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THE CAUCASUS & GLOBALIZATION
Ahmet YARLYKAPOV
Ph.D. (Hist.), Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Ethnology and
Anthropology, Russian Academy of Sciences (Moscow, the Russian Federation).
ISLAM AND THE CONFLICT IN THE NORTHERN CAUCASUS
Abstract
The author's analysis of field studies (carried out in the last 14 years) of the role of the Islamic factor in the North Caucasian conflicts brings him to the conclusion that the various forms and in-
terpretations of Islam present in the region do not make it a source of conflict. Islam is drawn into regional conflicts by a complex intertwining of spheres of influence, interests, and ambitions.
By Way of an Introduction Current Trends
This article is best described as an attempt to survey the forms that Islam has assumed in the Northern Caucasus. The radical changes of the last two decades have created an absolutely new picture of the region's religious life. Throughout these years Islam has been rapidly gathering authority among the Caucasian peoples in different spheres of daily life, as well as gaining in political scope. On the other hand, extremism among the Muslims receives much more attention than it should, which explains why Islam in the Caucasus is studied in a fairly biased way.
The real involvement of Islam in the region's conflicts and the forms of this involvement may offer a highly interesting subject for scholarly studies. Are there "conflict-prone" and "peaceful"
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forms of Islam, or are they nothing but myths? Is religious ideology the initial source of a conflict, or do the conflicting sides turn to it to justify what they do for different reasons? I will look for the answers to these and other questions in the field studies in the Northern Caucasus I have been involved in since 1998.
The Caucasian history of Islam is rich and diverse; the first Muslims appeared there in the first century of Islamic history. Sunni Islam of the Shaf'i madhhab and Shi'a Islam of the Imami madhhab arrived in the Caucasus from the south (Mesopotamia and Iran). Sunni Islam of the Hanafi madhhab arrived from the north (from Central Asia via the Golden Horde). Both trends created a Sufi impact in the Caucasus where the practices of Sufi Tareqats—Naqshbandiyya, Qadiriyyah and Shadhiliyya— became fairly widespread.1
The Islamic map of the Northern Caucasus is quite different: the followers of two of the Sunni madhhabs (Hanafi and Shafi'i) communicate much more than before; the number of those who want to remove the barriers among the various madhhabs is growing. Muslims the world over are being gradually drawn into "Islamic globalization" without the ethnic and state borders that so far still separate the madhhabs. The urban Muslim youth is the movement's most active supporter.
On the whole, "Islamic globalization" is trying to leave behind the division of the single religion into madhhabs. It relies on the idea of a single Islamic "nation." In fact, before the era of "nationalism," religious identity, if it did not predominate in the Islamic world, was accepted on an equal footing with ethnic identity. Many of the Muslim peoples do not distinguish between Islamic community and nation and use the word millah to describe both. This suggested that ethnic identity came after religious. Those who side with this say: "First of all we are Muslims, and only after that are we Arabs, Persians, Chechens, etc." In this system, civilian and political identity comes second; not infrequently the diversity of real Islam is ignored. Universal "ideal" Islam is needed to tie together the Muslim ummah.
Second, this explains why Islam tends toward fundamentalism. According to the ideologists of Islamic globalism, universal Islam is very real; it should merely be freed of later additions. These people have opted for the simplest alternative—it is enough to rely on the Koran and the Sunnah, while the achievements of Islamic philosophy accumulated over the span of fourteen centuries should be ignored. Even if this heritage is recognized as a fact, many eminent authors of the past have been weeded out. This reassessment of the Islamic heritage is a very important process, the results of which will not be seen any earlier than in the mid-term perspective.
Third, "Islamic globalization" functions as a network of organizations: it is spreading far and wide at a comparatively fast pace and has reached the least favorable of the milieus (Daghestan, Chechnia, and Ingushetia in the mid-2000s).2 The new type of Islamic activity promoted by youth leaders is absolutely alien to the Sufi (Tareqat, the local term) communities of these highly traditional republics. All attempts to stem these trends by punitive measures missed the point: the new network structures have become an inalienable part of the three republics' Muslim landscape.
Under the pressure of high-tech mobile and satellite tools of communication, the Internet, etc., certain groups of protest Muslim communities are becoming extraterritorial: their members no longer attend the same mosques every Friday; there is no need to know each other personally. Like-minded people can create real network communities with the help of virtual technologies. In Russia, some of the youth jamaats started moving in this direction when the attempt to set up a legal youth community in Nalchik failed.3
1 See: A.K. Aliev, Z.S. Arukhov, K.M. Khanbabaev, Religiozno-politicheskiy ekstremizm i etnokonfessionalnaia tolerantnost na Severnom Kavkaze, Nauka Publishers, Moscow, 2007, p. 112.
