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At the present time there are only five well-educated imams in the Republic of Adygea. The Spiritual Board plans to give special lectures on Islam to district imams; in all, there will be forty-five such imams.
On June 21, 2013, the head of the Republic of Adygheya Aslan Thakushinov met with representatives of the Spiritual Board: mufti Askarbi Kardanov, and imam Sobo Mafekhabl Muhamed Hasani. He discussed with them the questions of rites and rituals and educational problems. By the way, it is planned to open a madrasah in Adygea for training well-educated imams to work in rural districts.
Some theorists and theologians predict the emergence of conflicts between the older and younger generations, that is, between "traditional" and "young" Muslims. But we think that since the latter have received power in our Muslim umma, there will be no need to fight for it. Most probably, there may be a certain tension between the Spiritual Board, on the one hand, and various institutions of state authorities.
The article has been written specially for the Bulletin "Russia and the Moslem World".
I. Dobayev, D. Sc. (Philosophy), A. Ponedelkov, D. Sc. (Political sciences) (Southern Federal University, Rostov-on-Don), R. Gajibekov, political analyst, Pyatigorsk REASONS FOR AND CONSEQUENCES OF A SPLIT OF THE MUSLIM ELITE IN THE NORTH CAUCASUS
Islam in the Russian Federation is predominantly in its Sunni version of Khanifite trend. Until recently researchers clearly differentiated two areas of widespread Islam in the Russian Federation - the Volga area, the Urals and West Siberia, on the one
hand, and the North Caucasus, on the other. During the past two decades religious-political extremism and terrorism have become a grim reality in the North Caucasus and therefore we concentrate our attention on it.
Just as in other regions of Russia and the world, for that matter, Islam is not uniform, it exists in quite a few trends and currents. In the North Caucasus, just as in other parts of the Russian Federation, the Sunni version of Islam dominates (there are about 45,000 people in the southern part of the Republic of Daghestan preacher the Shi'ite version of Islam).
As to mazkhabs, or legal schools in Islam, the North Caucasus can be divided into two parts: the North-western and Central Caucasus (Adygea, Karachaevo-Circassia, Kabardino-Balkaria and North Ossetia-Alania) are dominated by Khanifite mazkhab, which is considered rather soft and more flexible. In the North-eastern Caucasus (Daghestan, Chechnya and Ingushetia) Shafiite mazkhab predominates, which is stricter than Khanifite.
However, the most significant difference lies in ideological currents of Islam (traditionalism, fundamentalism, modernism). The main dividing line is along traditionalism - fundamentalism. Each of these trends is fighting for greater influence on believers. The modernist trends are weak and contradictory in the region so far, and therefore they do not play any significant role in the general alignment of forces. Inasmuch as the most Islamized republic of the North Caucasus is Daghestan, we shall use and rely mostly on Daghestani material on the subject.
Traditional Islam is represented above all by the institutionalized Muslim clergy - the administrative-managerial apparatus of religious organizations: the spiritual boards of Muslims and their subordinate bodies (mosques, Islamic educational institutions, etc.). These bodies
are considered "official Islam," or "mosque Islam." In the North-east Caucasus there is another institutionalized group of traditionalists -supporters of "non-mosque Islam" represented by numerous Murid fraternities of three Sufi tariqats headed by their leaders - sheikhs.
Traditional Islam is a complex, multilevel and contradictory phenomenon. And it is not uniform either. The spiritual boards of "official Islam" register numerous conflicts of interests between individual Muslim priests. Comparatively recently, in certain republics of the North Caucasus, particularly in Daghestan, there have been several ethnically oriented spiritual boards. There are also contradictions between spiritual boards of Muslims of different North Caucasian republics. Within the framework of the Coordination Center of Muslims of the North Caucasus set up in 1998 conflicts frequently flare up between certain muftis rivaling for the supreme post in the center. Rotation of the personnel of "official Islam" also takes place, so that among the imams of mosques and other Muslim priests there are now persons who have received theological education abroad, and this is why they are often far removed from the traditional values in the region.
Another influential section of traditionalism playing an important role in the religious-political situation in the republics of the North Caucasus is Sufism, or Muslim mysticism. For example, in Daghestan alone there are some twenty Sufi sheikhs The total number of Sufi adherents in the republic, according to various estimates, is up to 55,000, three-quarters of them live in the north and west of Daghestan.
