan Khindustani (1892- 1989) i religioznaia sreda ego epokhi (predvaritel‟nye razmyshleniia o formirovanii „sovetskogo islama‟ v Srednei Azii,” Vostok (Oriens), 5, pp. 43–59.