![©REUTERS/Fayaz Aziz](/userdata/news_en/2011/news_3296/thumb_b/photo_7334.jpg)
It will take 100 years to provide Kazakhstan mosques with educated imams (the worship leaders of a mosque and the Muslim community), Tengrinews.kz reports citing Executive Director of the Islamic Culture and Education Support Fund Balgabek Myrzayev as saying at the round-table meeting called Actual issues on reinforcement of propaganda of traditional Islam in Kazakhstan. “This is a problem. There are over 2.5 thousand mosques in Kazakhstan. There should be at least 5 thousand of educated imams. Only 50 imams a year graduate from the only Islamic university Nur-Mubarak in Kazakhstan,” Myrzayev said. It will take 100 years to provide Kazakhstan mosques with well-educated leaders. According to Executive Director of the Islamic Culture and Education Support Fund, the problem of personnel is taken very seriously at the Spiritual Directorate of Muslims of Kazakhstan. Their education takes money and requires the government’s support, Balgabek Myrzayev said. Deficiency of educated religious staff is not the last link in the chain of events involving representatives of radical Islamic trends that has taken place in Kazakhstan. “We will continue countering such trends and I hope that justice will prevail. The most important is that there is peace and accord in Kazakhstan,” Myrzayev said. According to Myrzayev, another reason behind emergence and strengthening of radical views in the Kazakh society is division of the society into groups under the influence of representatives of Islamic trends that are non-traditional for Kazakhstan. “Our young people who studied abroad adopted the traditions of the countries where they studied. But we have our own national traditions in Kazakhstan and they do not contradict with Islam,” he said.
It will take 100 years to provide Kazakhstan mosques with educated imams (the worship leaders of a mosque and the Muslim community), Tengrinews.kz reports citing Executive Director of the Islamic Culture and Education Support Fund Balgabek Myrzayev as saying at the round-table meeting called Actual issues on reinforcement of propaganda of traditional Islam in Kazakhstan.
“This is a problem. There are over 2.5 thousand mosques in Kazakhstan. There should be at least 5 thousand of educated imams. Only 50 imams a year graduate from the only Islamic university Nur-Mubarak in Kazakhstan,” Myrzayev said.
It will take 100 years to provide Kazakhstan mosques with well-educated leaders. According to Executive Director of the Islamic Culture and Education Support Fund, the problem of personnel is taken very seriously at the Spiritual Directorate of Muslims of Kazakhstan. Their education takes money and requires the government’s support, Balgabek Myrzayev said. Deficiency of educated religious staff is not the last link in the chain of events involving representatives of radical Islamic trends that has taken place in Kazakhstan.
“We will continue countering such trends and I hope that justice will prevail. The most important is that there is peace and accord in Kazakhstan,” Myrzayev said.
According to Myrzayev, another reason behind emergence and strengthening of radical views in the Kazakh society is division of the society into groups under the influence of representatives of Islamic trends that are non-traditional for Kazakhstan.
“Our young people who studied abroad adopted the traditions of the countries where they studied. But we have our own national traditions in Kazakhstan and they do not contradict with Islam,” he said.