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WAHHABISM AND JADIDISM IN ISLAMIC CONSCIOUSNESS IN DAGHESTAN: PARALLELS AND CONTRADICTIONS
Zaid ABDULAGATOV
Ph.D. (Philos.), Head of the Sociology Department of the Institute of History, Archeology and Ethnography, Daghestanian Scientific Center of RAS (Makhachkala, Russia)
Effective opposition of religious extremism requires mastering the entire range of conceptual systems appropriate for the situation at hand. And not many of those who write about Islam and its problems miss the opportunity to mention fundamentalism, Salafism, Wahhabism, Jadidism, and other similar concepts. On the one hand, this attention to academics should be hailed since, otherwise, it would be difficult to conceptualize our knowledge; while on the
other, the multitude of different approaches breeds a multitude of different ideas, whereas science should strive for the opposite. A lack of harmony when it comes to concepts and terms undermines our concerted efforts aimed at fighting and defeating religious extremism. There is no agreement—in the academic and religious communities alike—on the interpretations of Jadidism and Wahhabism. This fully applies to the Republic of Daghestan.
1. Wahhabism and Jadidism:
Common Features
There is the opinion that the concept of “fundamentalism” cannot be applied to Wahhabism and its description, Daghestan being no exception in this case.1 Both in Russia and the West the term “fundamentalism” is obviously abused.2 This is very true: the term fails to describe the very essence of Wahhabism: it is too limited to describe Wahhabi specifics. It is indispensable, however, and serves a useful purpose when it comes to identifying its special and particular features. From this point of view, the concept of fundamentalism is indispensable for any discussion of the nature of Wahhabism. It should not be abused, however. V. Naumkin has pointed out that certain authors tend to apply the term to an extremely wide spectrum of religious phenomena: “renovation,”3 “revisionism,”4 “mod-
1 See: E F Kisriev, Islam i vlast v Daghestane, Moscow, 2004, p. 107.
2 See: V.V Naumkin, “Islamskiy radikalizm v zerkale novykh kontseptsiy i podkhodov,” Vostok, No. 1, 2006, p. 5.
3 See: Ibidem.
4 G. Delanoue, “Nekotorye aspekty vozroshdenia islama v Rossii. Musul’manskiy reformism v araboiazychnykh stranakh (1800-1940),” in: Islam v tatarskom mire: istoria i sovremennost, Kazan, 1997, p. 159.
ernism,”5 “revivalism,” and “traditionalism.” Without going into details, it would be wise to base an analysis of fundamentalist trends in Islamic confessions on the concept of Salafism. It has already been accepted by the academic community as an anchor term used to describe the basic, and shared, content of all Islamic fundamentalist trends. Islam, one of the best encyclopedic dictionaries, derives the term “Salafi” from “Salaf,” meaning “ancestors” or “precursors.” Salafi is a blanket term applied to all Muslim religious figures who during their lifetime called on the faithful to imitate the lifestyle and religious convictions of the early Muslim community and the “righteous ancestors” (al-salaf al-salihun). They described all later developments as “bid’ah” (heresy).6 Salafism, and fundamentalism of all other hues for that matter, means excessive loyalty to the original confessional ideas that force its followers to reject all later changes and reforms touching upon fundamentals and values.
These fairly clear and commonly known statements cause heated debates when it comes to tagging religious trends and prominent figures.
The real problem, however, lies outside general definitions: there is no agreement on how the concept can be used to fit specific definitions. Salafism (and “fundamentalism”) is a multi-faceted and contradictory phenomenon that shows its nature in the fact that Wahhabism and Jadidism, two obviously different Islamic trends, share confessional elements. This permits traditional Islam to identify them as two identical phenomena and criticize them. On the other hand, those who support liberal values approve them for the same reason.
Sh. Marjani, an outstanding follower of Jadidism, described the key propositions of his religious reform in the following way:
1. Taqlid should be completely uprooted.
2. The Muslims should return to the roots of their faith and culture of the time of the Prophet Muhammad.7
The Wahhabis are the strictest followers of Salafism and the goals enumerated above. Widely interpreted taqlid means blind devotion to the Koran, Sunnah, and religious authorities: the four imams of the four Sunni madhabs (Abu Hanifah, Ibn Malik, al-Shafii, and Ibn Hanbal. Taqlid is the lynchpin of traditional Islam; Wahhabism and consistent Jadidism reject taqlid—this is where their Salafi nature betrays itself.
Despite their shared views on the two points quoted above they differ on many important things. This should be taken into account in the Caucasus, a potentially unstable region, lest more hotbeds of tension be created. The Wahhabis and the Jadidists mean different things and pursue different aims when they reject taqlid and call on the Muslims to return to the original pillars of their faith. In fact, an objective assessment of the confessional and social nature of both trends does not demand an answer to the question of what they reject (taqlid and novelties), but rather why they reject them and why they insist on returning to the roots. An objective answer to both questions will demonstrate that there are two opposite trends in the development of Islamic consciousness.