2 These developments are best illustrated by the local Jihad of Shari'a jamaat in: R. Kurbanov, "The Information Jihad of "Shariat" Jamaat. Objectives, Methods, and Achievements," in: Russia and Islam. State, Society and Radicalism, ed. by R. Dannreuther, L. March, Routledge, 2010, p. 156.
3 This form of youth activity draws youth jamaats into "Islamic globalization" at a much faster pace. Young people acquire access to fatwas and the opinions of "electronic" muftis who work in the global audience through the Internet.
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Significantly, Russian, rather than Turkish, Persian, etc., is used in the ethnically diverse Northern Caucasus as the main language of communication; it is used in some fairly strong jamaats, the Kabardino-Balkarian jamaat can be cited as an example. This does not mean that the local languages are not used at the local level: in a Balkarian village, for example, the imam uses Balkarian, while at the republican level the Russian language prevails.
Toward "Global Islam"
These forms of globalizing activities, informal and initiated from below, are very strong; young Russian Muslims, especially in the cities, describe this new version of Islam in the Northern Caucasus as "new." This creates the danger that the Muslim community might split under the pressure of a conflict between the "new" and "old" Muslims.
The quest for universal Islam, which has already tempted a large part of the Islamic youth, prevents its smooth integration into contemporary society: in Russia Muslims are obviously alienated; on the other hand, the Muslim community is disunited by disagreements on the way toward "genuine" Islam.
Disagreements over "Traditionality"
The disagreements over "traditional" and "nontraditional" Islam have moved to the fore: "traditional" Islam should become the "official" and dominating religion. This is of great methodological importance—many Russian researchers have already been using this rhetoric—and is absolutely unproductive. Islam in the Northern Caucasus is represented by different directions, trends, and schools; so far, repeated attempts to insist on the only true Islam have failed. In Daghestan, the local form of Sufism was accepted as the only true type of Islam opposed to Wahhabism; all other forms were dismissed as "nontraditional."4 In September 1999, in Daghestan, "Wahhabi activities" were banned by law.5 The Law on Banning Wahhabi and Other Extremist Activities passed in Daghestan6 did not offer a clear legal description of these activities. It, however, allowed supporters of Sufi Sheikh Said-afandi al-Chirkavi,7 who dominated the religious scene, to remove their rivals. "Official" Islam is represented be the Spiritual Administrations of the Muslims in each of the North Caucasian republics.
On the whole, in the Northern Caucasus, the Spiritual Administrations of the Muslims are losing the battle for new supporters to "unofficial" Islam. The Spiritual Administrations, the heirs to the imperial system of administering Islam, are conservative and clumsy. The state's unconditional sup-
Quite often sermons and fatwas are translated into English, or are even written in English (which is assisted by numerous translation facilities found on the Internet), thus facilitating access for Russian-speaking Muslims (for more detail, see: G.R. Bunt, iMuslims: Rewiring the House of Islam (Islamic Civilization and Muslim Networks), The University of North Carolina Press, 2009).
4 It should be said that in Soviet times Sufism in the Northern Caucasus was treated as an "unofficial" and, therefore, persecuted form of Islam.
5 See: A.K. Aliev, Z.S. Arukhov, K.M. Khanbabaev, op. cit., p. 370.
6 The changes that took place in Daghestan early in 2012, including the fairly successful meetings between Sufis and Salafis, at which the sides decided to move away from confrontation, stirred up the opinion that the republican law on the ban of Wahhabism should be abolished or, at least, seriously amended.
7 The law recognizes, in particular, the "administrative structure of the religious republican organization," which is the Spiritual Administration of the Muslims of Daghestan (DUMD) controlled by scholars of Said-afandi.
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port guarantees their continued monopoly on speaking on behalf of all Muslims at the state level; the opposition forces are ignored. Not infrequently, the Spiritual Administrations of the Muslims, as practically "official" organizations, demonstrate no real skills and rarely respond to the challenges of our day, something young Muslims accuse them of.8 Parallel Muslim structures are often more active and more effective. In the mid-1990s-early half of the 2000s, for example, the Kabardino-Balkarian Islamic Center (later the Kabardino-Balkarian Institute of Islamic Studies), a legal structure of the Kabardino-Balkarian youth jamaat, a centralized hierarchical organization of young Muslims, successfully competed with the Spiritual Administration of the Muslims of Kabardino-Balkaria.
For a long time, both structures competed for the right to represent the Muslims of the republic: the Spiritual Administration of the Muslims of Kabardino-Balkaria spoke about the members of the Kabardino-Balkarian jamaats as Wahhabis and relied on the republic's defense and security structures for support. Repressions were often openly anti-Islamic. For example, early in the 2000s, all the mosques in the republic remained closed except for one hour on Fridays. Young men who performed prayers five times a day were persecuted; a girl in Muslim dress was immediately recognized as a terrorist. Many young Muslims were brought to police stations and beaten up.9 This radicalized the previously moderate jamaat leaders. In 2004, at a meeting with Shamil Basaev, amirs of the jamaat Musa Mukojev and Anzor Astemirov decided to join the armed struggle against the Russian authorities.
