CC BY
36
Teymur ATAEV
Independent Researcher (Baku, Azerbaijan).
AZERBAIJAN: INDEPENDENCE AND THE RELIGIOUS PARADIGM (THE ISLAMIC QUESTION AGAINST THE BACKGROUND OF TWENTY YEARS OF INDEPENDENCE)
Abstract
This article presents a comprehensive they have affected the stability of the state,
discussion of the development of Is- and the ways Islam and its creative poten-
lam in post-Soviet Azerbaijan, the tial can be used to promote social progress
problems of the Islamic community, the way in Azerbaijan.
Introduction
When put in the historical context, twenty years of independence is not that long; however, for the generation that lived to see the downfall of one country and the emergence of several others on its ruins, they seem to have lasted longer than an epoch. These changes claimed hundreds of thousands of lives, made millions of others forced migrants, ruined the everyday existence of even more people, and led to the occupation of historical homelands, etc. It is for the future generations to pass political, cultural, and economic verdict on this stretch of history. Very much as usual, opinions (convictions,
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moods, and versions) will be geared toward the prevailing ideologies: some rejoice at the removal of "curtains" and borders of all sorts; others mourn the past and see what happened as a tragedy that deprived millions of their chance in life; while still others look at what happened in many other different ways. One thing, however, cannot be disputed: in many respects the transition period (a "time of troubles" for many) has been a historic event that echoed across the world.
The Religious Component in the Post-Soviet Expanse
Today, a new sociopolitical order has taken shape across the post-Soviet space and in the countries that in the past formed what was known as the socialist camp. The social and cultural context and the economic background are very different from what they were in the past. The philosophy and values of the previous generations have "gone with the wind," which explains the warped spiritual and moral paradigm of all the social groups, the result of actively promoted mercantilism. In other words, the newly independent countries embraced the market component as their own for economic purposes and as a compass in personal relationships: total commercialization extended from politics and the economy to the spiritual and moral spheres.
Strange as it may seem in view of the above, the religious component not merely survived in the new social conditions, it acquired a new lease of life. This is one of the outstanding phenomena of the last two decades; it was enough to convince the huge numbers that there was a Higher Power in the Universe. It is frequently asserted that religion is the only force able to oppose the lawlessness of permissibility in many spheres on life. Many people, however, believe that it was the global beaux monde that planted religious feelings and continues to insist on them in pursuance of its own interests.
No matter what, religion has become much better heard in the post-Soviet space; it has moved into the vast political and social niche vacated by Soviet ideology. It should be said that while at the early stages certain forces deliberately introduced the confessional aspect into social life, today the interest in religion is fed by the people themselves.
In any case, in the CIS the religious component is accompanying global changes in all spheres of life. Normally, this is confirmed by the number of newly built (restored) churches, synagogues, and mosques, their increased attendance on religious holydays, the greater number of potential pilgrims, etc. This, however, can hardly be regarded as an objective indicator of the level of confidence in religion. Indeed, many of those who attend churches, synagogues, and mosques on religious holydays have no use for religion and its injunctions. Many Muslims limit their religious zeal to Friday khut-bahs and specific dates; while just as many keep their religious feelings to themselves and do not brandish their religiosity. In other words, figures cannot and do not reveal the true picture; they are especially deceptive when it comes to assessing religious feelings.
This means that any discussion (even the most superficial) of the development of Islam in Azerbaijan should move away from figures and their interpretations: the true picture becomes more or less clear when the situation is seen from the inside.
The Troubled 1990s
On the whole, the early years of the last decade of the last century are remembered in light of the avalanche of religious feelings that engulfed the Soviet (not yet post-Soviet) people. They
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flocked to churches, mosques, and synagogues and bought mountains of religious literature in search of reliable information about the spiritual side of life, etc. With few exceptions, this side of social life proved to be neglected or, rather, abandoned to missionaries arriving from all over the world bringing piles of religious literature in their luggage. The old customs barriers had fallen while new ones had not yet been erected. The newly independent countries proved easy prey for all sorts of charities, many of which pursued their own specific aims. Others, and there were many of them, built new mosques, which increased the number of religious organizations. It was at that time that religious education abroad became affordable: the host country, or all sorts of foreign structures, offered free education to practically anyone willing to study. In this way, a huge number of young men from the post-Soviet ethnically Muslim regions found themselves in famous or, much more frequently, obscure religious educational establishments of the Middle East. This spontaneous process created problems in the Azeri Ummah as soon as the first Muslims educated abroad returned home. The "religious old timers" immediately noticed that it was a generation of "new" Muslims educated in a different, Sunni, tradition who returned to Azerbaijan from Medina, Cairo, and some other cities.
