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Aleksei Malashenko,
D. Sc. (Hist.), professor, member of the Academic Council of the Moscow Carnegie Center, cochairman of the "Religion, Society and Security" program ISLAM: VIEW FROM THE KREMLIN
The situation in the Muslim regions of Russia is far from simple. The North Caucasus remains tense, and the situation in the Volga area is distinguished by intra-Islamic conflict. In the autumn of 2013 a terrorist act in Volgograd took the lives of many people. On the eve of the Winter Olympics in Sochi in February 2014 the Russian authorities paid special attention to the state of affairs in the Muslim community of the country, as well as the relations between the Islam umma and the state. It was clearly shown by the statement made by President Putin in Ufa at a meeting with the heads of the spiritual boards of Muslims of Russia on October 22, 2013.
In 2013 the situation in the Muslim community of Russia remained stable. In contrast to the year 2012, which was marked by several terrorist acts in Tatarstan, which gave grounds to talk of turning that republic and the whole Volga area into something similar to the North Caucasus, as well as several manifestations of Muslim radical elements in support of the Syrian opposition, the year was in the main calm and quiet.
According to the data of the 2002 population census, the number of ethnic Muslims in Russia was 14.5 million. By now it exceeds 16 million. Adding to them Muslim migrants from Central Asia and Azerbaijan we may have the figure of 20 million, which is usually mentioned by Muslim spiritual leaders, as well as by Russian political figures, including President Putin.
Sochi Olympiad and Anti-migrant Sentiments
One of the specific features of 2013, the year preceding the Sochi Olympics, was widespread worries over security, which concerned the Kremlin more than sports achievements. The threat of sporting events becoming an object of terrorist attacks has become especially evident after the tragic happening in Boston on April 15, 2013. The authorities have taken unprecedented measures of security. In November 2013 large-scale counter-terrorist exercises took place near Sochi during which special service unites and police had to catch 48 "terrorists." There was no mention of their religious or ethnic origin, but it was supposed that they belonged to Islamic extremists.
Another specific feature of 2013 was the growth of nationalistic sentiments among the Russian population, increased number of ethnic conflicts, and their mass and violent character. The most vivid examples were the unrest in the town of Pugachev, Saratov region, where local residents demanded the expulsion of all Chechens from the district, as well as the October events in the Moscow suburb of Biryulevo, where several thousand Muscovites took part in anti-migrant pogroms.
Outwardly, these events have nothing to do with Islam. Islamophobia as such was not evident during these interethnic clashes. Nevertheless, migration, both internal from the North Caucasus and external from Central Asia, is always present in public consciousness because it is connected with its religious origin. Besides, migrants
become more "Islamized," as it were, and emphasize ever more frequently their religious identity. This can be seen and felt during religious festivities, such as Ramadan-bairam and Kurban-bairam, when more than 100,000 Muslims gather at the Moscow cathedral mosque. Describing the situation in the capital of Russia during Kurban-bairam, one journalist wrote that "Moscow switched over to the state of siege."1
There are five mosques for more than one million Muslims in Moscow. The Mayor of Moscow Sergei Sobyanin elected in September 2013 maintains that this number is quite enough, inasmuch as most Moscow Muslims are migrants, who call for building more mosques in the city. A shortage of mosques exists in other Russian regions, including in the Urals and northern regions, as well as in Siberia. This problem will exacerbate in connection with the growing number of migrants. However, non-Muslim residents come out against the construction of new mosques. In September 2012, there was a demonstration of local residents in the Moscow district of Mitino, in which more than a thousand people took part.
There were no prerequisites for any improvements in the situation in the most troublesome Muslim region of the country - the North Caucasus in 2013. Radical sentiments continued to spread among Muslims, especially among young people. And the Kremlin seems to take the tension developing in the North Caucasus, including the actual civil war going on in the Republic of Daghestan and the existence of the Islamic opposition, for a normal situation, something habitual, which does not undermine its authority in the eyes of society.
By the end of 2013 this instability seemed more threatening, inasmuch as its smoldering sparks could turn into a strong outburst of terrorist acts on the eve and during the Olympic Games. In this context the October explosion on the bus in Volgograd was taken in society and
among the powers that be for a sort of preparation for terrorist acts in Sochi.
Today, the situation in the Russian Muslim community does not exist in isolation from the developments in the Middle East, where the Arab spring events are still far from completion. Radical Islamism, despite several setbacks, still retains a high energy potential in politics and military matters. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of Russian Muslims are fighting in the ranks of the Syrian opposition. Alexander Bortnikov, the head of the Federal Security Service of Russia, named the figure 200.2 According to other sources, their number is between 800 and 2,000.3 The high mufti of Syria Ahmad Badreddin Hassun said that about 3,300 fighters from CIS countries, including Russia, take part in battles on the side of the Syrian opposition.4 Many of them return to Russia where they will look for the opportunity to apply their unspent energy. And it could not be excluded that they would try to do it on the eve or during the Olympic Games.