Sufism is also widespread in Chechnya and Ingushetia where there are more than thirty such fraternities. Moreover, adherence to Sufism among the Vainakhs (Chechens and Ingushis) is stronger than among Daghestanis. We should note that Sufism is not widespread in the central and western parts of the North Caucasus, which explains
their weaker Islamization as compared to the North-east Caucasus. At the same time there are strained relations between various Sufi organizations and their sheikhs and Murids.
Hence, one may say that traditional Islam in the region ("mosque" and "non-mosque") is full of contradictions. Naturally, this is reflected in feelings and views of common believers, most of whom can be referred to traditionalists. North Caucasian traditional Islam is outside the field of modernization processes observed in other Muslim regions of Russia, above all in the Volga area.
During the post-Soviet period there has been steady politicization of traditional, and above all, "official" Islam. As a rule, this process is distinguished by the interaction and cooperation of the authorities and the official clergy. The former often use Muslim rhetoric and try to base themselves on the prestige of Islam and Muslim priests. For example, in the 1990s there was the view current among certain republican authorities that the "salvation" of national republics lies exclusively in their orientation to Islam. In turn, Muslim leaders try to draw closer to power and its institutions, claiming, among other things, that it was only they which are able to oppose Islamic radicals. However, the main reason for politicization of official Islam was its struggle with the Salaphites, in the course of which the secular authorities finally joined the official Muslim clergy.
Simultaneously, the infrastructure of official Islam strengthened steadily. For instance, in Daghestan alone there were 2,240 Islamic organizations (2,220 Sunni, about 1,900 mosques, 178 prayer houses, 16 Islamic higher educational institutions and their 15 branches, 116 madrasahs, as well as 20 Shi'ite organizations). There were more than 2,500 imams, muezzins, and other religious persons.
Islamic organizations have their own mass media. For example, the Spiritual Board of Muslims of Daghestan has its own official
newspaper "Assalam," which is published in eight main local Daghestani languages, and in Russian). Apart from that, there are the weekly "Islamsky vestnik," the journal "Islam," and the newspaper "Nur-ul Islam." Besides, electronic versions of these publications are in the Internet. The Islamic organizations of Daghestan widely use the republican radio and TV. Islamic propaganda is carried on by several radio stations, and religious literature in many languages of Daghestan is published in broad circulation. According to available data, this situation is typical of other republics of the North Caucasus.
Muslim associations of the North Caucasian republics have a wide network of organizations relying on the traditional moral orientations of Islam, the authority of spiritual leaders (alims and sheikhs), and undertake active steps to increase their influence on the processes going on in republican societies. The strengthening positions of spiritual boards of Muslims in regulating inter-confessional relations engendered centralization of religious power, and on the other hand, it strengthened centrifugal tendencies and deepened intra-confessional differences and contradictions in Muslim communities.
As we have already noted, the main opponents and antagonists to traditionalists in the region are fundamentalists (Salaphites or neo-Wahhabis), whose ideal is return to the realities of the "golden age" of Islam (the period of life of the first three generations of Muslims, or the period connected with the life and activity of Prophet Mohammed and four "righteous" caliphs) - "Shariazation" of social life and recreation of a state in the form of Caliphate. Confrontation between traditionalists and Salaphites has led to greater Islamization of North Caucasian republics, especially in its north-eastern part, although during the first half of the 1990s the authorities dissociated themselves from supporting any one of the sides, considering it an internal matter of Islamic organizations and their leaders, who were allegedly engaged in purely
theological disputes. However, beginning from the mid-1990s and largely due to the efforts of the Spiritual Board of Muslims of Daghestan representatives of the federal and regional authorities began to be drawn in inter-confessional confrontation, and they took a course aimed at fighting "Wahhabism." In 1999 an "anti-Wahhabi" law was adopted in Daghestan, and the secular authorities entered into alliance with representative of "official" Islam.
Despite certain negative realities and trends in traditional Islam, the federal and republican authorities justly regard it as "tolerant" Islam which needs all-round support. Such view during the 1990s was absolutely correct, but today it is erroneous in many respects. In actual fact, traditional Islam is largely politicized, and sometimes too radical and even aggressive practically in all republics of the North Caucasus, which is fraught with the growing tension and conflicts in the midst of traditionalists, and likewise between traditionalists and representatives of other currents of Islam, above all "Wahhabism" (or rather "neo-Wahhabism"). This is true, first and foremost, of the Northeast Caucasus where Sufism is playing an important role. In the concrete historical conditions in the North Caucasus two polar forms of identity are opposed to each other: the "traditional identity" and the extremist "Wahhabi identity" brought from the outside.