This requires no further explanation. Whatever the case, these young people had different ideas of Islam than the older generation, which triggered an active discussion of which Muslims were "more Islamic." This was when the highly lamentable tradition of dividing Muslims into "right" and "wrong" appeared; those who followed it concentrated on external attributes rather than on the meaning of faith or on an allegedly different Aqida (teaching).
On the whole, it is obvious that the Aqida is the same for practically all Muslims, since all of them accept nearly all of its points. At the turn of the 21st century, the outer appearance of the faithful was taken as the manifestation of a true or false faith. The Abu Bakr mosque in Baku, built on the money of the Society of the Revival of Islamic Heritage (SRIH) of Kuwait, was the center from which these "new ideas" spread far and wide. The SRIH is well known in the Islamic world; it operates in several Muslim countries, including in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
The Gap Widens
Registered in 2002, the Abu Bakr mosque attracted people in great and rapidly increasing numbers. It could no longer contain the Friday crowds; people congregated outside the mosque. The khutbahs of Imam Gamet Suleymanov stirred up a lot of enthusiasm among the faithful, while the mosque's website became very popular. This explains why most of the Baku population regarded the mosque as the leader of the Islamic movement in the republic; the mosque, in turn, confirmed its image not only on Fridays and Islamic holydays: on ordinary days it offered lectures to the rapidly increasing audiences. The faithful congregated inside and outside the mosque and lured passers-by, numerous in this frequented place, to the mosque. A particularly important nuance, however, was that the mosque acquired the halo of "radical Wahhabism," a trend hitherto unknown in the republic.
On the whole, the country has always been home to both the Shi'a and Sunni branches, which have lived peacefully side-by-side without the slightest contradictions. Sunnis lived in the north of Azerbaijan, along the borders with Russia, while the Shi'a lived in the south, where the republic borders on Iran, and predominated in Baku. The differences began and ended with religious affiliation with one of the branches. Early in the 2000s, everything changed.
I have already written that the outer appearance of an ideal Muslim was actively discussed in the mosque. The imam pointed out that "those mosque frequenters who wanted to live by the laws of the Shari'a" should have beards and wear shortened trousers: beards "were recommended by others," while trousers "should not hang below the ankles so that the wearer looked modest and neat." This
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divided the Muslims into those who agreed with these rules (in order to look like a faithful Muslim living by the Shari'a) and those who preferred to dress as usual. Statements to the tune of what Imam Suleymanov once said, "we treat such people normally," widened the gap; this and other pronouncements of the same kind could hardly produce a different effect. The "dress code" was supplemented with other "deviations" in those Muslims whom "those wishing to live by the Shari'a" treated "normally."
The theses and "visual evidence" of wrong praying habits detected in many Muslims (they allowed their arms to hang during namaz) were pushed to the fore. It was explained that during the Tashahhud (the portion of prayer where the Muslims kneel on the ground), the index finger should be moved.
History does not tolerate the subjunctive, but let me say that if the "difference" between the followers of different mazhabs were limited to "wrong" external attributes, many of the "moderate" Muslims would have never been very negative about the Abu Bakr mosque because much of what was said there related to spirituality and the Koranic postulates. Gradually, however, the vocabulary of those who frequented the mosque was enriched with the terms Shirk (polytheism), Kafir (unbeliever), Murtad (apostate), and other similar names applied to those who were considered to be "not one of us." Not infrequently those who had just come to the mosque and started learning the ABCs of Islam relished throwing these terms around. Those who studied abroad were not alien to this practice either.