The Ufa Theses of President Putin
The threats to the Olympic Games, the growing tension in interethnic relations, Islamization of migration, and the flaming "Arab spring" - all this seemed to prompt President Putin to make a speech about Islam and the Muslim community of Russia at a meeting with the heads of the leading spiritual boards of Muslims in Ufa on October 22, 2013. The meeting was timed to the 225th anniversary of the creation of the 2nd Orenburg Mohammedan Assembly set up by a decree of Empress Catherine the Great in Ufa in 1788. It was the first state institution for organizing and governing the life of the Muslim community.
In May 2013 Vladimir Putin said that this anniversary should be given a status of state importance, inasmuch as it dealt with relations
between Islam and the state.5 This shows the desire of the authorities to form their attitude to Islam not only as a religion, but also as a "way of life," culture and ideology, and also determine its place in the life of the Russian state.
Having acknowledged in his Ufa speech that Islam has made "an invaluable contribution to the spiritual and cultural development of our society," Vladimir Putin mentioned a number of concrete problems facing the Muslim community. Among them - "socialization of Islam," which is regarded by the President as "the development of the traditional Muslim way of life, thinking and views in accordance with the present-day social reality, in contrast to the ideology of radicals..."6 However, this definition needs specification, which should be made by Muslim clerics. Are they capable to do this being divided as they are, in Putin's just words, by "internal discussions and arguments about supremacy."
Putin's appeal to Muslim leaders to make their contribution to "the social adaptation of people who come to Russia to live and work," and who are also Muslims, was of a general character. His call shows that the Kremlin has at last noticed the Islamization of migration to Russia from Central Asia and will try to influence migrants with the help of Russian Muslim society. But the question of how to do this remains open.
The presidential "address" was enthusiastically received by the Muslim clergy present at the meeting and analysts close to them. Indicative in this respect was an article entitled "Putin's Speech, a New Milestone in the History of Relations Between Islam and the Russian State," published in the site "Islam.ru."7 The article noted the "unprecedented stake on education and rebirth of intellectualism in Russian Islam," on the need to create a national theological school of Islam, and mainly, on "the socialization of the Islamic community."8
The authorities realize full well the complex nature of the processes going on in the Muslim community and are afraid of the growth of radical sentiments among Muslims. It can be said that they "fear Islam" which becomes the ideology of protest in the entire Muslim world, including in Russia. Islam has no division into the sacral and the profane, which is inherent in Christianity. Politicized since its inception in the 7th century, it remains an efficient form of protest, especially in countries where the opportunities of the secular opposition are limited.
It is indicative that while criticizing the radicals, Putin noted that the process of politicizing religion "is not always a positive process." Thereby, he indirectly admitted the legitimate character of this process, just as the fact that political Islam is not necessarily negative. Evidently, this view has emerged under the influence of the "Arab spring" in the course of which Islam has demonstrated its high political potential.
In the words of Ramazan Abdulatipov, President of the Republic of Daghestan, although religion is separated from the state constitutionally, the state itself is not separated from believers.9 If one agrees with such approach, it becomes evident that Islam is a "political factor" and, consequently, different political views can be expressed through it, and it can be used for mobilization for any opposition and even the most radical actions. It is characteristic, above all, of the North Caucasus. However, Islam is used as a political instrument on other territories inhabited by Muslims, particularly, in southern regions of Russia, in the Volga area, in the Urals and in the country's North. In 2013, a working group of the Institute of National Strategy, which is close to the Kremlin, compiled an alarmist report entitled "Map of Ethno-religious Threats. The North Caucasus and Volga Area." It deals, among other things, with disintegration and "destabilization of the
ethnic periphery," and of Wahhabism as "integrated anti-Russian ideology and practice."10
Islamic Tradition and Islamism
The problem of isolation of Muslim regions, primarily the North Caucasus, and its socio-cultural drift from the "Russian continent," have been mentioned time and time again, including by this author.11
Caucasian residents, en masse, are alien to separatist sentiments, they hope to solve the local social, cultural and political problems on the basis of local traditions - the rules of adat and the Sharia, and come out for legalization of Islamic legislation. Return to tradition is a reaction to the systemic crisis going on in the region for several years already, whose consequences are the ineffective federal legislation, the extremely high level of corruption, and the arbitrary behavior of the authorities. Representatives of the clergy and public, and political leaders loyal to the federal authorities, as well as persons from among the Islamic opposition, fundamentalists, Wahhabis and Salafists - all appeal to traditions.
Loyalty to power is characteristic of the bearers of traditional Islam, which has entrenched itself in the North Caucasus and the Volga area a long time ago and merged with local ethno-cultural traditions, including those of a heathen character. The spreading of "new" non-traditional Islam has been a consequence of the penetration of religious ideas from the Middle East, Afghanistan and Muslim Europe in the former Soviet area. "New" Islam has found a favorable social and religious ground in Russia. Traditional Islam is less dynamic, more conservative, and is centered on the preservation of ethnic - Caucasian and Tatar-Bashkir - traditions. It loses to its rival on the field of theology, which was also admitted, if indirectly, in the above-mentioned speech by the Russian President. Traditional Islam is unable to answer
modern challenges. In the eyes of the younger generation it looks less attractive and weaker than non-traditional Islam.