In the absence of modernized North Caucasian Islam the secular authorities have no other choice than to support traditionalists. However, to connive to them in everything becomes dangerous, because politicization and radicalization of Islam do not weaken, embracing new territories of the Russian Federation. It should be emphasized that this process has begun precisely in Daghestan.
The well-known Daghestani scholar of Islam K. Khanbabayev (1956-2011) singles out four stages of radicalization of the Islamic movement in Daghestan. In his view, at the initial stage (end of the
1980s—1991) there was an "Islamic call" which boiled down to introduction of the main ideological premises of Islamism in the mass consciousness of Daghestani people.
In the next, organizational stage (1991-1999) there was the process of institutionalization of radical groupings. In that period, beginning from 1997, mass reprisals were hurled on to the "Wahhabi" elements, which was the main reason for their leaving Daghestan and moving to neighboring Chechnya , where their center began to function in the settlement of Ulus Martan. It was there that the complete consolidation of Daghestani and Chechen "Wahhabites" took place, and that process was strongly influenced by foreign extremists, especially from certain Arab countries.
The third, violent, stage (1999) began with calls for jihad, which was interpreted as an armed struggle against the "enemies of Islam", for establishing an Islamic order, and seizing power in Daghestan by force. Using the pretext of an armed opposition to the bands of militants from Chechnya, who invaded Daghestan, a law was adopted on September 16, 1999, banning Wahhabi or any other extremist activity on the territory of the Republic of Daghestan." According to that law, all "Wahhabi" elements were declared extremists and terrorists and outlawed. Meanwhile, that law was adopted too hastily, on the spur of the moment and the wave of indignation caused by the invasion of Chechen militants.
At the fourth stage (since the beginning of the 2000s up to now) Islamists radical groupings, having suffered defeat in an open struggle, have gone underground and switched over to terrorist acts against representatives of the state and municipal bodies of power, law-enforcement agencies, and plain citizens.
At the same time it should be emphasized that contrary to the established views, the fundamentalist grouping in the North Caucasus
emerged in the 1970s in the form of small underground cells in Daghestan, and their founder was M. Kebedov (Muhammed Kizilyurtovsky). In the late 1980s - beginning of the 1990s, at the height of Gorbachev'sperestroika, they emerged from the underground and, with a powerful influence and assistance from outside began to broaden and strengthen their activity. This process increased sharply during the first Chechen campaign (1994-1996) due to active participation of many foreign "mojaheds" in bandit units, as well as radically-minded representatives of other North Caucasian republics. During the interval between the two Chechen campaigns (1996-1999) fundamentalism became institutionalized on the territory of the unrecognized Chechen Republic of Ichkeria. In the course of the second Chechen campaign the Salaphite current spread over the entire territory of the North Caucasus, thus predetermining the complex political process in the entire region.
Inasmuch as the characteristic of the stages of politicization and radicalization of Islam suggested by K. Khanbabayev adequately reflects the processes going on in Daghestan, but does not fully takes into account the situation in other North Caucasian republics, all the more so in part of the Russian Federation far removed from this region, it would seem expedient to offer several other stages of politicization and radicalization of Islam in the Russian Federation, which differ in some aspects from the above-listed stages. All the more so, since the religious-political processes of the past two or three years have caused serious changes in the structure and geography of spreading Islamism and its extreme forms. Here is our version of division into periods of radicalization of Islam.
1. The 1970s - early 1990s was the first stage. Young people's Salaphite groupings begin to emerge in Daghestan, not without
influence from abroad, and special services revealed and "softly" stop their activity.
2. The beginning of the 1990s - 1994 - at that time there was the practical legalization of Daghestani Salaphite groupings, creation of Islamic circles where their members studied the concepts and principles of jihad in their Wahhabi interpretation. At that time, "cultural centers" were being opened at the embassies of certain Muslim countries, and quite a few Islamic publications were being brought to and distributed in Russia. Simultaneously, such literature began to be published locally. Missionaries, preachers and teachers of Muslim disciplines began to arrive in Russia. At the same time more young Muslims were going abroad to receive an Islamic education. Daghestan was the main territory of Islamization during these two periods.
