Niyazov even appears on the currency of Turkmenistan

TURKMENISTAN , August 4 (IslamOnline.net) – Knowing the highway code is no longer enough to get a driving license in Turkmenistan , whose autocratic President Saparmurat Niyazov has told future drivers to cram his "sacred" writings to qualify.

Saparmurat Niyazov has issued a new one of his eccentric decrees calling on candidates for driving tests to pass a new exam in "his spiritual writings".  

"The exam in the Ruhnama (Niyazov’s book) is needed to educate future drivers in the high moral principles of Turkmen society," a Turkmen official told Agence France-Presse on Monday, August 2.

Ironically enough, the decree put the knowledge of the highway code and control of the steering wheel on a secondary place.

It is of prime importance to educate drivers the "moral values of Turkmenistan 's society," read the decree, carried by the BBC News Online on Monday.

"A 16-hour course of the sacred Rukhnama is one of the most important innovations in the (driving learning) program... to ensure future drivers are educated in the spirit of high moral values of Turkmenistan 's society," the decree added.

Niyazov , Turkmenistan 's "president for life" wrote the Ruhnama, the Book of the Soul, as a moral guide to his six million people. The book is a combination autobiography and an account of the country’s history.

The text is touted to be a semi-philosophical code aimed at promoting a spirit of national consciousness among Turkmens.

A copy of the Ruhnama is placed in mosques alongside the Qur’an, so worshippers "can touch it" on their way inside, the BBC News Online said.

Excerpts of the book which dominates state institutions, media and arts are displayed on billboards, and it is also required reading in both school and university curricula.

Eccentric

Known generally as Turkmenbashi, Leader of the Turkmens, Niyazov has grown increasingly eccentric in recent years.

The president is known for his bizarre decisions. Niyazov had also named the months of the year after his family members. April turned to "Qurban Sultan", his mother, and May to "Atamurat", his father.

Two months ago, the Turkmen president demanded that his own words be inscribed on a new mosque being built just outside the capital Ashgabat, a decision that breaks the established practices across the Muslim world.

In March, he ordered all men to have their moustaches and beards shaved and banned them from growing their hair.

At first the decision was against extremists, but later he insisted it should be applied to all men, raising anti-government sentiments, especially among youths fed up with the weird decrees.

Golden statues and portraits of Niyazov can be found in almost every street in the country and towns and regions are named after him and his parents.

He had issued a decree to build a 4-thousand-meter lake at the heart of the desert at the cost of five million dollars. The project is to be opened in 2008 as a resort near the capital.

Observers believe that Niyazov's bizarre decisions, smacking of a personality cult, are encouraged by U.S. silence.

They said while the US seeks to imposed its reform recipe on Arab and Islamic states in the Middle East , it disregards dictatorships in Turkmenistan and other central Asian countries such as Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan .

Niyazov believes that Washington 's need of natural gas and oil, Turkmenistan being one of the countries overlooking the oil-rich Caspian Sea , would keep him safe.

Although possessing possibly the fourth largest gas reserves in the world and substantial oil deposits, according to the CIA Fact Book, Turkmenistan has a rate of poverty hitting 58 percent of its six-million population.

Annexed by Russia between 1865 and 1885, Turkmenistan became a Soviet republic in 1925. It achieved its independence upon the dissolution of the USSR in 1991.

Islam first appeared in the country in 1039 until the Bolshevik revolution that forced all mosques and Islamic institutes closed.

But in 1980s, the country witnessed a revival of Islam, having 70 mosques in 1990 from four in 1985.