Sevil Gusejnova, «Двусмысленная» идентичность: ислам в учебниках «человек и общество» и история Азербайджана / An „Ambiguous” Identity: Islam Within the „Man and Society” Textbooks and the History of Azerbaidzhan

Ideas about Islam (its versions, origins, social and cultural significance, etc.) have long been present in school history courses, and also in the “Man and Society” course. The “Man and Society” course was launched in the early 1990s in secondary schools in grades 9, 10 and 11 after Azerbaijan had left the USSR. The course maintained it was a certain act of innovation. It was claimed that this course would be new in terms of its content and thus would have little in common with the “Social Science” course launched in the Soviet times. It was quite natural to expect that the religion of the majority of the population, Islam, would in any case be mentioned in the textbooks for the course, which aimed at forming the “correct” citizens. Azerbaijani nationalism referred to Islam as one of the most important foundations of the identity of Azerbaijanis, along with the Azerbaijani language. At the same time, the system of secular education is not aimed at focusing on teaching religious rules, norms andrituals. Rather it is a question of symbolic identity – the declarative description of Azerbaijanis to Islam as one of the most significant bases of their identity. In this context Islam, for the time being, remains only one of the component parts of ethnicity (“our” religion), though a significant one.