3. December 1994 - beginning of the 2000s was characterized by the greater role of Chechnya in the radicalization process of North Caucasian Islam. The two Chechen wars and a three-year interval between them were accompanied with the concentration of foreign "mojaheds," mainly Arabs, in that republic. Islamic centers abroad rendered serious financial and ideological support to them. Special study centers were set up on the territory of Chechnya to train fighters (the most notorious of them was one at Serzhen-Yurt settlement headed by the well-known Arab terrorist Emir Khattab, a person close to the "Al Qaeda" leader Osama bin Laden. In 1998 radical Islamists from Daghestan moved to Chechnya where Chechen and Daghestani Salaphites, as well as their counterparts from other North Caucasian republics and from abroad consolidated and strengthened their positions to such a degree that they decided to invade neighboring Daghestan. But their fighting units were defeated.
4. September 1999-2007. This stage was characterized by the beginning of the second Chechen campaign, defeat of the fighting units
of the separatists, and their switchover to a guerilla war. During that period Chechnya became the epicenter of radical Islamists, and the idea of jihad now became widespread all over the North Caucasus. The infrastructure of jihad developed at a rapid pace, there were more terrorist acts committed by Islamic militants not only in the region, but elsewhere in the Russian Federation.
In the 1990s the North Caucasian Wahhabi elements were mostly moderate radical and ultra-radical, whereas in the course of the second Chechen war the local Salaphites turned to religious political extremism and open terrorism camouflaged by Islamic teaching. Nevertheless, there were still moderate radical in the North Caucasus. However, the local authorities, unable or unwilling to distinguish between moderates and ultra-radicals, undertook harsh forcible measures against both of them. Such approach diminished the number of moderate radicals, small as it was, and they switched over to extremist positions.
5. 2007 - up to now. The new leader of the virtually existing Chechen Republic of Ichkeria Doku Umarov announced the nationalist plan of building the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria and simultaneously made public new geopolitical project - "Imarat Kavkaz." According to it, the new state - "Imarat Kavkaz" was created in the North Caucasus on Islamic principles, which should be ruled on the pattern of Islamic states of the past (caliphates). "Imarat Kavkaz" consists of provinces (vilayets), that is, other republics of the North Caucasus. In the future, other regions of Russia will be included in this Islamic state. The vilayets included sectors consisting of primary Islamic groupings -"jamaats", which are virtual subversive terrorist bands.
6. The end of the first decade - beginning of the second decade of this century witnessed the spreading of influence of "Imarat Kavkaz" and its leaders on other "Muslim" territories - the Volga area, the Urals and West Siberia, and, above all, Tatarstan.
7. In the past year or two new Islamic groupings emerged in "Islamic enclaves" in non-Muslim parts of the country, which gathered around mosques appearing in these territories, and this can be viewed as the latest trend in the radicalization process of Russian Islam, spreading over the entire territory of the country. Similar processes have taken place earlier in the United States and certain countries in Western Europe.
Evidently, the latest three stages of radicalization of Islam and the Islamic movement directly touch on not only the North Caucasus, but also other regions of Russia, forming a qualitatively new structure of Islamic groupings, and preparing the ground for evolving spectacular geopolitical plans to change the political structure of the country. If we ignore this negative trend, we would hardly be able to fight successfully against this religious-political phenomenon destroying Russian statehood.
On October 7, 2007, the new leader of unrecognized Ichkeria Doku Umarov appointed himself supreme ruler - "amir of mojaheds of the Caucasus," "leader of jihad," and also the only legitimate power in all territories where there were mojaheds, even in the vast territories far-off from the North Caucasus - right up to Tatarstan and Buryatia in East Siberia. Thus, the idea of national independence was replaced by the idea of liberation from "power of the infidels." As it was declared, the main aim of the creation of "Imarat Kavkaz" was the establishment of the Sharia rule over the entire territory of the North Caucasus.
Thus, a big and autonomous network terrorist cluster has taken shape in the North Caucasus, which is united with similar network structures in different regions of the world by common ideological ideas and aims. There is a ramified network terrorist structure in the region possessing such specific institutions as courts, a fiscal system, and bodies of executive power at different levels. The system is vital
due to a combination of the ideology of radical Islamism with North Caucasian social institutions and social and political conditions.
The subversive and terrorist activity of "Imarat Kavkaz" and its branches has sharply increased, especially on the eve, in the course and after the "five-day war" with Georgia. For example, in 2009 on the territory of the Southern Federal area, including the North Caucasus, 641 acts of terror were committed (in 2008 there were 491 such incidents, increase by 30 percent). In 2009 alone 251 employees of law-enforcement agencies and military men and 32 civilians were killed (in 2008 the figures were 484 and 68 respectively).