The main difference between Wahhabism and Jadidism lies in their treatment of ijtihad.8 In traditional Islam9 (in Daghestan, in particular) the clergy believes that both the Wahhabis and Jadidists
5 S. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, Touchstone Books, New York, 1988,
p. 112.
6 See: “As-Salafiya,” in: Islam. Entsiklopedicheskiy slovar, Moscow, 1991, p. 204.
7 See: R.A. Nabiev, Islam i gosudarstvo, Kazan, 2002, p. 121.
8 Ijtihad—zeal and excessive ardour when it comes to identifying and resolving still unresolved problems so that the new solutions were rooted in Islam and supported it (see: “al-Ijtihad,” in: Islam. Etsiklopedicheskiy slovar, p. 91).
9 From the scholarly point of view, the term “traditional Islam” allows numerous interpretations. Here it means Islam that follows the taqlid (the authority of madhab).
support ijtihad, something that is regarded as betrayal of true Islam.10 This is an important, but not the only, distinction between the Wahhabis and Jadidists.
2. The Daghestanian Reformers of Islam:
Are They Wahhabis or Jadidists?
As late as the early 20th century, the supporters of traditional Islam (tareqatists, and those who supported taqlid) and those who claimed ijtihad were locked in bitter discussions, in the heat of which the Wahhabis and Jadidists were lumped together as supporters of ijtihad. In this case, the past will help us sort out the trends present in the Daghestanians’ Islamic consciousness.
Jaridat Daghestan, a newspaper that appeared between 1913 and 1918, Bayan al-Hakaik, published in 1925-1928, as well as the private correspondence of those directly involved in the discussions, followed them step-by-step in great detail.
A letter entitled “A Truthful Answer to My Faithful Brother” by Abd al-Hafiz al-Uhli provided a general assessment of the situation defined by the terms “traditional Islam” (Sufism), Wahhabism, and Jadidism.11 It touches on the debatable issues related to ijtihad, taqlid,12 and tawassul.13 The letter was first mentioned in an article by Ph.D. (Political Science) A. Mantaev.14
The author said that there were many harmful (illegal) sects in Islam, but, he continued, “I want to talk about two misdirected sects... The first of them is the Wahhabis.”15 “The second is the group of Jadidists. It is called Hizb al-jadid. It was founded by the worst of the heretics, Sheikh Jamalutdin al-Afghani. This group is the most hostile to true Islam and its followers and much more harmful because it leads people further away from the right road in the Islamic world than the first one.”16 The author described Muhammad Abdo as the second dangerous promoter of faithlessness within this most dangerous trend; Rashid Rida was named as the third, and even more dangerous, agitator. A. Mantaev has said that Abd al-Hafiz al-Uhli discerned the hostile nature of the Jadidists in the fact that they did not limit themselves to the ideas of Wahhabism, but also accepted all types of heresies and banned novelties.”17 This means that Jadidism is as unacceptable as Wahhabism.
Some other authors described Rashid Rida in similar terms.18
The letter pointed to Ali Kayaev (Zamir Ali) as the person who first introduced harmful ideas into Daghestan: in the early 20th century (1905-1907), he studied at Al-Azhar in Cairo and had close
10 See: Sh. Mukhidinov, editor of Assalam, a newspaper published by the Spiritual Administration of the Muslims of Daghestan (SAMD), has written that Euro-Islam rests on critical thinking, while ijtihad is a random interpretation (refusal to recognize the four imams and random interpretation of the Koran) that has already brought some Muslims, the Wahhabites, to terrorism, extremism, and self-destruction.” See “Komu nuzhna modernizatsia islama,”
Daghestantsy, No. 2, 2004.
11 The letter 34 pages long was written in Arabic around the mid-20th century, according to researchers of the Center of Oriental Studies at the Institute of History, Archeology and Ethnography of the DSC RAS Sh. Shikhaliev and A. Navru-zov. The original belongs to Abduragim Abdurakhmanov of the village of Nizhny Jengutai, Daghestan. It has not been published; Sh. Shikhaliev translated it into Russian at my request.
12 Taqlid—devotion to one of the madhabs as opposition to ijtihad.
13 Tawassul—recognition of the intercessory role of the Prophet and the righteous men in Sufism.
14 See: A.A. Mantaev, “Sufism i wahhabizm v Daghestane v kontse 19-nachale 20 veka,” Islamskaia tsivilizatsia, No. 1, 2005, pp. 143-145.