Adherents to both trends of Islam compete with each other. At the same time, despite confrontation, they have certain common points, and this is precisely the foundation of an "Islamic-Islamic dialogue," which could contribute to an improvement of the religious climate in the Muslim community and lower the level of tension in it.
Given all distinctions and differences of views of traditionalists and their opponents, it appears that the main aim of both is the total observance by society of all Islamic standards of the way of life and, consequently, the construction of a state-political system answering this task. The main distinction boils down to the view held by the Salafists that full-fledged observance of the standards of true Islam is impossible in Russia, hence, it is necessary to secede and form a state of their own (imarat), whereas the traditionalists are convinced of the possibility "to live by Islam" in Russia, forming an "Islamic area" within the framework of the Russian Federation.
The Russian authorities simplify the situation, laying emphasis on its political component. Moscow is fighting separatism, however, while doing it, Moscow gives no answer as to how to live in a secular state by religious standards. The Kremlin ignores the problem of "civilizational" non-separatist drift of the North Caucasus away from Russia. The Russian authorities do not notice that the vector of Russian (civic and socio-cultural) identity does not coincide with, and sometimes even oppose, the vector of religious identity. President Putin did not mention this fact in his speech.
Many regional politicians, scholars, imams and theologians try ever more frequently to move away from the dichotomy of traditional -non-traditional Islam, maintaining that it is incorrect, even dangerous and splitting society. However, at the federal level this approach to
Islam is predominant, which was shown by the speech of the Russian President in Ufa. It is easier for the Kremlin to divide Islam into "its own" and "alien." It seems to us that soon such dual interpretation of Islam will be discarded, and the sooner the better. It should be replaced with something more complex. Evidently, another formula will be based on the thesis of the "unity of Islam in its multiformity." It is interesting to see what trend in Islam will predominate in the Russian Muslim community. Secondly, what form of Islam the state will have to deal with. Will it be "modern Islam" capable to answer the challenges of the 21st century? And what relations will it have with the secular authorities?
Notes
Alexander Kerchinsky. Kurban-bairam: Moscow Has Switched over to the State of Siege. Utro.ru. October 15, 2013. http://www.utro.ru/articles/2013/10/15/1150233. shtml
The head of the FSS; About 200 Russian fighters take part in battles in Syria under the banner of "al Qaeda." http://www.newsru.com/russia/06jun2013/200boevikov. html
More than two thousand Russian citizens are fighting in Syria on the side of the opposition. Jvatnews.ru/novosti/v-sirii-na-storone-oppozicii/ "Medina," November 2013. No 11, p. 12.
I'd like to note that the term "Islamic-state relations" does not seem to be correct to this author. However, it is frequently used in publications and at various conferences by representatives of the Muslim clergy, as well as by Muslim scholars. From this follows that relations between the state and Islam, as they see them, are a reality and consequently an object of analysis and study.
Here and further on V. Putin is cited by the verbatim record on the site of the President of Russia: http://www.kremlin.ru/transcripts/19474
Yuri Mikhailov. Putin's Speech - Milestone in the History of Relations of the RF
with Islam. http://www.islamnews.ru/news-142456.html
Ibid.
Veniamin Popov. Islam Demands Greater Attention. Nezavisimaya gazeta, November 11, 2013. http://www.ng.ru/faith/2013-11-11/3_kartblansh.html
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Map of Ethno-religious Threats. The North Caucasus and Volga Area. NG-Politika. June 4, 2013. http://www.ng.rU//ng.polkitics/2013-06-04/9_map.html See: Aleksei Malashenko. The North Caucasus: foreign subject of the Russian Federation. Moscow Carnegie Center. November 2011. http://carnegie.ru/ 2011/11/18/severny-kavkaz-zarubezhny-sub'ekt-rossiiskoi-federatsii/f13n
"Moscow Carnegie Center. Working Material. Islam: View from the Kremlin," 2013, December, pp. 1-6.
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Zilya Habibullina,
Ph. D. (Hist.), Institute of Ethnological Research, Ufa Scientific Center, RAS MUSLIM CLERGY IN THE REPUBLIC OF BASHKORTOSTAN: STATUS AND DEVELOPMENT TRENDS
This article is based on the material obtained by the author in the period between 2005 and 2011 within the framework of the study of the Islamic development factor of the polyconfessional society of the Southern Urals, which was carried out in the Republic of Bashkortostan.
There are data about the social categories of the population which join the present-day Muslim clergy of the republic, about their training level, specific features and conditions of their professional activity, as well as public views and social values.
The Muslim clergy is the most active part of the Muslim umma. The Muslim leaders represent the interests of believers, and all people considered traditionally Muslim before the state. They influence the socio-ethical views and convictions of parishioners, their understanding of the basic values of Islam, and play the key role in the interaction of the Muslim umma and the state and other confessions. They also participate in the work of harmonizing the sphere of interethnic
