Kazakh

The Kazakhs are a Kipchak Turkic people of the Central Asian steppe, about 17.6 million strong, of whom 14.7 million live in Kazakhstan and others in China (1.56 million), Uzbekistan, Russia and Mongolia. Their name is usually derived from a Turkic word for a free wanderer or independent adventurer. The Kazakh Khanate was founded around 1465 by Janibek and Kerei Khan, descendants of Jochi, after the break-up of the Mongol empire, and Kazakh society was organised into three hordes (zhuz), the Great, Middle and Little. Russian conquest, Soviet collectivisation and the famine of 1930-33, which killed about 1.5 million Kazakhs, drove waves of refugees into China, Mongolia, Afghanistan and Iran. Since independence in 1991 Kazakhstan has encouraged diaspora Kazakhs (oralman, now qandas) to return.

Kazakh culture grew out of mounted nomadic pastoralism: felt yurts, horses, sheep and camels, fermented mare's milk (kumis) and the meat-and-noodle dish beshbarmak. Music centres on the two-stringed dombra and the improvised poetic duel (aitys); eagle hunting survives in the east. Kinship is reckoned through patrilineal clans, and marriage within seven generations of a common ancestor is forbidden. Feasts (toi) mark births, circumcisions and weddings, with elaborate bride-price and dowry exchanges.

Kazakhs are Hanafi Sunni Muslims whose Islam has long been blended with older steppe beliefs: veneration of ancestors (aruak), visits to saints' tombs, and respect for the sky (Tengri) and spirits. Soviet rule secularised much of the population of Kazakhstan, while diaspora communities such as those in Iran and Afghanistan often kept Islamic observance more strictly.

The complete Kazakh Bible was published in 2010 by the Institute for Bible Translation, and a New Kazakh Translation New Testament is also on YouVersion. The JESUS Film, the Magdalena film and Global Recordings Network audio are available in Kazakh. There is a small but growing Kazakh church in Kazakhstan.