15 Abd al-Hafiz al-Uhli, “Dostoverny otvet blagochestivomu bratu,” p. 3.
16 Ibid., p. 4.
17 A.A. Mantaev, op. cit., p. 44.
18 Gilbert Delanoue of France believes that Rashid Rid represented a conservative trend in Muhammad Abdo’s teaching: (a) he defended Wahhabism; (b) he considered Islam to be a religion and law; (c) he believed that Islam was the most perfect religion (see: G. Delanoue, op. cit., pp. 164-165).
contacts with Rashid Rida. The letter’s author believed that he was disseminating heresy in Daghestan on the direct instructions of Rashid Rida. The Daghestanian clergy readily agrees with this and describes Ali Kayaev as the first Wahhabi in Daghestan.19
Any precise description of the Salafi movement in Daghestan calls for a much more detailed discussion than mere division into the conservative and progressive trends: each, in its turn, is a very complicated confessional and sociopolitical phenomenon.
We know a lot about the key features of conservative Salafism: strict monotheism, rejection of tawassul, reliance on taqfir, complete rejection of taqlid, and scripturalism20 as well as literal interpretation of the holy texts.
Integrism is another typical feature of conservative Salafism, which insists that conceptually the secular and the religious cannot be separated.21 This is typical both of renovationist and conservative Salafism, in which this phenomenon has a diametrically opposite content. Conservative integrism says that Islam should not try to adapt itself to the world (dunya). If the world refuses to adapt itself to Islam, it should be forced to do this.22 This is typical of militant Wahhabism. The conservative Daghestanian Salafis headed by B. Magomedov (who never called themselves Wahhabis) formulated one of their program goals as “the creation of their own armed forces and coordination of the jamaat’s militant groups in Chechnia and Daghestan.”23 Progressive Salafism, by contrast, as well as Jadidism, is trying to accommodate religion by providing interpretations of new social phenomena.
The Wahhabi and the Jadidist Salafi can easily remove themselves far from the traditionalist viewpoints when calling on the faithful to embrace the early Muslim values. The Jadidists stress the role of reason in religious deliberations and moral and legal doctrines—they feel that Islam needs a new ijtihad. Conservative Salafism (Wahhabism) as a scripturalist trend tends to ignore the role of reason. Jadidism revived and developed the rational content and rational traditions of Islamic conscience rooted in reasoning, logic, and proof.24 From this it follows that Wahhabism rejects ijtihad of all sorts; it rejects in principle the right to pass one’s own judgment, which spells the highest degree of irrationality. Wahhabi rigorism betrays itself in a specific form of taqfir-ism. They brand all those who refuse to follow them as unfaithful; by doing this they appropriate the right to inherit their property. Jadidism is completely alien to such practices—a return to the sources is interpreted as the beginning of a new ijtihad, a new round of Islamic thought.
Jadidism is not involved in terrorist practices; as distinct from Wahhabism it is prone to accept and develop all progressive social phenomena; it is not opposed to Western culture and values, but it is inclined to find the road to the harmonious coexistence with them.
Despite these obvious distinctions and different positions of Wahhabism and Jadidism, clerics and theologians, as well as academics, tend to lump these trends together. What is more, they tend to mistake one for the other, which should be avoided. When writing about the situation in Daghestan in the late 20th century, E. Kisriev said: “Daghestanian Wahhabism was a new trend that tried to overcome traditional Islam commonly accepted across the republic and shape it into new forms better suited to the rationalist ideas of those who were educated at secular (Soviet) educational establishments. ... Daghestanian Wahhabism should be described as a reformist, modernist movement in Islam, while
19 See: Said Afandi Chirkeyskiy, Sokrovishcha blagodatnykh znaniy, Moscow, 2003, p. 99; R. Nuridinov, “Wah-habism—virus v islame,” Assalam, No. 20, 1998.
20 Scripturalism accepts the Koran and Sunnah as the only sources of knowledge.
21 See: V.V. Naumkin, op. cit., p. 6.
22 See: R. As-Said, “Novy vzgliad,” Tarikh, No. 6, 1998.
23 “Prichiny mezhduusobits. Podpisano ‘Jamaat Daghestana’,” Khalifat, No. 2, 1998.
24 Tatar enlightener Gabdennasyr Kursavi was one of the first to develop this principle in Russian Islam. G. Gubay-dulin wrote that Kursavi promoted the principles of reasoning (G. Gubaydulin, “K voprosu ob ideologii I. Gasprinskogo,” in: Izvestia vostochnogo fakul'teta Azerbaijanskogo gosuniversiteta, Baku, 1929, p. 189).
the Daghestanian tareqatists and representatives of the traditional orthodox clergy (professional mullahs and imams) closely connected with the tareqatists who have woken up to oppose the reformist ideas of Wahhabis should be described as fundamentalists.”25 To make his point he quotes from Huntington’s The Clash of Civilizations: “Like fundamentalists in other religions, Islamists are overwhelmingly participants in and products of the processes of modernization.”26
This is typical of Western Islamic studies: the Wahhabis are often described as “the Protestants of Islam,” while their ideology is described in positive and rationalist terms. This is a purely formal assessment based on the statements that religion should be purified of all later additions. This is the only outward element that rationalist, modernist, and reformist Jadidism shares with Wahhabism. The two trends see the theological content of the key Islamic texts in different lights and differ in their sociopolitical message.