Daghestan
The situation in Daghestan, the most religious of its North Caucasian neighbors, is worth examining separately. The majority of its population follows Islam, one of the pillars of identity for 3 million Daghestanis; there are about 2 thousand mosques in the republic.
From the very beginning, that is, from the early 1990s, religious development in Daghestan assumed a violent nature. The Muslim renaissance began here with the republic's fairly scandalous divorce from the Spiritual Administration of the Muslims of the Northern Caucasus and developed in the form of further division into ethnic religious groups. Today, ethnic muftiyats are a thing of the past, but at least half of the Muslim communities refuse to accept, for different reasons, the legitimacy of the Spiritual Administration of the Muslims of Daghestan, mainly because of the republican muft-iyat's narrow Sufi orientation dominated by the murids of Sheikh Said-afandi al-Chirkavi.
Islam in Daghestan is not limited to two of the madhhabs (Shafi'i and Hanafi) of Sunni Islam, to Shi'ism and Sufism. The republic's Islamic field is much more diverse and includes radical Salafi groups—the so-called forest groups, Wahhabis, and the moderate Akhlyu Sunnah group. Different schools and traditions of Sufism are also represented, as well as small marginal groups of supporters of Hizb ut-Tahrir and Fethullah Gulen, as well as a particular sect known as Krachkovtsy. The republic is strongly affected: divided Islam cannot stabilize the situation; not infrequently, religion is used as a vehicle of protest.
Protest sentiments, typical of the youth, take the form of a conflict between the older and younger generations. Young people refuse to follow the traditions of their ancestors; they visualize their
8 See: Zh. Khamdokhova, "Kabardino-Balkaria: 'spiashchuiu krasavitsu' razbudili?" in: Severny Kavkaz: vzgliad iznutri. Vyzovy i problemy sotsialno-politicheskogo razvitia, Institute of Oriental Studies, RAS, Moscow, 2012, p. 62.
9 For more detail about the developments in Kabardino-Balkaria, see: A.A. Yarlykapov, "Novoe islamskoe dvizhenie na Severnom Kavkaze: vzgliad etnografa," in: Rasy i narody: sovremennye etnicheskie i rasovye problemy, Nauka Publishers, Moscow, 2006, Issue 31, pp. 205-229; M. Shterin, A. Yarlykapov, "Reconsidering Radicalisation and Terrorism: The New Muslims Movement in Kabardino-Balkaria and its Path to Violence," Religion, State and Society (Routledge), Vol. 39, Nos. 2/3, 2011, pp. 303-325.
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new role in society and new position in it. It will be no exaggeration to say that the North Caucasian, and Daghestani for that matter, Islamic youth is facing an identity crisis.
Today, Daghestan can be best described as a social patchwork. The republic's population demonstrates a fairly high cultural level; its cities are rapidly assuming the Mid-Eastern makeup. This process, however, has nothing in common with the traditions and the traditional image of the republic's society. Traditions are still alive in the countryside, but young people are moving away from the traditional structures and the relationships within them. Their mechanism has been broken; in the past traditions were observed by the entire jamaat and kept the village community together; today, their sphere is limited to a family or a clan.10 Once outside them, young people feel free. An official complained that his nephew, who had diligently attended Friday services when at home in a mountain village where people kept close tabs on any digression, stopped praying as soon as he arrived in Makhachkala.
Sociologists have already registered that the younger generation is harder hit by the identity crisis than other age groups. Daghestani sociologist Zaid Abdulagatov has detected a paradoxical duality in the way young people regard themselves: over half of them identify themselves with the Eastern culture based on Islam.11 The changes currently unfolding in Russia and the anti-Caucasian hysterics are pushing young Daghestanis away from the all-Russia community, thus adding an edge to the already acute identity crisis.
The youth is responding to the total corruption and lack of prospects with a rising wave of protest sentiments. Even the best educated young people believe that the immediate introduction of Shari'a is the only answer to the republic's numerous problems (they are also talking about either a slightly or totally revised system or reform from above, from Moscow).12 A small, yet extremely active part of the youth is finding the answer in the forests among the fighters. The larger part is leaving the republic in search ofjobs: unemployment is very high (which is not that important in the agrarian republic), while wages are very low (which is much more dangerous than job shortages).