The level of terrorist activity remains high at present, too, especially in Daghestan, Ingushetia, Kabardino-Balkaria and Chechnya. During the past three years there have been over one thousand terrorist acts in the North Caucasus, including 732 in Daghestan, 253 in Ingushetia, 222 in Kabardino-Balkaria, and 198 in Chechnya.
Under the impact of the North Caucasus radicalization of Islam has begun in the Volga area, above all in the Republic of Tatarstan. In 1993 the heads of the new "Yoldfyz" madrasah in the city of Naberezhniye Chelny signed an agreement on cooperation in the sphere of education with the charity organization "Taiba" from Saudi Arabia. As a result the madrasah was turned into a training center of religious radicals. One of the graduates from this madrasah, Denis Sartakov, was among the organizers of terrorist acts in Moscow. Later several more students of the madrasah were found to be participants in such acts. Besides, facts have become known of cooperation of the heads of the madrasah with the Chechen field commanders Basayev and Khattab, who gave an opportunity to several madrasah students to receive military training in Chehcnya. In the early 2000s similar centers of young radicals were found in Almetyevsk, Nizhnekamsk, Kukmor and in some other populated centers of Tatarstan.
The latest history of Islamic terrorism in Tatarstan began with the first acts of terror on gas pipelines in rural districts in 2003-2005. Then "forest" militants have emerged in Nurlat district of Tatarstan where a band of fundamentalists tried to organize an armed underground grouping in a local forest, on the North Caucasian pattern. On November 25, 2010 an armed gang was smashed by troops of the Tatarstan's Interior Ministry forces. It became clear at the time that stable groups of radical Salaphites came into being, and permanent ties were established between them and ethno-nationalists and representatives of the criminal world. The head of the Ministry for the Interior of Tatarstan noted that there was transformation of organized crime groups into ethnic-religious groups of criminals, and Islamization of participants in criminal gangs merging with supporters of the Salaphite Wahhabi movement. Apart from that, Islamist-Salaphites are engaged in preaching at mosques, prisons, and in the criminal medium, drawing dozens of persons to their ranks annually. These "Muslim teams" do not rival or oppose one another, they are bound by similar ideas and support one another. Well-organized and strictly disciplined, with enough criminal experience these people present a real threat to society today.
In 2010 the leader of the North Caucasia Islamists, "amir of Imarat Kavkaz" proclaimed that the entire territory of the Volga area and the Urals was now considered "vilayet Idel-Ural." Thus the process of institutionalization of the bandit underground began with the growing number of Salaphite members.
In the view of experts, there are now about three thousand Salaphites and their active sympathizers in Tatarstan, and their number is growing: in Saudi Arabia alone there are 120 Tatar students, and in 2011 twenty more men went there to study. The situation in the republic is sharply deteriorating. In January 2012 in the village of
Memdel of Vysokogorsky district of Tatarstan a home-based laboratory producing explosives and the so-called "Shaheed belts" was discovered, and on July 19 of that year a senior clergyman V. Yakupov was killed in Kazan and the mufti of Tatarstan I. Faizov was heavily wounded. According to Tatar experts, the situation in the Volga area at present reminds of events happening in the North Caucasus some ten to fifteen years ago. The first mufti of Daghestan was killed in 1998. After that, more than fifty muftis, their assistants, and local imams adhering to traditional North Caucasian Islam were killed.
And so, stable Salaphite groups have been formed in the Republic of Tatarstan, and experts predict that their number will grow and spread all over the Volga area, the Urals and West Siberia, just as it was the case of the North Caucasus. These groups regard themselves as stable enough communities with their own specific features, interests and possibilities to protect them, using legal means. This path has already been traversed by their North Caucasian fellow-thinkers, having formed a whole number of such law-enforcement organizations for their defense. For example, in Daghestan channels of legal support of the activity of the armed extremist underground were formed in the first decade of the 2000s through public associations. The most notorious one was "Mothers of Daghestan." The leaders of these organizations maintain contacts with extremists and sharply criticize the activity of the law-enforcement agencies, accusing them of mass violations of human rights.