We should recognize, however, that Wahhabism has developed into an Islamic religious trend with absolutely unpredictable repercussions: its vehement criticism of traditional Islam paved the way to later, much more progressive, movements that had nothing in common with Wahhabism and even contradicted it. A. Vassiliev wrote at one time: “The reformers and Wahhabis frequently joined forces to attack medieval scholastics, albeit from different fronts.”27
It seems that the terms “rationalism” and “modernism” are inapplicable to Wahhabism. All fundamental dictionaries describe the term “modernization” as changes to improve the old and adapt it to the new developments.28 The desire to simplify the Islamic rites, something that the Wahhabis are striving to, can hardly be described as the intention to adapt them to the needs and wishes of contemporary social developments. Confessional and social egalitarianism of the Wahhabis is not a sign of their genuinely democratic nature: the proposed wide use of taqfir speaks of its fairly limited and biased nature. N. Zhdanov and A. Ignatenko, two prominent experts in Oriental studies, have aptly pointed out that the modernists are seeking reform in order to accommodate the Muslim dogmas to contemporary realities by discarding or pushing to the side some propositions and promoting others, while revivalism (or fundamentalism) ... aims at restoring some of the early Islamic institutions.29
Did the ideas of Jadidism manifest themselves in Daghestan at any stage of its history? Were all manifestations of Islamic reformism in Daghestan either Salafi (conservative) or even extremist (Wahhabi)? Was Ali Kayaev, the first Daghestanian to graduate from the Islamic University Al-Azhar in Cairo in 1907, the first Wahhabi of Daghestan as he is still described by the local Islamic clergy? If this was so, how were his ideas manifested?
According to Prof. M. Abdullaev and Iu. Medjidov, two prominent Oriental scholars well known in the republic, early in the 17th century another Daghestanian, Magomed Kudutlinskiy, met in Mecca with Sheikh Salih, an ardent supporter of ijtihad. This was how the ideas of Salih of Yemen reached Daghestan and became widely popular.30 In his still unpublished work Biografii daghestanskikh uchenykh-arabistov (Biographies of Daghestanian Arabic Scholars), Ali Kayaev wrote: “Free thinking first reached Daghestan through a book by Yemeni scholar Salih-efendi.”31
Salih of Yemen, in turn, is known to follow Ibn Taymiyya, who lived in the 7th century of Hegira, and his disciple Ibn Kayyim; as opponents of Sufism, they peppered their books with
25 E.F. Kisriev, op. cit., pp. 108-109.
26 S. Huntington, op. cit., p. 112.
27 A.M. Vassiliev, Puritane Islama? Wahhabizm i pervoe gosudarstvo saudidov v Aravii, Moscow, 1967, pp. 107-109.
28 See: “Modernizatsia,” in: A.N. Bulyko, Sovremenny slovar inostrannykh slov, Moscow, 2005; “Modernizirovat,” in: S.N. Ozhegov, Slovar russkogo iazyka, Moscow, 1983.
29 See: N.V. Zhdanov, A.A. Ignatenko, Islam na poroge XXI veka, Moscow, 1989, p. 17.
30 See: M.A. Abdullaev, Iu.V. Medjidov, Ali Kayaev, Makhachkala, 1968, p. 65.
31 A. Kayaev, Biografii daghestanskikh uchenykh-arabistov, p. 4. The Manuscript Collection of the Institute of History, Archaeology and Ethnography, DSC RAS. Record Group 25, Inventory 1, File 1.
such expressions as “crosses” and “slaves of the sheikhs” designed to denigrate the sheikhs and murids.32
M. Saidov and M. Abdullaev, two Daghestanian Oriental scholars, have written about the great achievements of the “Kudutlinskiy school,” which produced a large group of prominent academics. While writing about one of them—Bark Qadi of Kakamakhi—Kayaev called him a “supporter of the new roads of religious sciences” and “one of those who first moved against the tareqat teaching and muridism.”33
The above suggests that religious free thinking, which rejected tareqat and taqlid, appeared in Daghestan much earlier than the late 20th century (contrary to the opinion widespread in the academic and political community) and not even in the early 20th century (the date supported by the republic’s spiritual leaders and some of the academics, A. Mantaev being one of them), but much earlier, in the 17th century. A. Kayaev, one of the leaders of this trend in Daghestan, was greatly influenced not only by his two years in Cairo alongside Rashid Rida, but also by the works of his compatriots.
Reformism in Daghestan was not shaped solely by Arabic influence. In 1900, two Daghesta-nians (Abusuf’ian Akaev and Magomedmirza Mavraev) visited Kazan on an invitation from engineer Adilgerey Daitbekov. They came to study the new teaching methods widely used in the Muslim schools. Akaev spent two years studying the teaching experience of the Kazan and Orenburg ulema. In 1902, he opened a two-year school of his own, which used the new methods.34 Publishing activities initiated by M. Mavraev and I. Gasprinskiy offered even better opportunities for Jadidist propaganda in Daghestan.