The surplus labor force creates an outflow of about 10 thousand every year.13 Post-Soviet migration is very different from what went on in Soviet times. Today, confronted with a far from friendly or even hostile attitude, migrants are forming compact Daghestani communities in cities (Astrakhan is one example) and the countryside (the Rostov Region).14 On the one hand, circumstances are driving labor migrants into compact groups, while on the other, this is preventing assimilation. More than that: in the mid-term perspective it will undermine the development of a single political nation in Russia and intensify fragmentation. Daghestanis, and members of other North Caucasian nationalities for that matter, live in ethnically uniform parts of Russian cities or in compact ethnic communities; they find jobs in certain limited niches that offer no chance of communicating with the rest of society and, by the same token, breed alienation and an awareness that they should go different paths.
Therefore, the outflow of young people to big cities and oil- and gas-producing regions in search of employment is inflating, rather than deflating, tension. In the new context, Islamic identity, which is "dormant" at home, "wakes up" and becomes actualized. Not infrequently, young men in unfamiliar and far from friendly (if not hostile) environments seek for and find moral support in their
10 Interview with Makhach Musaev, Head of the Department of Oriental Studies, Institute of History, Archaeology and Ethnography, DNTs RAS, 15 September, 2011.
11 Interview with Zaid Abdulagatov, Head of the Department of Sociology, Institute of History, Archaeology and Ethnography, DNTs RAS, 14 September, 2011.
12 Ibidem.
13 Interview with Abas Akhmeduev, Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Social-Economic Studies, DNTs RAS, 16 September, 2011.
14 For more detail, see: Yu.Yu. Karpov, E.L. Kapustina, Gortsy posle gor. Migratsionnye protsessy v Daghestane v XX—nachale XXI veka: ikh sotsialnye i etnokulturnye posledstviia i perspektivy, Peterburgskoe vostokovedenie, St. Petersburg, 2011, pp. 163-211, 348-408.
102 HVIWimVSPMQVWmWmM Volume 6 Issue 3 2012
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Islamic identity. The phenomenon of re-Islamization of migrants calls for special attention and analysis. So far, it has become absolutely clear that it is not going on within so-called traditional Islam. Young people are tempted by radical interpretations of Islam; this is not readily accepted at home, which stirs up conflicts among the Muslim communities of Daghestan.
Recently, President of the Republic of Daghestan Magomedsalam Magomedov initiated discussions among Islamic groups, in the course of which the moderate Akhlyu-Sunnah Salafis developed into a political force of sorts that represents the interests of oppositionist Muslims. The defense and security structures were instructed to stop using force against the peaceful Salafis; there are Salafi mosques in several settlements and Salafi groups in the republic's capital. In Makhachkala, Salafi businesses (trade, services, and realty) have come into the open. There is a lot of skepticism in the expert community about the commission set up under the president of the republic and on his initiative to help those who abandoned terrorist and extremist activities and want to resume a peaceful life. This fact, however, says a lot: the authorities are obviously determined to start talking to the extreme opposition. While approving the initiatives and being cautiously involved in cooperation, the moderate Salafis will not be taken by surprise if the government and the official Islamic leaders decide, all of a sudden, to end the dialog: "We have come out into the open, but we are prepared to resume clandestine activities because we do not believe that the new attitudes have arrived to stay."15 The secular part of Daghestani society has its own reasons to be critical of the new policies: it is concerned about the fact that the government has been more and more frequently demonstrating its religiosity. The republic's head openly attends Friday services in the main mosque.16
Has "official" Sufism preserved its position in the new conditions? Unlike the Sufis of Chechnia and Ingushetia, the Sufis of Daghestan are followers of living sheikhs, Said-afandi al-Chirkavi being the most popular among them. He is the sheikh of two Tareqats—Shadhiliyya and Naqshbandiyya— while half of the Sufis of Daghestan are his followers. His community is the strongest in the republic, while his network covers the republic and goes further: there is a strong group of his murids in Moscow, until recently it controlled Islam.ru, the most popular Internet portal in Russia.17 In Daghestan, his scholars have gone far; he or, rather, his entourage controls many of the municipalities in Northern Daghestan through his followers; quite a few of them are found in the republic's power structures and among the members of parliament; his murids fill high posts in the republican government and economy. It should be said that Said-afandi is not a mafia god father. He is a symbol with no real decisionmaking power, which belongs to his cronies. The Sufi community is not seeking political and strategic control in the republic. In other words, it is a spontaneous movement; however, the Sufis are not alien to exerting pressure through their men in the corridors of power.
The Daghestani Sufis are using the instruments at their disposal to actively interfere in the republic's social and political life; they aspire to control book publishing through attacks on bookshops selling books banned by the Spiritual Administration of the Muslims of Daghestan. One such attack took place in March 2010 when followers of Said-afandi organized pogroms in several bookshops. Not infrequently Sufis rely on Islamic laws as their strongest arguments. Their hectic activities, supported by the republican authorities, have added tension to the relations between the secular and religious parts of society.
