The proposed talk examines comparatively the role of Islam, as an aspect of proto-nationalist identities, in the formulation of Arab and Kyrgyz national identities. In both cases, Islam initially served to legitimize local traditions and folk religious practices—it corresponded to what anthropologist Clifford Gertz has referred to as “Low Islam.” In both cases also, reformist movements have sought to formalize Islamic practice in line with the Qur’an and Hadith, to impose on the nation what Gertz refers to as “High Islam”—more specifically, to promote the idea that a more formalized Islam should play a greater role politically and socially, and by extension, as an aspect of respective national identities. Said developments would transpire during different time periods: In the Arab case, during the final decades of the Ottoman Empire, in the Kyrgyz case, immediately following the collapse of the Soviet Union. I maintain that, whereas “High Islam” would take precedence in terms of how Islam informed Arab national identity, “Low Islam” would prevail in the Kyrgyz case. Largely this is because of two key potentialities that exist in the former, but not in the latter. The first is linguistic: in the Arab case, the national language is also the language of the Qur’an, such that emphasis of the former finds an easy correspondence with emphasis of a more formalized, Qur’anic Islam as an aspect of national identity. The second is ideological, and corresponds to the antecedents of the salafi version of Arabism, formulated during the early part of the twentieth century, wherein the Arabs were defined as the Muslim community par excellence, and as having a special role to play in the reform of Islam worldwide. This might be contrasted with the Kyrgyz case. Obviously the linguistic link to the Qur’an does not exist, but more importantly, there is no meaningful ideological framework for linking the Kyrgyz people to the larger Muslim world on the basis of a shared faith. Indeed, political actors have sought to ensure that Islam maintain its folkloric character, even while overtly dissociating “Kyrgyz Islam” from the “Islam” of other Central Asian countries, and seeking to discredit Islamic reformist movements by characterizing them as Wahhabism (foreign) or associating them with minority populations (primarily Uzbeks and Uighurs). That their attempts have resonated with Kyrgyzstan’s majority Muslim population, I would argue, reflects these two factors.