The ideas Abusuf’ian Akaev brought back from the Volga shores were approved by Egyptian reformers. In his autobiography Akaev wrote that in 1907 he traveled to Misra (Cairo) and Istanbul to obtain new books. In Cairo he met Rashid Rida and Rafik-beg al Azm, who wrote about the meeting in Al-Muayyad, the local newspaper. An article called “Nakhdat ad-tagistaniin” (The Revival of Daghestanis) said in part: “Abusuf’ian-efendi ... is one of the supporters of reform in science and religion. Today, he is an epitome of inborn perspicacity. He burns with a desire to introduce new sciences which would develop his nation intellectually. He was warmly received; he is worthy of meeting the pillars of good reason to receive information from them he could use in his reformist activities.”35
In 1887, Saypula-qadi (Bashlarov), another Daghestanian, was exiled to Saratov Gubernia on the suspicion of being involved in an anti-Russian uprising. In 1905, he was employed by a Jadidist madrasah in Ufa where he worked until he could come home in 1909. He enriched his Daghestanian medieval knowledge with the ideas of Muslim revivalism popular in the Volga area as well as European secular science.36
A Kumyk writer N. Batyrmurzaev, who is considered a Jadidist in Daghestan, lived in Orenburg where he befriended R. Fakhretdinov, who belonged to the new generation of reformers. The Kumyk writer frequently contributed to the Vakyt newspaper; judging by the correspondence of father and son Batyrmurzaev, N. Batyrmurzaev was a close friend of Fakhretdinov.37
32 Ibidem.
33 Ibidem.
34 See: A. Akaev, Along the Road of the Prophet, Vol. 1, Makhachkala, 1992, pp. 6-7 (in the Kumyk language).
35 “‘Avtobiografia’ Abusuf’iana Akaeva,” Literaturnoe i nauchnoe nasledie Abusuf'iana Akaeva, Transl. from the Azerbaijanian by G.M.-R. Orazaev; translations from the Arabic by A.R. Shikhsaidov, Makhachkala, 1992, pp. 129-130.
36 See: Sh. Shikhaliev, “Saypula-qadi. Islam na territorii byvshey rossiyskoy imperii,” Entsiklopedicheskiy slovar, Issue 4, Moscow, 2004.
37 See: S.Kh. Akbiev, Sviaz vremen i druzhba literatur (nekotorye voprosy razvitia daghestansko-tatarskikh literatur-nykh sviazey), Makhachkala, 1985, p. 86.
In fact, Daghestanian scholars cite several dozen names of those Daghestanians they consider Jadidists: at the turn of the 20th century, these Daghestanians were busy opening schools which used “new methods.”38
What sort of movement was this? Was it a uniform movement as far as its aims were concerned? The answers can be found in the vast experience of studies of Jadidism accumulated in Tatarstan. According to researchers, the Jadidist activities of the Muslims of Russia developed in several directions:
1. Reform in education.
2. Political reform in Russia to create a constitutional state ruled by law.
3. Reform of some of the Islamic legal norms.39
It looks as if all the reformers wanted reform in education: this can be said about Ali Kayaev, Abusu’fian Akaev, Hasan Alkadari, and many of their followers. They all insisted that reform was indispensable to bridge the gap between the Muslims and people in the West. The reform was expected to pursue two aims: to introduce a new phonetic method (usul al-jadid) of Koranic instruction and to make secular disciplines and the Russian language part of the curricula of Islamic religious schools.
Was the teaching of mathematics, astronomy, logic, history, geography, chemistry, and other secular disciplines a novelty? Until the 13 th century, these sciences were well developed in the Islamic world after all. Many of those branded as Jadidists in Daghestan (N. Batyrmurzaev being one of them) did not belong to the clergy; they belonged to the secular sector of Daghestanian society and approved of novelties. This was quite understandable: being educated in the Islamic cultural context of the turn of the 20th century, which by that time found itself far removed from the rationalist sciences (because secular schools were not developed enough to enjoy authority among the local people),40 these people had to look for new ways of giving the local Muslims a taste of science. It seems that to become a Jadidist in the full sense of the word a person should become not only a faithful Muslim, but also a cleric with fairly developed religious ideas and religious duties, in the educational system among other things. Only those able consistently to readjust their traditional Islamic world outlook and conduct could be described as Jadidists; otherwise people who drew their secular ideas and materialist values from their personal philosophies could inadvertently be classed as Jadidists, whereas other, more adequate terms should have been used to describe them. I am convinced that this approach is in line with the ideas of V. Iuzeev, a prominent expert in Jadidism in Tatarstan, who believes that Jadidism is “part of theological liberalism” in particular.41
Another phenomenon was also typical of Daghestan. In 1883, Hasan of Alkadari, a prominent religious and public figure, philosopher, and poet, built a separate building to house a secular school in his native village, probably with the conviction that secular and religious subjects should not be taught under one roof. Significantly, Prof. A. Shikhsaidov, his great grandson and a prominent Oriental scholar, contrary to tradition, does not consider his ancestor a Jadidist.42 The school, he argues, was one of the many within the Islamic educational tradition typical of Daghestan.
