By Maria Golovnina

TURKESTAN, Kazakhstan, June 16 (Reuters) In Soviet days, people walked past the Khoja Ahmed Yasawi mausoleum, a holy Muslim site in the steppe of southern Kazakhstan, and pretended it wasn't there.

''It was as if there was nothing but empty space. People were afraid to notice it,'' Beisekul Aladasugirova, a middle-aged librarian, said as she pointed at the burial site of the 12-century Sufi mystic.

''But now people are making up for that. Pilgrims come here in thousands, just like in the Middle Ages,'' said Aladasugirova, who had travelled about 300 km to pray at the site.

Today, the shrine with the blue-tiled facade is at the centre of an Islamic revival rolling across Central Asia. Some 15 years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, it is rediscovering its role as a centre for study and pilgrimage.

Bearded men in robes, backpackers and scholars with copies of the Koran pray together underneath its green-and-gold dome, the largest of its kind in Central Asia.

But the revival does not sit comfortably with most of Central Asia's long-serving leaders who have been criticised by the West for using the Islamist threat as a pretext to clamp down on dissent and religious freedom.

''After the Soviet collapse, the ideological vacuum was filled with all kinds of false teachings. It is only now that people are beginning to understand true Islam,'' said Muzaffar Haji, a cleric in the ancient Silk Road town of Turkestan.

''Only now people are beginning to see that (Central Asia) is not just a backyard of the Soviet Union, but a region with deep historical roots ... But it's a different question whether political leaders have the same goals.'' DISSENT A resurgence of Islam and its practices in the dying years of the Soviet Union formed part of a desire to break with communism which had tried to quash religious traditions.

Mosques and religious schools have mushroomed across the region.

Studying Islamic law and Arabic abroad mainly in Turkey and Saudi Arabia became popular among young people.

The revival has not been welcomed by the region's leaders, increasingly autocratic and criticised for human rights abuses.

As in Soviet days, Uzbekistan tolerates only a state-approved version of Islam. It has cracked down on all groups operating outside the system as part of its fight against Islamist militants who, it says, seek to overthrow President Islam Karimov.

Karimov says Islamist ''terrorists'' attempted to stage a coup in the town of Andizhan last year. Witnesses estimate hundreds of unarmed people were killed when government troops opened fire on a large crowd. The government says 187 people -- either Islamist extremists or police -- were killed.

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