Rawlsian Liberalism and Rationalistic Maturidi Islam in Central Asia

Abstract

The authors argue that to present liberalism in a Rawlsian way, as rights-based and premised on achieving social justice, can be crucial to nourishing liberal values in post-Soviet context. The Maturidi Islam, to which a majority of Central Asian Muslims, at least nominally, belong in creed, can be qualified as epistemologically rationalistic. However, the critical characteristics of its rationalistic theology became eroded and lost. Although the negative predisposition of Central Asian peoples towards liberalism is a matter of fact (which can be seen as a result of misperceptions and an information war, as well as the repercussions of the Soviet-infused identity-building), achieving coexistence between the development of egalitarian and religiously inclusive Rawlsian political liberalism and religious revival based on rationalistic Islam, in the final account, is not impossible in post-atheistic Central Asia.