On the one hand, this focused attention on the external side of religiosity, even though in Islam the creative approach has been and remains the main feature of genuine religious feelings. People started paying more attention to appearances than to the rituals. On the other hand, the gap between the "right" and the "wrong" became too obvious: what was going on inside and outside the mosque could no longer be ignored. Gradually, society learned to perceive the "bearded Wahhabi in shortened trousers" as a social danger.
The Ideas of Taqfir1
Very soon the situation acquired new overtones: in the first half of the first decade of the 21st century, a small fraction of the Abu Bakr frequenters started talking about Suleymanov as "not a genuine Muslim who cooperates with the authorities." At first, against the background of the discussions on Dar ul-Islam (the Muslim regions of the world) and Jahiliyyah (the pre-Islamic period in the history of Arabs, that is, "the land of ignorance") as applied to the contemporary period, some of those who frequently attended the mosque started theorizing about an "Islamic state" and Jihad. After a while, they started calling (vaguely) for practical implementation of this idea.
Imam Suleymanov, who, from the very beginning, cut short all deliberations on this subject, was accused of colluding with the authorities. The anti-Suleymanov group included Azerbaijan in Jahiliyyah; they insisted that the faithful Muslims should regard the heads of the "nominally" Muslim states as Kafirs (unbelievers). Suleymanov, on the other hand, considered Heydar Aliev to be a Muslim.
1 "In the mid-1970s, in Egypt there appeared a Muslim movement which the journalists started calling At-Taqfir wal-Hijra (excommunication and emigration), which put in a nutshell its program. The word "Taqfir" means to judge somebody to be a "Kafir" (a non-Muslim infidel), based on his behavior resembling the behavior of an infidel. Hijra means "flight" or "emigration" or "leaving," such as Prophet Muhammad and his followers did when they left for the city of Medina to avoid persecution in Mecca in the 7th century; thus, if a society is pronounced to be an infidel society, the members of Taqfir wal-Hijra see it as their duty to start an armed struggle (jihad) against the infidels" (A.A. Ignatenko, "Chistilshchiki islama," NG-Religii, 17 November, 2010).—Ed.
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These theoretical accusations (statements) drove the inner mosque opposition to the idea of Taqfir and to equating some Muslims and "unfaithful" as the pivotal point. The International Crisis Group (ICG) pointed out that in his fatwah Gamet Suleymanov described as Kharijites2 all those who supported these ideas and who believed that people who behaved "not as they themselves do" were "unfaithful Muslims." Later, he tagged them followers of Taqfir who taught that Islam concentrated on "power and jihad" rather than on "the five pillars of Islam." Gamet Suleymanov deemed it necessary to point out that, by attaching the tag Kafir to Muslims, these people "are ignoring the prescriptions of the Shari'a" and could be described as "vehicles of radical ideas."3
In Azerbaijan, it was commonly believed (with good reason) that the ideas of Taqfir arrived from the Northern Caucasus: while preparing to declare a Caucasian Imarat in 2007 the North Caucasian leaders preached that those Muslims who "helped infidels by word or by deed" (state officials, law enforcers, and even religious figures) were "opponents of Allah" and that, therefore, the "members of the kafir group" should be fought against in the same way as the "infidels." They added that if a Muslim was recognized as an infidel he could be murdered, while "his property is considered halal (permissible to use or engage in.—Ed.); his wives divorced; his children cannot inherit from him, while his parents disinherit him."4
Two years ago there was an explosion in Abu Bakr during prayer; two people were killed. Evidence gave every reason to believe that those to blame for the incident came from the Northern Caucasus. In the fall of 2008, the Azeri law enforcers identified those who had been involved in the act of terror. Ilgar Mollachiev, believed to be Imam of the Daghestanian Jamaat, was considered to be one of them.5 The statement issued by the Ministry of National Security (MNS) of Azerbaijan said that those who had organized the explosion planned to revive an armed group called the Forest Brotherhood and set up armed units for carrying out terrorist acts in Azerbaijan to undermine its social and political stability. The documents mentioned the existence of armed groups—Sumgayyt jamaaty, which was to implement the terrorist plans, and Guba-Gusar jamaaty, which intended to set up military camps in the republic's mountain forests.6
The mosque was closed down after the explosion.