Such position evokes the view among plain people that allegedly unjustified harsh measures applied by the law-enforcement agencies are one of the main reasons forcing young men to join the ranks of militants. Moreover, certain experts maintain that a stable and influential "Islamist lobby" has emerged in Russia. Using this, the "Salaphite wing" of Muslims has resorted to the practice of organizing
officially permitted meetings in various regions mobilizing supporters at these meeting and accusing the federal authorities of persecution of Islam all over the country. For instance, on February 8, 2013, more than two thousand Salaphites - supporters of radical Islam who were waging struggle against the Russian state, held a meeting in the very center of Makhachkala, capital of Daghestan. The meeting proved a reflection of the new reality: supporters of Salaphites today comprise from ten to seventeen percent of the total number of all Muslims of the republic.
We should note that when Daghestan was first shattered by huge explosions in 2005, the number of Salaphites, according to the Ministry for the Interior, was less than 2,000. People involved in the acts of terror in the capital of Daghestan Makhachkala carried black and white flags with religious inscriptions in Arabic. Similar symbols were also used at meetings in Kazan, capital of Tatarstan, organized by parishioners of the "Al-Ikhlas" mosque in the summer of 2012. Later Kazan experts told the mass media and public that the flags and symbols were fully identical to those used by members of the international religious organization "Khizb-ut-Tahrir al-Islami" in many countries.
Hence, it becomes evident that all attempts to lay the blame for reprisals and violence on representatives of law-enforcement agencies and troops of the Ministry for the Interior, who were allegedly interested in stepping up reprisals against believers, were absolutely false.
The next stage of spreading "Wahhabi" trend, in our view, is the strengthening of the positions of its adepts in "Muslim enclaves" that have appeared in certain Russian big cities in recent years. True, such enclaves have long taken shape in some European countries, for instance in France, and therefore their experience may seem useful for Russia, too.
European realities show that ethnically and religiously homogeneous communities of migrants are actively and successfully enough forming the "enclave" life environment, which is localized within definite territorial boundaries with a mosque or prayer house as its center. Simultaneously, one of the consequences of the appearance of such "enclaves" is growing criminalization and religious-political radicalization of a certain part of migrants, which inevitably leads to the emergence of latent seats of socio-political conflicts and inevitable confrontation with the local population.
In our view, there can be no talk of any tolerant "Euro-Islam," we'd rather could talk of Islamization of Europe in very dangerous forms. The events of the first years of the new century in Spain, Britain, France, and other European countries have convincingly confirmed the correctness of this assertion. As a consequence, in recent years European political figures have begun to talk almost in unison about the failure of the ideology and practice of multiculturalism in Europe and about incompatibility of Islamism and western liberal values.
Similar "enclaves" have appeared in Russian cities, too, and their results began to be seen and felt almost immediately. At a prayer house near one of the city markets in St. Petersburg several men were detained in February 2013, who distributed literature of a religious-extremist character. They also did this in private houses and flats. In all, 271 men were detained, most of whom proved foreigners, including immigrants from Afghanistan and Egypt.
The character of the Islamist threat in St. Petersburg and the region can be compared with the North Caucasian situation. In the course of the operation adherents to the radical currents of Islam were apprehended, who presented a threat to the state, denied secular power, and were striving for the establishment of a caliphate.
Thus, a steady process of politicization and radicalization of Islam and Islamic groupings has been going on in the Russian Federation during the post-Soviet period due to the weakening of the institutions of state power and under a strong influence from abroad. Apart from that, non-traditional Islamic currents have appeared and become institutionalized in the country's territory. This process was aggravated by the weakness and disunity of traditional and official Russian Islam and implementation of separatist projects in certain regions of the country, primarily, in the North Caucasus.
Due to a number of reasons, and objective and subjective factors stable groups of radical Salaphites have appeared in many parts of Russia, which were initially institutionalized in certain North Caucasian republics. Later the ideas of jihad spread practically all over the North Caucasus, and in the past decade prerequisites have emerged for the creation of radical Salaphite groupings in the Volga area, the Urals and West Siberia, as well as in the "Muslim enclaves" of big Russian cities.
"Elitologiya Rossii: Sovremennoye sostoyaniye i perspektivy razvitiya," Moscow, 2013, vol. 1, pp. 481-497.
N. Mamedova,
Head of the Iranian section. Institute of Oriental Studies, RAS IRAN: INTERESTS IN CENTRAL ASIA AND OPPORTUNITIES OF INFLUENCE
For the past decades Iran's interest in the Central Asian countries has changed, however, it has always wished to take the leading positions in the region, changing different forms of influence -ideological, cultural and economic. Inasmuch as the foreign economic ties of the Islamic Republic of Iran were oriented to world markets, its
