Turkmenistan

Independent on the Soviet collapse (1991).

☾ The Coming of Islam

The conquest of Khurāsān and the city of Merv

Islam reached the lands of the Turkmen with the Arab conquest of Khurāsān and Transoxiana in the 8th century; Merv became one of the great early Islamic cities, and the region was the cradle of the Seljuk Turks.

☾ Religious Composition

A Sunni-Ḥanafī majority with a Sufi heritage

Turkmen are predominantly Sunni Muslim of the Ḥanafī school, with a strong heritage of Sufi orders and saint-veneration; religious life revived after the Soviet era under a secular state.

Demographic shares are approximate.

At a glance