According to those who study Jadidism in Tatarstan, the Daghestanian reformers were mainly interested in educational activities. This was especially obvious in what two Jadidist spiritual lead-
38 See: A. Gadjiev, “Jadidism v Daghestane,” in: Fundamental’nye iprikladnye voprosy estestvennykh nauk, Vol. II, Makhachkala, 1994, pp. 131-133.
39 See: A.V. Malashenko, R.A. Nabiev, A.Iu. Khabutdinov, “Jadidism,” in: Islam na evropeyskom vostoke. Entsik-lopedicheskiy slovar, Kazakn, 2004.
40 In 1849, for example, a secular Muslim school was opened in Derbent; because it did not have enough students, it was moved to the town of Temirkhanshur (see: G.I. Guseynov, Hasan Alkadari, Makhachkala, 2006, p. 49).
41 See: G. Bautdinov, “Rossiiskie predtechi Evroislama,” Nezavisimaia gazeta, 4 February, 2004.
42 He said this on 5 October, 2006 in a private talk with the author.
ers—A. Kayaev and A. Akaev—were doing. The former was not only well-versed in the natural sciences (astronomy and geography, in particular)—he did not spare any effort to disseminate knowledge through his books Traktat o novoy astronomii (Treatise on New Astronomy), Eko-nomicheskaia geografia mira (Economic Geography of the World), Istoria filosofii (History of Philosophy), and Fizicheskaia geografia mira (Physical Geography of the World). In his writings he relied on the pronouncements of al-Ghazali, an Arab philosopher, who developed the “dual nature of truth” idea: religious truths had nothing in common with scientific truths and found it necessary to object to his statement that mathematical studies led to apostasy. His own life of a highly religious and spiritual person extremely involved in the natural scientific studies is the best confirmation of the above.
Those who could be called Jadidists were actively involved in the political reforms of the early 20th century. Akaev hailed the February revolution of 1917 on which he pinned his hopes for a more democratic public and political life and cultural developments. He approved of the October coup as well. The republican archives contain enough documents testifying to his cooperation with prominent revolutionary-socialists of Daghestan. In one of his articles written in defense of the socialists, he said: “Socialists want fair public relations ... unlike the Sufis they will not consolidate religion, but nor will they destroy it ... there will be no enmity between the socialists and the poor.”43
The issues of freedom, social justice and political reforms figured prominently in Kayaev’s activities. He hailed the February 1917 revolution and wrote in his newspaper JaridatDaghestan: “Until that time the peoples of Russia lived under the czar and his henchmen and tolerated the tyrants, who never cared about people. The best people of Russia demanded freedom.”44 Like A. Akaev, Kayaev was also disappointed in the course of events in Russia in the early 20th century. He wrote: “Freedom means that people should become masters. In fact, only the names of the bosses changed—nothing more. ‘Commissars’ are working very much in the same manner as the ‘bosses’ of the olden times before them.”45 The active social and political stance of the Daghestanian reformers of Islam who promoted social progress and democracy was another facet of their Jadidist makeup.
When summarizing Ali Kayaev’s multisided public activities, it should be said that he was always guided by his love of freedom and rationality, which he consistently applied in his religious, public, and scientific activities. He stands apart from all the other Daghestanian Jadidists of the turn of the 20th century. It can even be said that he alone insisted on the idea of “absolute ijtihad.” When calling for this, he always insisted that the Koran and the Sunnah should be carefully studied to draw conclusions appropriate for the demands of the time. Naturally enough, he was very critical of Sufism and the Sufis, his contemporaries, whom he accused of resorting to all sorts of tricks to avoid some of the Koranic injunctions; he also spoke a lot about their ignorance. His criticism was rooted in the ideas of many prominent reformers of Islam and his scientific knowledge was so convincing and logical that even today the Daghestanian clergy treat him as an ideological enemy. According to Abd al-Hafiz al-Uhli, “he said that Almighty Allah created the Islamic Shari‘a as a single whole and [that he] is very amazed to see that the people made four Shari‘as out of it. He called for absolute ijtihad. He used to say: ‘What sort of scholars are our contemporaries if they fail to use the Koran and the Prophet’s Sunnah? What is so special about these imams: they are alims and we are alims as well.”46
43 A. Akaev, “Who are Socialists?” in: Along the Road of the Prophet, Vol. 1, p. 22. Later, the author was deeply disappointed in the Bolsheviks whom he called in this article “a huge crowd of socialists.” “At that time, we did not know the socialists’ program. Had I known the program of the socialists and the Soviet government I would have never defended them” (see: G.M.-R. Orazaev, Foreword to the second volume of Akaev’s work, Makhachkala, 1997, p. 8).
