Oct 28, 2026 17:13 pm IST

Opinion | The Muslim World Is Seeing An Unexpected 'Experiment' - In Kazakhstan

The country has a long history of using mediation to mitigate conflict; now, it has added another, much-wanted dimension to it.

Aditi Bhaduri Aditi Bhaduri Columnist

Aditi Bhaduri Columnist

Recent events around the hijab ban in Azerbaijan, or the execution of a Bangladeshi couple by Saudi authorities on grounds of committing "immoral acts" in the precincts of the holy mosque in Mecca, all point essentially to the same thing: all the old anxieties around religion are once again surfacing. The major wars in India's neighbourhood have always been framed in religious terms, though economic reasons underpin their core. Periodic cliché pronouncements on Kashmir notwithstanding, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) is being torn apart from inside between apparent irreconcilable differences between member-states: Sunni against Shia, Sunni vs Sunni, and so on.

Against this backdrop, Central Asia as a region and Kazakhstan as the largest country in particular may have an important message for the world. But why is Central Asia important? Because, simply put, it is a new emerging power centre, a powerful block, that has so far kept itself aloof from international affairs but is increasingly participating in global affairs. And it is difficult to ignore what it offers.

A strategically significant region, occupying 4,003,451 sq.km., with a population of approximately 77 million, Central Asia is rich in natural resources, including oil, gas, metals like gold, silver, aluminium, bauxite, copper, uranium, etc., with an aggregate GDP of $543 billion to $566 billion, with Kazakhstan leading with $306 billion. Five per cent of the world's natural gas reserves are found here. It occupies a major geo-politically strategic position - landlocked, extending from the Caspian Sea in the west to the border of western China in the east. The five (former Soviet) republics of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Turkmenistan lie sandwiched between the Russian Federation,........

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