Muslims in Russia

The main faith in Russia is Russian Orthodoxy and its influence is international. I was baptized in a Russian Orthodox Church in San Francisco and occasionally attend the Orthodox Church in Berkeley. The current situation in Ukraine is a topic there: the priest leads a prayer to the end of Russia’s War with Ukraine. This paper focuses on struggles that Muslims in Russia faced concerning unfair treatment and assimilation during and after the Soviet Union. Many Westerners are unaware of the fact that the Soviet Union was anti-religious and encouraged an atheism. People who were religious had to practice less publicly, in private, or not at all after the fall of the Czar. This is because the Marxist style of communism that took over Russia rejected religious authority in favor of the state. The many Soviet Socialist Republics contain individuals of many different religious faiths. Russia has a long history with Islam. There are many similarities between converts to Islam in various countries, since recent converts are very conservative compared to Muslims who were raised that way. Young Muslims in Russia are surprisingly observant today, often even mores than the older generation. This is because new converts in Russia try to adhere to every rule they can and the generation that converted before them. There are many locations in Russia and the former Soviet Union that are historically Muslim. The percentage of Russians that are Muslim is fairly small, but many Muslims expect higher rates of conversion, partially because they believe that it is the right way to live life and people will naturally figure that out on their own, and partially because Muslim families in Russia have higher birth rates. There are two types of Islam in Russia, people who were born and raised Muslim because of their culture and people who have converted recently on their own, for various reasons. No more than half of those surveyed in Russia, the Balkans and the former Soviet republics of Central Asia say religion is very important in their lives” (Pew Institute). I found that the Pew Research Center has a lot to offer on this topic. Almost half of all Russian Muslims are very concerned about religious extremism in Russia. The same percentage do not approve of violence against civilians in defense of Islam. What of the contemporary challenges faced by Muslim of Russia and their relations with the state and their relations among themselves?” (Fawaz 2016, 365). This sentence is very relevant to my research question which concerns the link between Russia’s contemporary Muslims and the modern Russian Federation itself.

Literature Review:

On July 15, 2015, Russian new broadcasts focused on the crowds of people who were attending the Eid Al-Fitr prayer in Moscow. This was an attempt by the Russian state to demonstrate that they were supportive of Muslims practicing their religion after fighting two wars against the Chechens during the 1990s. According to Fawaz, the 2002 Census found that there were over fifteen million Muslims in 2008.“Fawaz writes, “The Muslims of Russia, like other Muslim minorities elsewhere, find their credo, their values, their way of life and their conceptual order beset by challenges and, sometimes, by threats from the non-Muslim environment that surrounds them” (Fawaz 2016, 367). Although the Soviet state did not officially allow religious practice, there were still active Muslim communities which were developing during that time: “An Islamic revival appeared in the former Soviet Union at the end of the 1980s in an ‘official’ form with the teaching of the Arabic language and Islamic principles” (Fawaz 2016, 367). The popular resurgence of Islam quite a powerful, modern movement: “In 2002, Tatar Muslim women demanded the right to use photographs on their passports with their heads covered” (Fawaz 2016, 368). The Tatar women, did in fact, eventually mange to change the law in order to have the right to portray themselves in their hijabs on their IDs. Muslim communities across the Russian Federation wanted to show off the fact that they were more dedicated to the faith:“The Muslim republics began competing with one another in the construction of mosques” Humongous mosques were opened in Grozny and Moscow. Tatarstan and Dagestan each have over 1000 mosques (Fawaz 2016, 368). Muslim politicians and religious leaders tried to get more publicity over their attendance of prayers at the new mosques. “Soviet antagonism towards religion in general was well known. However, during the Stalinist era it reached a peak of repression, and it happened also that most of the men of religion who were thrown into prison without the benefit of an investigation or trial were Muslims - more than those of any other religion” (Fawaz 2016, 369). Again, the modern Russian state wants to be seen as accepting of Islam, in particular due to its recent history dealing with radical Chechnyans.

Communist areas during the Soviet Union officially banned all religions so religion has been coming back for the past thirty years and many people have converted to Islam. The Pew Research center has many statistics about Islam in Southern-Easter Islam: “[R]eligion plays a much less central role for some Muslims, particularly in nations that only recently have emerged from communism. No more than half of those surveyed in Russia, the Balkans and the former Soviet republics of Central Asia say religion is very important in their lives” (Pew Research Center 2012).