It should be said that the Sufi part of the republic's Islamic community reflects, in the strangest way, the ethnic factor. In the 1990s, it was good form to say that the Sufi communities were ethnically uniform, that is, that the murids and the sheikhs belonged to the same ethnic group. Sheikh Sirajuddin Khuriksky from the Tabasaran District was mainly the religious leader of Southern Daghestan where the population spoke the Lezghian language; Said-afandu al-Chirkavi was the sheikh of the Avars. In the 2000s, this trend seemed to be pushed aside, while communities became more ethnically diverse.
Interview with anonymous representative of the Salafi community of Makhachkala, 23 September, 2011.
Interview with Zaid Abdulagatov, 14 September, 2011.
Today this resource is controlled by a Daghestani group of murids.
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With the help of his scholar Arslanali-afandi Gamzatov, sheikh of the Shadhiliyya Tareqat and rector of the Buinaksk Islamic University, Said-afandi spread his influence to the Kumyks and linguistically kindred Nogays. Arslanali-afandi demonstrated no mean talent: in no time he moved close to claiming the title of the most influential sheikh of Daghestan among Said-afandi's followers. They, however (practically all of them being Avars) decided that this honor should not be bestowed on a Kumyk. His ijazah (license) as the sheikh of the Shadhiliyya Tareqat was withdrawn together with the post of rector.18 The ethnic factor, still very important in the Islamic field of Daghestan, betrays itself in many strange ways.
The Daghestanis are very religious; this affects the republic's social and political life. Fully aware of the whole-hearted support of the conservative religious part of society, the religious leaders do not hesitate to meddle in spheres far removed from religion. They actively interfere in scientific discussions and try to follow everything written and published in the republic to promote certain preferences among the republic's population by banning some books and recommending others. The official Islamic figures interfered in the sphere of entertainment by closing the republic to the Russian pop stars.19
There is no agreement about the content of teaching religion in schools, about Islamic dress in state schools, co-education of boys and girls, etc. Too active supporters of secular education fall victim to the passions. In September 2010, Patimat Magomedova, the director of a school in Shamkhal, was murdered because of her resolute objection to hijab in school and an equally determined resolution to continue physical education lessons for girls.20 Two otherwise irreconcilable opponents—the Sufis and Salafis—present a united front to the secularly minded part of society.
If, in their zeal, religious figures transcend the limits of the Constitution of the Republic of Daghestan, which describes Daghestan as a secular state, the secular part of society must remain firm. In some cases, however, criticism of the religious leaders is not absolutely justified. There is a lot of talk about Islamic education, which allegedly will replace secular. In fact, the number of communities that would prefer Islamic education for their children is shrinking. Back in the 1990s the threat was real; however, the trend has not developed. Today secular education is obviously preferred as prestigious; according to experts and even state officials, the Islamic higher educational establishments of Daghestan, another target of vehement criticism, play an important role by offering education to those who do not have the money to enroll at secular institutes. These young people are housed and fed; they are educated according to the Sufi moral principles, which prohibit armed struggle and extremism.21
Political Conceptions: Regional Angles
There is another very important trend: transformation of the separatist movement in the Northern Caucasus. Today, ethnic separatism, which started as a struggle for Chechen independence, has
18 The expert community and the media paid practically no attention to these developments even though the Kumyk Internet forums were concerned (see, in particular: "Natsionalnaia okraska v religioznykh razborkakh," web site Kumykskiy mir. Kultura, istoria, sovremennost, available at [http://kumukia.ru/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1200], 1 April, 2012).
19 In the 2000s, tours of several Russian pop stars, in particular Boris Moiseyev, were banned (see, for example: "Artista Borisa Moiseyeva ne pustili v Makhachkalu; obzor SMI Daghestana," IS Regnum [http://www.regnum.ru/all-news/256041.html/], 5 November, 2011).
20 See: O. Ionov, "Direktor shkoly v Makhachkale stala zhertvoy naemnykh killerov...," available at [http://www. kavkaz-uzel.ru/articles/174704/], 24 September, 2010.
21 Interview with Murtazali Yakubov, Chief Specialist at the Department for Cooperation with Religious Educational Establishments and Humanitarian Cooperation of the Administration for Relations between the State and Religion of the Ministry for National Policy, Religion and External Contacts of the Republic of Daghestan, 23 September, 2011.
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been transformed into a movement for the liberation of Muslims from the power of the "state of the infidels." Politicization of Islam is a complex and far from straightforward phenomenon; there is a multitude of methods by which Muslims are drawn into politics. Here is how the conception of the "Islamic state" affects the minds and practices of the Muslims of the Northern Caucasus.