44 Jaridat Daghestan, No. 11, 1917.
45 Channa Tsuku newspaper, No. 8, 1917. Quoted from: M.A. Abdullaev, Iu.V. Medjidov, op. cit., pp. 124-125.
46 Abd al-Hafiz al-Uhli, op. cit., p. 8.
Abd al-Hafiz al-Uhli described three more Daghestanians as Jadidists, that is, as people more harmful to Islam than the Wahhabis.
Ali Kayaev not only rejected taqlid, not only criticized Sufism, he also took issue, to a great extent, with the Islamic dogmas.
■ First, it was probably due to the deism of Voltaire and Rousseau and the ideas of Newton, who believed that having created the world God never interfered in its laws, that he accepted the conception of the “divine initial impulse.”
■ Second, he accepted Darwin’s theory.
■ Third, he rejected the idea of the “end of the world.”
■ Fourth, he never believed that five prayers a day (as prescribed by the Shari‘a) were absolutely obligatory.
This all contradicted Islamic dogmas. Akaev’s ideas about how to reform Islam were slightly different. In the very first issue of Bayan al-Hakaik (Explanation of Truths) he himself published, he described the aims of such reforms as “purification of the Shari‘a of novelties and fashionable ideas.”47 “Novelties” stemmed from the excessive efforts of Ibn Taymiyya’s disciples (he himself was recognized as precursor of Wahhabism) “who were carried away with banning tawassul.”48 Akaev never rejected taqlid and accepted the Sufi values. He interpreted purification of Islam as a struggle against the novelties introduced in traditional Islam. As distinct from the Jadidism of Kayaev, his convictions were limited to enlightenment and the political sphere and never intruded into the sphere of Islamic dogmas. For this reason, the Daghestanian clergy never objected to his religious heritage.
The Daghestanian Islamic reformers of the turn of the 20th century concentrated on humanitarian issues in the sphere of education and their public and political activities. This was where Jadidism and Wahhabism parted ways: “humanism” and “humanity” are not one and the same thing. As distinct from humanism, which is part of philosophical anthropocentrism that directly or indirectly rejects the religious interpretation of the meaning of life as serving God, religious humanity is based on theocentrism. From this it follows that, strictly speaking, religion has no “humanist potential” nor “humanitarian values.” Jadidism, however, had a humanistic aspect related to its educational efforts. The teaching of man is inevitably the heart and soul of educational efforts: Sh. Marjani, one of the most prominent Jadidists, opposed the rigid theocentrism and providentialism of traditional Islam with the enlightenment conception of human nature. The clear educational and anthropocentric nature of his philosophy predetermined his humanism. He condemned the practices of bribe-taking in tax collection and conscription and unfair judges.49 The same can be said about Akaev and Kayaev: the former insisted that the Daghestanians suffered partly because they had no access to scientific knowledge. His Book of Morals™ spoke of the values shared by all people irrespective of their philosophical approaches. Kayaev was even more explicit in his humanitarian pronouncements: he criticized with equal fervor the czarist government, the clergy, and the postrevolutionary authorities that ignored the needs of the common people and the problems of poverty, education, and freedom.
We can argue with the above saying that Wahhabism is known to be humanistic when it comes to personal relations: it instructs its followers to be kind and prudent, keep their word, demonstrate
47 Bayan al-Hakaik, No. 1, 1925.
48 A. Akaev, “The State of Hidjaz and the Misfortunes of Wahhabism,” Bayan al-Hakaik, No. 1, 1925.
49 See: A.N. Iuzeev, “Zhiznedeiatel’nost Mardjani,” OcherkiMardjani o vostochnykh narodakh, Kazan, 2003, p. 29.
50 See: A. Akaev, The Book of Morals, Temirkhanshura, 1914 (in Kumyk).
patience and absolute honesty, and help the blind. It condemns stinginess, envy, perjury, and cowardice. It instructs its followers to look after slaves, servants, and hired hands.51 This was inevitably accompanied with promises of heaven (the poor had a much better chance of getting there than the rich). Wahhabi humanity is not genuine humanism for the simple reason that it is limited to the Wahhabi community and left all others, even Muslims, outside. This means that the Wahhabis place their relationship with God higher than their relationship with people—very much in line with religious dogmas. This is where the theocentric nature of religious humanity was shown as opposed to the humanism of the enlightenment, social, and political ideas of Jadidism.