Fear of the Wahhabis and Religion as a Whole
It should be said that late in 2007, the MNS stated that it prevented several large-scale terrorist acts, including a large-scale operation by a "radical group of Wahhabis" against several state struc-
2 Literally "those who went out"—an extremely radical Muslim sect condemned by the majority of the faithful; this was the earliest religious novelty in Islam. They are mentioned in the Sunnah; this event marked a new period in the life of the Islamic community, the period of discord and dissidence.—Ed.
3 From the answers of Gamet Suleymanov in the Questions-Answers section on the site of Abu Bakr, available at [http://www.abubakr-mescidi.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=752&st=30; http://www.abubakr-mescidi.com/forums/ index.php?showtopic=860&st=120; http://www.abubakr-mescidi. com/forums/index.php?showtopic=868&st=150]; Azerbaijan: Independent Islam and the State, Report No. 191, Europe, 5 March 2008, available at [http://www.crisisgroup. org/~/media/Files/europe/191_azerbaijan_independent_islam_and_the_state_rus.pdf]; Talking to Imam Suleymanov, available at [http://salyafi.my1.ru/news/2008-12-20-240]; Interview of G. Suleymanov, available at [http://www.day.az/ news/society/57685.html].
4 Answers of Amir Seyfullah to questions of Muslims, available at [http://www.kavkazcenter.com/russ/content/ 2006/08/28/46749.shtml].
5 For more detail, see: T. Ataev, "Mollachiev ubit. No voprosy ostaiutsia," available at [http://www.azeri.ru/papers/ echo-az_info/26681/].
6 See: "Vzryv v mecheti ustroili chleny voorozhennoy gruppirovki,", available at [http://www.day.az/print/news/ society/129314.html].
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tures, foreign embassies, and foreign missions. The prevention of other terrorist attacks was also reported.
It is not my intention to talk about the political underpinnings of such statements, but I deem it necessary to say that early in the new century society was confronted with the Wahhabi trend in Islam and became scared. It was not the fear of destabilization or of armed acts justified by religious ideas; people were concerned about the social and ideological factor.
Strange as it may seem, the people whom others perceived as Wahhabis (today they are called Salafis) scared the rest by their outer appearance in particular. On second thoughts, however, there was nothing strange in this: the mosque insisted on presentable clothing.
Under Soviet power and during the early years of independence, Islam in Azerbaijan was, on the whole, associated with the mullahs mainly involved in burial rites and mourning. Dressed in baggy trousers and jackets and wearing unpolished shoes they looked unkempt and decidedly downtrodden.
Developing by leaps and bounds, Wahhabism was far removed from the amorphous and hardly intellectual Muslim clergy. Albeit well-educated, with good command of several foreign languages, having a broad vision of the world, and knowing how to present their ideas, their outer appearance nevertheless made the Friday congregational prayers want to take to their heels as quickly as possible. And this stands to reason: identically dressed people (the beards and shortened trousers were perceived as a uniform) leaving the mosque after Friday prayers in well-organized groups could hardly produce a different response. "How else can we respond to a crowd of identical people prepared to fulfill any mission at any moment?"
This of course was an exaggeration, but one has to admit that the uniformed cohorts of Abu Bakr looked like an immutable force prepared to act and succeed. The media context was created by Russian TV, which indulged in showing bearded people rushing into attack with the Allahu Akbar battle cry. The terrorist acts in the post-Soviet expanse were mainly associated with clandestine Wahhabi organizations. Information about casualties among civilians and pictures of suicide bombers' belts, weapons, and uniforms were the media's staple food. The result was predictable: people associated this with the local Wahhabis; they learned to fear them and expect all sorts of trouble from them.
The explosion in Abu Bakr in August 2008 confirmed these fears; as could be expected, no one, even the people who lived nearby, knew anything at all about what was going on inside the mosque; the "uninitiated" remained ignorant of the truth, although everyone heard rumors that in the mosque emissaries were busy enlisting volunteers wishing to help the "Chechen brothers."