All the processes underway in the Islamic communities of Russia inevitably lead to their politicization. No other religious movement is as politicized as Islam. This process is going on both in the minds of the Muslims and in practice. This means that we should acquire a clear idea of the ways politicization is connected with the idea of the Caliphate (or whether they are connected at all).
So far, this subject has been essentially neglected; little has been said about its impact on the minds and practices of the Russian Muslims; the Caliphate, on the other hand, is one of the pet subjects that regularly surfaces in official commentaries on extremist activities in the Northern Caucasus. It is alleged that terrorists are fighting for a Caliphate in the Northern Caucasus.22 This vagueness stems from the fact that we know precious little about Muslims, both "traditional" and oppositionist, and their aims. On the one hand, everything is clear: those who fight the Russian authorities want to establish their own form of power (the Caliphate by a general tacit agreement). Specifications defy logic: sometimes it is said that the fighters want to set up a worldwide Caliphate, sometimes it is asserted that they will be satisfied with the North Caucasian Caliphate. To some extent, this is rooted in an inadequate academic base. The number of works about politicization of the Russian Muslims, religious and political extremism among them, is vast; there are practically no works dealing with their political doctrine in correlation with the idea of the Caliphate. This extremely important and interesting subject is absent from the works of prominent Russian and foreign students of Islam in Russia: A. Malashenko, A. Ignatenko, D. Nechitaylo, I. Dobaev, E. Kis-riev, K. Khanbabaev, A. Knysh, G. Yemelianova and others.23 Most specialists and experts concentrate on radicalization of the Muslims of Russia, by which they understand their politicization, which is a delusion. I must say that the processes of genuine politicization, not politicization/rad-icalization, are extremely interesting.
The steadily increasing number of supporters of Shari'a in Russia is closely associated with the discussion of politicization and the ideas of building an "Islamic state." The idea of Shari'a is popular in Daghestan, where it is openly discussed by the wide masses, especially among the youth. A lot of criticism of the ruling circles and the official religious figures can be heard at any of the youth forums. Much of the criticism is absolutely correct; anyone living in Daghestan can see the wide gap between ostentatious religiosity and the statements that Daghestan is a country of Islamic knowledge, on the one hand, and the chaos in the minds and actions of the ordinary people, on the other. Daghestani society is steeped in corruption, crime, and embezzlement, which is surprisingly widespread in a republic that survives on subsidies from the center. The faithful youth, who cannot find a worthy place in this bacchanalia, protests, not necessarily with arms in hand; they do not hide in the forests, but try to identify the roots of this state of affairs. Shari'a looks to be a solution. This should not be treated lightly: the intellectual elite of Daghestan have already started building an "Islamic state" in their minds.
Many of the ideas are still half-baked, but we should realize that disenchantment with the government, which has discredited the principles and values of Western democracy, suggests that Shari'a is the best option. Today, Daghestan brings to mind the Soviet Union, where political reality was heatedly discussed in practically every other kitchen. All boys and girls hear the talk about high posts
22 These approaches have migrated from official commentaries to academic writings, one of the latest of them being G. Yemelianova, "Divergent Trends of Islamic Radicalization in Muslim Russia," in: Russia and Islam. State, Society and Radicalism, pp. 133-134.
23 See, for example: A.V. Malashenko, Islamskaia alternativa i islamistskiy proekt, Moscow, 2006; A.A. Ig-natenko, Islam i politika, IRP, Moscow, 2004; D.A. Nechitailo, Mezhdunarodny islamizm na Severnom Kavkaze, Moscow, 2006; I.P. Dobaev, Islamskiy radikalizm: genesis, evoliutsia, praktika, Rostov-on-Don, 2003.
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being sold and bought, huge bribes, and contacts, without which no successful career is possible. Young people know that money changes hands every time one of them enrolls at a higher educational establishment or graduates from it; technically free government-subsidized study at a college also costs money. Nor does finding a job after graduation come free; private business is divided among ethnic groups: there are "Avar," "Dargin," "Kumyk" etc. business groups patronized by corresponding ethnic communities.
Shari'a cannot be introduced without radical political changes: part of the Islamic youth is convinced of this. In fact, Shari'a as a panacea for all social ills is another highly interesting delusion: the young people are too young to know that Shari'a needs positive historical experience to take root. For them Shari'a is an ideal law that can solve all problems by the very fact of its existence. This is what deeply religious people think; in this respect faith is intertwined with practice. Young people are beginning to introduce Shari'a themselves: a large number of young Muslim Salafis in Daghestan are starting their own businesses in full conformity with the Sunnah of the Prophet Muhammad, who endorsed trade. In this way they escape dependence on the omnipresent corrupt system. These economically independent groups, the jamaats, have created a comfortable and isolated expanse in which these people can practice the norms they take for Shari'a or which are Shari'a. Their personal life, fear of God, and what they called "halal" business practices allow these people to stand opposed to the order of things in their republic and inculcate Shari'a as they understand it.