The above assessments (which are not facts at all) point to Jadidism’s philosophical duality of sorts: consistent adherence to the Islamic or any other religious doctrines should prevent any of the followers from moving away from strict theocentrism toward a revision of values in favor of the values accepted by mankind and humanistically oriented. This feature is especially obvious in the fairly developed forms of Jadidism. When talking about the relationships between the nation and Islam, the leaders of the national Tatar movement, called the Tatar Public Center (TPC), put the nation ahead of Islam. R. Safin, one of the TPC ideologists, described the nation as a priority. He speaks of Islam as a phenomenon of secondary importance and insists that religion should serve the nation, not vice versa.52 Islamic theocentrism has nothing in common with this; the same can be said about Wahhabism and its ideology. At the turn of the 20th century, Daghestanian Jadidism did not reach these heights, but it was gradually moving toward them, particularly through the efforts of Ali Kayaev.
3. The Changing Destiny of Jadidism in Daghestan
The very circumstances under which Jadidism emerged in Daghestan determined its further development. It was brought in from the outside and planted in already tilled soil (the local people had long been aware of the need to introduce confessional freedom, education, and free activities in the social and political spheres). After spending two years in the Volga area, where he met Gasprinskiy and Rashid Rida, Akaev developed a fresh approach to the life of the Muslims in his native Daghestan. The same applies to Kayaev, who had spent two years in Al-Azhar alongside Rashid Rida and met Gasprinskiy in Cairo in 1907 and to Saypula-qadi (Bashlarov), who likewise spent some years of his life in exile in the Volga area.
The repressions of the 1930s in Russia against all religions (Islam in particular) hit the Jadidists: Akaev and Kayaev both died in labor camps (the former in 1931 after several years in exile, the latter in 1943).
It proved a far from simple task to revive the ideas of these selfless people completely devoted to the ideas of Islamic renovation and enlightenment. First, brought in from outside, Jadidism was not firmly rooted locally; it all depended on what Kayaev, Akaev, and others were doing. No wonder the cruel 1930s easily uprooted it. Second, the Shafii madhab of the Daghestanian Muslims offered no conditions for the development of Jadidism in the republic. In fact the al-Shafii and the Ibn Hanbal madhabs are described as Salafi madhabs. While in the Abu Hanifah madhab legal opinions rest, among other things, on personal opinion (raya) and reason, the Shafii madhab rejects personal opinions outright. Third, secular education somewhat devalued the urgency of the Jadidists’ enlightenment ideas;
51 See: A.M. Vassiliev, op. cit.
52 See: R. Safin, “Natsional’noe dvizhenie i religia,” Tatarstan, No. 4, 1997, pp. 5-11.
in Soviet times, when the Islamic educational system was practically non-existent, the Jadidist ideas were never in demand.
Today there are 14 Islamic universities in Daghestan, 21 branches of higher educational establishments, about 97 madrasahs, and 278 maktabs (mosque schools), at which approximately 14,000 people study. The media spared no efforts to criticize their curricula as being unsuitable for the contemporary secular environment.53 Many of the graduates can be described as potential victims of the Wahhabism widely accepted in the republic. In fact, Wahhabi ideologists come to Daghestan to look for suitable people in the mosques, madrasahs, and maktabs.
Some of the ideas of Kayaev and Akaev have not lost their pertinence, but the republic’s official clergy, who are closely following Islamic educational and religious activities, have monopolized the right to express any religious ideas. There are Wahhabis in Daghestan, but since those who dare to disagree with the official position of the Spiritual Administration of the Muslims of Daghestan are dismissed as Wahhabis, all attempts at promoting progressive thinking among the faithful Daghesta-nians are cut short.54
53 See: I.A. Shamov, “Religia ili svetskoe prosveshchenie,” Daghestanskaiapravda, 8 June, 2001. When writing about one-sided confessional education in the Islamic universities of Daghestan, the author, who is known in the republic as a writer and prominent doctor, says that they lack “everything that makes a member of society an educated person and society itself developed.”
54 For more detail, see: Z.M. Abdulagatov, “Daghestan and Tatarstan: The State/Religion Relationship in the Islamic Context of Russia,” Central Asia and the Caucasus, No. 1 (31), 2005.
POST-SOVIET RADICALIZATION OF ISLAM IN KYRGYZSTAN: HIZB UT-TAHRIR
Alexey SUKHOV
Research Fellow, the North Caucasian Civil Service Academy (Rostov-on-Don, Russian Federation)
In August 2006, Kyrgyzstan marked 15 years of its independence: a historically short period that upturned the course of history in this republic. The Soviet Union disappeared together with the
communist utopia of an atheist state to let religion finally reap the fruits of its opposition to the official Marxist-Leninist ideology. The state loosened its grip on religion somewhat earlier under the impact of perestroika, which brought in democratization and the 1988 ceremonies dedicated to the millennium of Christianity in Russia. Kyrgyzstan, and many of its Central Asian neighbors, inherited a weak economy and spiritual vacuum from the Soviet Union: for seven decades of Soviet rule most people, be they Muslims or Christians, were too frightened to openly demonstrate their devotion. The