Regrettably, in many cases these fears were transformed into the fear of religion. At the same time, relations between imam Suleymanov and the Taqfir opposition developed into sharp disagreements on the Abu Bakr website (in the Questions and Answers section), which alienated many of his former supporters. This looked like more confirmation of trouble inside the mosque and among the Azeri Muslims in general. Some of these people associated Gamet Suleymanov with the radical ideas emanating from the mosque. None of the official religious or special state structures deemed it necessary to publish an official statement about the developments in the mosque. This explains why a large share of active (and passive) observers shifted their rejection of the Wahhabis to Islam as a whole.
What about an Alternative?
While Abu Bakr rallied its supporters, no alternative was offered to those interested in religion, apart from sporadic TV programs and articles in the press that said next to nothing about what was going on in the religious sphere. The more or less frequented Islamic and secular websites concentrat-
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ed on rituals; discussions in the virtual space developed into scandals among supporters of different mazhabs, a faithful reflection of what was going on in real life. Nothing was done to present "alternative" ("real" according to experts) Islam. Religion, meanwhile, was developing in two directions— static (official) and active (religious communities at the mosques)—which refused to have anything to do with each other.
Some people attended mosques; others preferred to practice religion at home. Little by little an intellectual group appeared based on the intelligentsia, but its voice (views, arguments, doubts) was barely discernable within the ummah.
On the whole, society was most active during Gurban-bayrami and Ramazan; during the month of Ramazan, TV and radio paid a lot of attention to Islam, but well-substantiated programs about religion were practically absent. The faithful were left to their own devices (self-development, self-awareness, they had to find their own path to the Truth by perceiving Islam at an intellectual and sensuous level); on the other hand, many people attended lectures and khutbahs in mosques and spoke to other believers. There were those who went abroad in search of knowledge about Islam.
In other words, the information about Islam came from different sources; more than that, no one knew how to educate moderate believers—this explains why there was no unity in the Muslim community of Azerbaijan.
Are There Hostile Mazhabs?
When talking about a united social group we should first of all establish whether people closed ranks against someone (or certain forces) and for the sake of something. The unity of the ummah presupposes shared interests; in the absence of mutual understanding among the Azeri believers (many of them never thought about it), a large group of Muslims appeared who believed that they should, first and foremost, prove to the others that they were right.
They insisted that their mazhabs were the only right ones and went as far as practicing da'waat, not because they wanted to enlist new believers, but because they wanted to stress the advantages of their own mazhab.
Let me repeat that ethnic and confessional tolerance has always been Azerbaijan's hallmark; there have never been any religious disagreements, no matter how small. Today, an "alienation zone" (let me use this term) has appeared, from which a "shore of contradictions" is not far off. This rift did not appear spontaneously; today, there are practically no jobs for those who received religious education abroad; "traditional Islam" is the talk of the day. The developments of the last decade brought the ummah to this rift. It should be said in all justice that the Administration of the Muslims of the Caucasus (AMC) has been the least guilty of this. The blame lies on the local religious communities that indulged in latent or open propaganda of their ideas about the faith and forms of abeyance of the injunctions of the Most High as the only correct ones.
This is leading to implacable clashes among believers. Everything will end well if people limit their religious zeal and peculiar tastes to their dress, but they could be driven further to plunge into a full-scale conflict. Ethnic and religious contradictions (which might develop into mortal conflicts) are the shortest way toward an outburst in any region at any time.
This is a very important time for Azerbaijan: there are certain external forces that would like to establish control over its natural riches. In this case, the religious component might be used as a detonator.
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A Disunited Ummah Threatens Stability of the State (with References to Lenin)
Let me remind you of what happened in the first half of 2010. "Baku may be forced to make a geopolitical choice between Iran, Russia, and the U.S.," said Raymond Tanter, former Senior Member on the U.S. National Security Council staff at the White House, who currently serves as president of Iran Policy Committee in Washington D.C. Speaking about the current situation in the region, he pointed out that the cooperation between Moscow and Washington on missile defense as a part of an extension of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty "is much more likely to involve the Gabala radar station in Azerbaijan than when the Bush Administration was negotiating with the Russians."
He went on to warn that ".. .if the Iranian regime objects because Baku and Tehran have signed a mutual agreement not to allow their territory to be used by third countries for hostile actions, then Azerbaijan may be forced to choose between closer relations with the superpowers or appeasing the Iranian regime.