Young Muslims are going beyond the limits of private life and business practices: they look at Shari'a as a universal remedy and a universal legal system applicable to all spheres of life. Corruption should be punished by severing hands; administration should be entrusted to collegiate structures operating according to the Shura principle, which has nothing in common with liberal Western democracy. Governance should be entrusted to one person elected by the faithful whose power is limited by a council (Shura) of local leaders (amirs). Fairness is guaranteed by strict application of Shari'a and no less strict public control realized through the Shura.
Normally Shari'a and the Caliphate are not interconnected. Today, the idea of an Islamic state is openly supported by two rivaling structures—the Wahhabis and the followers of Hizb ut-Tahrir. Back in 2007, the radical wing of the former established the Caucasian Emirate on tiny scattered pieces of land as part of the Caliphate that was expected to appear sometime in the future. The leaders are building a state apparatus complete with power structures and a taxation system. Hizb ut-Tahrir remains true to its traditional policy and is criticized by the Russian defense and security structures and the Wahhabis.
Very much like the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks in the early 20th century, Hizb ut-Tahrir and Salafi fail to agree on the methods rather than the aims. The Islamic Liberation Party suggests that an Islamic state (in the form of a Caliphate) should be established by peaceful means through gradual changes in the mind; the Salafis prefer more radical methods: the state of the "infidels" should be replaced with an Islamic state, not necessarily a Caliphate (at least at the initial stage). These radicals are convinced that in the Northern Caucasus jihad should be armed. Those who doubt that armed jihad is inevitable are treated as apostates, not as erring people or traitors. In the absence of adequate means, terror against the law enforcers and those who support what the radicals call the "kafir" state necessarily remains the main instrument of struggle.
Hizb ut-Tahrir rejects these methods; it places the stakes on gradual penetration into the social structure in order to change society from inside. People must change before society can change. This means that members of Hizb ut-Tahrir should infiltrate all spheres of social and political life and entrench themselves in the key structures. These methodological disagreements between Hizb ut-Tahrir and the Salafis are of fundamental importance. In their joint leaflet, Kudaev and Astemirov, two ideologists of the Kabardino-Balkarian jamaat, dismiss Hizb ut-Tahrir as an Islamic political party "that wants to restore the Islamic state in the form of a Caliphate and believes that brainwashing is the only ideological instrument that can launch an ideological and then political revolution." They have arrived at the conclusion that "the ideology and methods of this party con-
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tradict the very foundations of the creed and methods of Akhlyu Sunnah Wal Jama'a,"24 that is, the Sunnis. While criticizing the organizational structure of this party, the Salafis pointed out: "They call the regions and districts in which the party operates 'uilayyats' (controlled territories)."25 In 2007, after establishing the Caucasian Emirate (Imarat Kavkaz), they called its regions and districts "vilay-yats." Unconsciously, they were driving toward a global Islamic Caliphate, of which the Caucasian Emirate was part.
Hizb ut-Tahrir never spread far and wide in the Northern Caucasus and Daghestan as its part; the Caucasian Emirate as a project proved much more successful. At the turn of the 20th century, the idea of a geographically limited imamate was fairly popular. Those who promoted the idea proceeded from the fact that at that time most Sunnis recognized the imamate of the Ottoman sultans who had assumed the title of caliph. The imams of Daghestan and Chechnia tried to keep these Islamic territories within Darul Islam (the House of Islam) even if outside the Ottoman caliph's direct rule.
When the Islamic world fell apart politically with several caliphs ruling simultaneously and when the Caliphate, the symbol of Islamic unity, ceased to exist, Muslims resorted to various different types of political arrangement. Formally, all rulers who came to power when the Arabic Caliphate disappeared recognized the caliph as their sovereign: they demonstrated no zeal in practical terms and never assumed ambitious titles, being satisfied with the title of amir ruling an emirate. For the Muslims, emirates are bricks of sorts, parts of the Islamic world. Sometime in the future they will all join together to become a Caliphate, which will bring the Islamic umma together.
In other words, the states with Muslim populations and Muslim rulers can be formally described as caliphates established in small territories. There were imams of Daghestan and Chechnia and the Imamate of Shamil established in the Caucasus that successfully opposed the pressure of the Russian Empire in 1829-1859.
