This paper examines the religious revivalist movements in the late Soviet Central Asia within the context of political and social changes brought forth by perestroika. It focusses on women's Islamic learning groups and Qur'an translations as related activities that broadened religious knowledge outside of formal institutions, albeit in dialogue with them. Women's study groups were important venues for education, interpretation, and transmission, and first modern translations of Qur'an made new forms of access possible as state limitations on religion loosened. In particular, among women who had been mainly shut out of formal religious instruction, these behaviours collectively changed religious authority and daily piety. The study claims that religious revivalist movements evolved through the opportunities offered by perestroika, connecting state-level reforms to grassroots religious participation by placing women's learning groups and Qur'an translations inside the dynamics of political reform. These dynamics complicate the traditional approaches to studying Islam in modern Central Asia as oppressed to the point of extinction, as the new dynamics were built on Soviet formal and informal Islamic practices and pedagogies.