"Baku would be much better off under the joint cooperation of Moscow and Washington than under the sway of Tehran," he emphasized.7
This was not said to stress Russian-American unity (at least at that time) on the Iranian nuclear file, rather it was said in so many words that "he who is not with us is against us." By the "sway of Tehran," Raymond Tanter meant an "Islamic revolution;" nothing of that sort had been said before. Back in 2010 I took it as a warning to Azerbaijan, that is, as certain food for thought about how the situation might possibly develop and how it might be formulated in the worldwide context. This was especially important because Baku had not been invited to the nuclear (or anti-nuclear) summit in Washington.8
It is not my task to analyze the "geo-comments" of the time; I would like to establish the extent to which Afghanistan's religious context might prove responsive to the efforts of those resolved to play the "Islamic card."
To be successful, revolutions should stem from fertile soil and be encouraged from the outside. Significantly, in 1915, that is, two years before the 1917 Bolshevik revolution in Russia, Lenin wrote in his The Collapse of the Second International that a "crisis of the upper classes" is the main warning sign of a coming revolution, creating "a fissure through which the discontent and indignation of the oppressed classes burst forth" when "the suffering and want of the oppressed classes have grown more acute than usual;" because of this "there is a considerable increase in the activity of the masses, who uncomplainingly allow themselves to be robbed in 'peace time,' but in turbulent times are drawn into independent historical action."9
After ruling for three years, Lenin was more specific in his Left-Wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder: "revolution is impossible without a nation-wide crisis for a revolution to take place, it is essential, first, that a majority ... of the class-conscious workers should fully realize that revolution is necessary; second, that the ruling classes should be going through a governmental crisis, which draws even the most backward masses into politics." This "weakens the government, and makes it possible for the revolutionaries to rapidly overthrow it."10 Significantly, the Bolshevik leader was writing about a "revolution."
7 [http://news.am/eng/news/17977.html].
8 See: T. Ataev, "Mozhet li 'tsvetnaia revolutsia' smenit fon na religiozny ottenok , ili Signaly o vozmozhnykh igrakh vokrug 'islamskogo faktora' v Azerbaidzhane," available at [http://ia-centr.ru/expert/7757/].
9 [http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1915/csi/index.htm].
10 [http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/pdf/Lenin_Left_wing_Communism.pdf].
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He said nothing about external impacts, which is not surprising: had "foreign forces" been mentioned as one of the springs of a revolution—either ideological or financial—the head of the Soviet state would have stirred up doubts about the domestic roots of regime change. Today it is common knowledge that practically all revolutionary events in the Recent Period of the history of the world were triggered by a combination of external and internal forces; the 1917 revolutionary situation in Russia being no exception.
An analysis of what is described by world historiography as the national-liberation struggle (in the mid-20th century, for example) reveals external interference: locked in geopolitical confrontation, the Soviet Union and the United States were spreading their influence in their own zones of the Third World.
The Islamic revolution of 1979 in Iran was inspired from Paris, where the religious opposition had been camped for many years. Foreign influence was definitely present in 2010 when crowds poured into the streets after the general elections. The same can be said about the color regime change in the CIS countries.
We know today that Lenin's formula that revolution could triumph when the "lower classes" no longer wanted to live in the old way and the "upper classes" could not carry on in the old way was wrong. Lenin had his own reasons to assert this.
My readers may object that in many cases an armed putsch (plot) was enough for a regime change, even if there was foreign interference in a "revolutionary-liberation movement." This is true, but an analysis of the world's response to these facts easily reveals the following. If none of the leading world powers were involved in the regime change, the "regime-changers" were promptly removed. In all other cases (that is, when the strings were pulled from abroad), the new regime was gradually legalized, not by all of the geopolitical rivals, of course, but by one of the camps of the powers that be.