The younger generation of Muslims in Russia are more observant than the older generation: “Across the Middle East and North Africa, for example, Muslims 35 and older tend to place greater emphasis on religion and to exhibit higher levels of religious commitment than do Muslims between the ages of 18 and 34...And the survey find that in one country-Russia-the general pattern in reversed and younger Muslims are significantly more observant than their elders” (Pew Research Center, 2012). Then we look at how much religion matters to people: in Russia 44% say that “religion is very important in their lives” (Pew Research Center, 2012). There is less of a distinction between race in Muslims in Russia because they identify in such a way that they are accepting of the other Muslims in other countries: “ A similar pattern prevails in Southern and Eastern Europe, where pluralities and majorities in all countries identify as “just a Muslim.” (Pew Research Center, 2012). On the interpreting Islams Teachings chart from the Pew Research Center: In Russia, 28% of Muslims believe in multiple interpretations and 53% say they believe in a single interpretation. For the rest of this section, the numbers taken from the data are the median percentage, here, median mean “the middle number in a list of numbers sorted from highest to lowest. On many questions in this report, medians are reported for groups of countries to help readers see regional patterns in religious beliefs and practices” (Pew Research Center). The percent of Muslims in the region who believe in angels for Southern- Eastern Europe is 55%, much lower than all other regions surveyed in Africa and Asia. 57% believe in predestination or fate, 74% believe in heaven and 67% believe in hell. 66% of Muslims in Southern-Eastern Europe fast during Ramadan, 56% perform zakat. 36% of them pray several times a day, 19% attend mosque once a week or more, 39% give alms annually, 56% fast during Ramadan. “ Along with the lower percentages who say religion is very important in their lives, Muslims in Central Asia and across Southern and Eastern Europe also report lower levels of religious practice than Muslims in other regions” (Pew Research Center). Again, younger Muslims are more spiritual: “ Of all the countries surveyed, only in Russia do Muslims ages 18-34 place significantly more importance on religion than Muslims 35 and older (48% vs. 41%). Younger Muslims in Russia also tend to pray more frequently (48% do so once a day or more, compared with 41% of older Muslims” (Pew Research Center, 2012). Also, “in Southern and Eastern Europe and Central Asia, the older generation of Muslims generally places a greater emphasis on religion and engages more often in prayer” (Pew Research Center, 2012).

A preeminent leader in Russia, the head of the Russian Council of Muftis shared his prediction that in fifteen months from [now, 2019], thirty percent of the Russian population will be Muslim. According to the head of the Patriarchal Commission of Family, Protection of Motherhood and Childhood, Russia will “run out of [ethnic] Russians by 2050” (Yegorov 2019) due to the higher birth rates of Muslims: Chechens, Ingush, and Arabs. A demographer from Moscow State University stated that the claim was “ridiculous” and that the birth rates of the Chechens and the Ingush will go down, due to a “global trend”. Derbent, founded in the sixth century, was the first Muslim city of what is modern-day Russia. It is in Dagestan, a region of the Northern Caucasus, and was seized by Muslim Arabs in the eighth century. There is less centralized system for Islam in Russia, as a result many Muslim people make their own choice to convert without pressure from external forces: “ Unlike Christians, Muslims in Russia do not have any centralized administration. This is a common feature for the religion: anyone educated enough, with good knowledge of the Quran and the Sunnah (the record of Prophet Muhammad’s life), can become a preacher and establish its own school” ( Yegorov 2019).

From “Muslims in Putin’s Russia: Discourse on Identity, Politics, and Security” by Simona E. Merati: “After fighting for their independence from the Tatars (the “Golden Horde”), the slavic tsars, who had founded the reign of Muscovy, directed their expansion eastward” (Merati 2017, 7). Russian priest Nikolai Ivanovish Il’minskii was appointed head of the Orthodox missions. “He advocated the necessity to defeat Islam on its own doctrinal terms. On this purpose, a missionary academy was set up in Kazan’ to study oriental languages and Islamic theology. However, very few missionaries completed their education, and even fewer went out to the field to try to convert Muslims and pagans” (Merati 2017, 9). There is a historical connection between Muslims in Russia and Russian Orthodox peoples. Many people began to convert, and as a result, the Russian Orthodox Church founded an academy that would study Islam in order to use the literature of Islam itself to prevent people from converting: “Initially, the bigger success of Muslims was attributed to similarity in language and habits between Muslim Tatars and other peoples of the region. It was believed that, in the absence of such affinities, Islam would not have been a threat in the conversion of other peoples of the empire (non-Tatar pagans, Orthodox sectarians). (Merati, 8).