In the early 21st century, the Northern Caucasus, with its vast previous experience of building a local Caliphate, revived the idea; very much as before, in the 1990s-2000s it remained closely connected with the idea ofjihad. Yasin Rasulov, an ideologist of the radical Salafis, wrote an outstanding book called Jihad na Severnom Kavkaze: storonniki i protivniki16 (Jihad in the Northern Caucasus: Supporters and Opponents), in which he proved that the Sufis had never been involved in North Caucasian jihad, while Salafism was not a newcomer in the Northern Caucasus.27
The new Caucasian jihad started as Chechnia's independence struggle; little by little Islamic agitators planted new interpretations of its aims and tasks in the minds of those who fought in the war. Shamil Basaev, a Chechen field commander, did more than the others to supply jihad with new dimensions. As member of the government of the so-called Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, he initiated and implemented a project that took jihad beyond the borders of one republic and drew other North Caucasian peoples into the struggle. He paid particular attention to the Nogays, the most downtrodden group which lived in the east of the Stavropol Territory. After setting up a Nogay District in Chechnia and reserving several places for the Nogays in the Ichkerian parliament, he earned the eternal gratitude of young Nogays who proved to be excellent fighters during the military campaigns in Chechnia.
Basaev tried to consolidate his success by moving in different directions and paying particular attention to Kabardino-Balkaria. By the mid-2000s, a close-knit Kabardino-Balkarian jamaat had already appeared. Basaev was very specific and very efficient: he contacted the jamaat leaders and drew them into his orbit. In 2004, the leaders of the jamaat, finally discouraged by their futile attempts to legalize the jamaat and protect the republic and its Muslims against troubles, decided to join the
24 R. Kudaev, F. A. Astemirov, "Hizb ut-Tahrir al-Islamiy (Islamic Liberation Party)," available at [http:// www.salyaf.info/download/index.php?act=view&id=7440], 25 March, 2012, p. 11.
25 Ibidem.
26 See: Ya. Rasulov, Jihad na Severnom kavkaze: storonniki i protivniki, s.l., s.a., 78 pp.
27 See: Ibid., pp. 67-68.
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armed jihad. In the same year, Anzor Astemirov took part in a daring attack on the State Drug Control Administration to obtain weapons for those who were prepared to fight.
Aware of their importance and numerical strength, the leaders of the Kabardino-Balkarian jamaat rejected the "kid brother" role. This told the leaders of Ichkeria that an independence struggle limited to Chechnia had become an anachronism. Anzor Astemirov and Chechen leader Doku Umarov had been exchanging letters for a long time before the Chechen leader realized that the idea of Chechen independence should be replaced with the idea of independence for the Caucasus under Islamic slogans.
Astemirov, who relied on the Koran and the Sunnah, was clear and convincing; nationalism was the Caucasus' gravest problem. He argued that all peoples should be united as Muslims, which could be realized in a common Islamic state ruled by the Muslims and living according to Shari'a.
On 25 Ramadan 1428 (7 October, 2007), Amir Doku Umarov officially proclaimed the Caucasian Emirate, or Imarat Kavkaz. He was shown against the background of a black flag when he announced that having abandoned the idea of independence for Chechnia he had set up the Caucasian Emirate and enumerated the vilayyats of the new state. It was a step toward unification of all Muslims: "We are an inalienable part of the Muslim umma."
As the first step the leaders of the new state—Umarov and his closest circle (Astemirov was one of the associates) created state structures and the Shari'a Court of Justice (headed by Astemirov), which proved to be most effective. Its conviction of Zakaev, unrealized, but compiled according to the rules, was one of the most striking decisions.
The Internet discussion about the state language of the newly established Emirate clarifies the idea of the Emirate as a stage on the long road to the Caliphate. Several languages were mentioned, including Russian (the de facto "state" language of the Emirate, since the announcement was in Russian; numerous statements of warlords are also in Russian). Some people favored either Arabic or "Ottoman" (Turkish); those who supported the Turkish language argued that it had been used in the last Caliphate, a telltale argument. So far the discussions are going on in the virtual space of a virtual Emirate and are far removed from real life and the hopes of the absolute majority of the North Caucasian Muslims.
Conclusion
In the Northern Caucasus, Islam is not merely "official" and "unofficial" or "traditional" and "untraditional"—the black-and-white picture to which we have grown accustomed does not exist. It is better described as a patchwork of various trends, madhhabs, and interpretations. Today, Islam is moving to the fore in the social and political life of the North Caucasian republics and is gradually filling the ideological vacuum. There are active or suppressed conflicts into which Islam is wittingly or unwittingly drawn. We should become accustomed to the fact that in many cases Islam is being used as a banner designed to conceal the causes and real aims of the sides.
The future of political Islam in the Northern Caucasus and in Daghestan as its part is vague. Even those who support the idea of Shari'a and the Caucasian Emirate have no clear idea of what a Caliphate is. This means that the official statements about terrorists in the Northern Caucasus allegedly fighting for the Caliphate are wrong.