In any case, a regime change requires protesting crowds: without them no revolution or regime change is possible. At different times in history, revolutionary crowds had different makeups: young officers from noble Russian families in the 19th century (the Decembrists); Russian workers of the first half of the 20th century; the intellectuals who led the "liberal-democratic" perestroika of the late 1980s; Solidarnost across the border in Poland during the latter half of the 1980s; the "national team" of disgruntled people in Greece; and the worldweb-inspired Arab Spring. In other words, essentially anyone can feel "humiliated and insulted" (Dostoyevsky) for whatever reason, even if they prefer to keep it to themselves. Some of the forces among the powers that be invariably admit that the protesters are right. This cannot be otherwise because power can only be undermined by a lack of agreement (latent or carefully concealed) in the country's upper echelons ("the ruling classes should be going through a governmental crisis" as Lenin put it). Whether the opposition at the top is highly ideological or inspired from abroad is irrelevant: opposition is an inevitable element of domestic political trouble.
This perfectly fits what Raymond Tanter said about a possible "Islamic revolution" in Azerbaijan. Is its soil fertile enough? If the answer is "yes," we need to ask who will pump up the protest potential in the religious sphere? On the whole, much has happened in this sphere: there is a law that bans unregistered religious communities (some observers regard this as an encroachment on the freedom of association). Under the new law, experts of the State Committee for Religious Structures have the right to ban, without going to the court, publication and dissemination of religious literature. Some of the experts described the ban as a violation of Constitutional norms (although they agreed that religious literature should be limited to licensed bookshops). There is a ban on religious rites performed by clergy educated abroad; the hijab was banned from schools; TV has discontinued practically all religious programs. The faithful, and other social groups for that matter, are hardly delighted.
On the other hand, closure of a large number of mosques created numerous problems because those who attended them still need prayer houses. Friday services should be performed for large
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crowds; some of those who attended the closed mosques stayed there for hours: they talked to elders or tried to find the truth in hour-long vigils. Where are they now? Who are they speaking to, what sort of information are they receiving?
This and the contradictions between mazhabs (of which I have written above) are creating tension that cannot and should not be ignored, even though this situation will probably not explode if and when external forces try to upset the present fragile balance in the country.
Today, religious peace is high on the list of priorities of the Azeri powers wishing to consolidate the state's stability.
How Can Social Unity Be Achieved?
We all know that society is arranged "in order of size" (if the term is applicable at all). This situation usually leads to a lack of understanding between the supporters of secular and religious ways of development. In real life, the leeway is not that constrained. Many of those prepared to follow the secular path leave much space for religious people without, however, pushing them to the fore. On the other hand, there are religious people prepared to accept "secularly minded citizens" in a religious state.
On the whole, the variants of the above are numerous. It is good if the leeway (no matter how limited) exists. What can be done if it is absent? Both sides abound in people who refuse to listen to their opponents or to familiarize themselves with their ideas. This not merely limits the space for those prepared to look for common points: mutual animosity separates people. This is the natural outcome in a situation where some people perceive everyone wearing miniskirts or open tops as the enemy, while others hate beards and shortened trousers. This gradually develops into a situation in which the faithful are perceived as aliens by the secular, or vice versa.
It is highly important to create a communicative-innovational space in which all citizens will be listened to and heard. In this case, living and developing ideas will no longer be disseminated in a space isolated from the life of society. This can be organized as a center (or any other structure)—the form is unimportant. What is important is to overcome the "hostile" (in some cases inverted commas look superfluous) attitudes. In so doing, we will undermine the plans (ideological or imposed) of groups of citizens to alienate themselves from society. Without this, all plans designed to stabilize the situation inside the Muslim community and between it and the secular part of the Azeri society are doomed to failure.
In the absence of a communicative-innovational space, the defrosted critical mass might ignite confrontation. We cannot say what might happen; all forecasts will prove futile because external forces acting through agents inside the country might use the artificially fanned chaos in their own interests.
We know that not all population groups are prepared to listen to alternative opinions, but we should start moving in this direction as soon as possible. We have approached the stage at which an Azeri Muslim civil identity should be formed that presupposes the active involvement of all people in building an edifice of civil society. As the first step in this direction, we need a single center engaged in creating conceptual foundations for the development of the ummah by consolidating the intellectual potential of the expert community and the spiritual elite. This will bring us closer to elements of the ummah as an attribute of civil society based on Islamic values, which will make the socially creative potential of Islam one of the cornerstones of the country's foundation.
