Tajikistan

Persianate Central-Asian republic; independent 1991.

☾ The Coming of Islam

The conquest of Transoxiana and the Sāmānid revival

Islam reached the Persian-speaking lands of Central Asia with the Arab conquest of Transoxiana and Khurāsān in the early 8th century; under the Sāmānid dynasty (based at Bukhara) a Persian-Islamic cultural revival flourished, of which the Tajiks are heirs.

☾ Religious Composition

A Sunni-Ḥanafī majority with a Pamiri Ismāʿīlī minority

Tajiks are predominantly Sunni Muslim of the Ḥanafī school, with a distinct Ismāʿīlī Shiʿi community in the Pamir highlands of Badakhshan; religious practice revived strongly after the Soviet period.

Demographic shares are approximate.

At a glance