This prospect is absolutely logical. In 2010, when speaking at the Baku summit of religious leaders Globalization, Religion and Traditional Values, President Ilham Aliev described Azerbaijan
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as "a natural bridge between Europe and Asia" and spoke of Islam as "our holy religion." He went on to say that globalization was a relatively new phenomenon and that "we must not under the pressure of globalization forget about our national values. We must continue to maintain them" to avoid the norms "that have nothing to do with our national mentality" and that are imposed on the country under the pretext of globalization.
The president of Azerbaijan developed the ideas which Heydar Aliev first formulated at the international symposium Islamic Civilization of the Caucasus held in Baku in 1998. He then pointed out that "we accept the Islamic culture and Islamic cultural wealth as they were given in our sacred book, the Koran" and added that "Azerbaijan may become a Research Center of Islamic Civilization in the Caucasus. Azerbaijan has the right to this."
The important question is to what extent is the ummah ready? Or, more specifically: "Are there people in the confessional milieu able to address tasks of global importance?"
Conclusion
Science and education are two pivots of the social and economic success and spiritual and moral health of any society. In July 2011, the government and parliament of North Rhine-Westphalia passed a law under which lessons in Islam were introduced into the school curriculum for Muslim students starting in the 2012/13 academic year. According to Minister of Education Sylvia Lermann, the new subject will help Muslims to integrate.
Can we be absolutely sure that if a similar law is passed in Azerbaijan there will be enough knowledgeable teachers to supply our children with adequate information?
We need a Council for Islamic Education; we need standards of Islamic education in Azerbaijan based on unified programs for higher and secondary Islamic educational establishments, as well as textbooks on all religious disciplines.
All mazhabs should be involved in the process to avoid some of them possibly rejecting the teaching programs. Hopefully, their concerted efforts will bring them closer; primary and secondary religious education inside the country will take the edge off the debatable issue of religious education abroad. This will bring to light the creative potential of Islam in the spiritual, cultural, social, and educational spheres.
In fact, back in the 19th century prominent Tatar scholar, teacher, and enlightener Husain Faiz-khanov put forward a comprehensive conception of religious and secular education for the Russian Muslim Tatars that included the creation of a group of well-educated secular and religious Tatar elite; in other words, he wanted to provide Tatars with higher secular and religious education.
The imperial powers objected; in 1870 Emperor Alexander II signed The Rules on the Measures Designed to Educate Non-Russians Living in Russia, which described "Russianization of all non-Russians in order to blend them with Russians" as the main task. It is different today; it seems that time has come to revive Faizkhanov's approach.
A certain number of places at higher educational establishments that train specialists needed in the national economy can be reserved for religiously-oriented Muslims: any religious educational establishment, either a madrasah or an institute, concentrates on teaching religious and related subjects, while state education supplies secular knowledge as well.
We may also come back to the idea Damir Mukhetdinov, First Deputy Chairman of the Spiritual Administration of the Muslims of European Russia (DUMER) and member of the RF Public Council, formulated three years ago. He said that there were two types of higher Muslim education best suited to the post-Soviet expanse integrated, as fully as possible, in the secular legal context. The graduates of madrasahs and Islamic institutes and universities either enter secular higher educational establishments to continue their studies under close supervision of the Spiritual Administrations of Muslims,
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or they receive higher secular education while being shakirds (pupils) of religious educational establishments. The advantages are obvious: well- educated diplomaed ulemas will be able to stand opposed to self-imposed Islamic scholars who profess radicalism.11
Not everyone will be ready to accept this, but no one will reject it outright. Before criticizing others we should look at ourselves; we are all fond of discussing and condemning others, and of looking for and finding faults with others to exonerate ourselves. Let's move from idle talk to practical moves. Each and everyone should recognize that if today we fail to arrive at important conclusions about what is going on in the ummah, we will deprive our society and the state of a chance to grow, move forward, and prosper.
11 See: D.V. Mukhetdinov, "Uchastie gosudarstva v sisteme religioznogo obrazovaniia rossiyskikh musulman," available at [http://pda.islamrf.ru/news/umma/islam-world/2876/].