Some areas of the Russian Empire have a culture more similar to traditionally Islamic areas than others: “In the central and eastern provinces of the empire, local heathen populations were more likely to convert to Islam than to Orthodox Christianity” (Merati, 8). After the fall of communism, many people converted to various religions very quickly and then the rate slowly dropped: “The share of Russian adults identifying with other religions, including Islam, Protestant Christianity and Roman Catholicism, rose in the 1990s and then leveled off” (Pew Research Center, 2014).

In 1991, fewer than 1% of Muslims were Muslim. In 1998, 2% of Russians were Muslim and in 2008, the number was 5%. (Pew Research Center, 2014). This number is increasing, so it is important to discuss modern securitization. In the book: “ Islam in Putin’s Russia: Discourse on Identity, Politics, and Security, every aspect of Islam in Russia is discussed: “Orthodox and ethnic Russian nationalists are not the only ones to reject a communion of identity with Muslims, in any degree, and to consider the coexistence with them undesirable. Within the Muslim community, too there are clear opponents to the Russian state like the separatists in the North Caucasus, whose motives combine nationalist and anti colonialist stances with extremist religious hues. Those groups are mostly gathered under the flag of the IK (Impart Kavkaz). Because of their affiliation with jihadist activities outside of Russia, now especially in the Islamic States and in Syria, they Represent a constant source of preoccupation for the Russian government, for the society at large, and for other Muslims in the country” (Merati, 63).

In the central and eastern provinces of the empire, local heathen populations were more likely to convert to Islam than to Orthodox Christianity. In the article: “Living in Islam: Russian Muslims Tell their Stories”: “Ali Vyacheslav Polosin, an Orthodox priest who converted to Islam, says that there are more than 10,000 ethnic Russian Muslims in Russia today” (OpenDemocracy.Net, 2015). Yekaterina, who is a 35 year old Russian embroidery designer said: “New converts to Islam are very conservative; they try to observe everything in the Quaran and precisely as it’s written. People who converted ten years ago live differently. They are more thoughtful, calmer about everything”(OpenDemocracy.net, 2015). A lot of the people interviewed in this article think that Islam is the “right way” and that the people in their lives who are not Muslims will make the conversion once they see the light. It seems that most of these Russian people converted to Islam because of they felt it was right in their hearts and they made the decision to convert on their own. Alexei Abdulla Terekhov, who is 50 years old is an English teacher and identifies as a Russophile: “I do not divide Islam into Russian and non- Russian. All people are not the same”

According to the 111th Congress’ report “Russia’s Muslims,” the number of people of Islamic heritage is growing quickly compared to the number of ethnic Russians because of higher fertility rates, higher fatalities of ethnically Russian men due to alchoholization, and immigration. “ Unlike in Christianity, unlike in Judaism, the organizations of Islam have never been centered in Moscow. They’ve always been kept outside. The central Muslim spiritual rector was in Ufa and there’s a reason for that. It was to keep it away from the foreign embassies of Muslim countries” (Congress, 5). The congressional publication points out the contrast between ignorance and knowledge when it comes to analyzing religious beliefs which are foreign versus religious beliefs that are practiced by the people doing the analyzing: “When we talk about religions we know something about, we talk about practice. When we talk about religions we know little about, we talk about doctrine. And we make the mistake of assuming that everybody does what doctrine says, whereas in our own lives, in our own practice, we know that isn’t true” (Congress, 6).

The most popular Muslim religious-legal school is the Hanafi. Abulhanov writes about the relationship between today’s Muslims in Russia with the religious-legal schools. The Hanafi religious-legal school is the most widespread in among Muslims in Russia. From Wikipedia, “itjihad can be defined as a ‘process of legal reasoning and hermeneutics through which the jurist-mujtahid derives or rationalizes law on the basis of the Qur-an and the Sunna” In someforms of traditional Islam, the study of religious law is more important than in the case of practice of converts in Russia who are ‘ethnic Russians’. There is a difference between the modern Islamic practice by these two groups. Many recently-converted Muslims in Russia have actually found the faith on their own and do not necessarily practice in accordance to traditional rules, but decide for themselves which aspects of Islam are most important to them.

Abulhanov writes about the “Galimjan Baroudi’s point of view on one of the burning theological and legal issues-the possibility of ijtihad in the contemporary Muslim society, the ‘closing of the ijtihad gates’ since this issue was crucial in the theological disputes between the reformist direction of ‘Jadidism’ and the traditionalist direction of ‘kadidism’” (Abulhanov). The number of Mosques in Russia is quickly growing and the Russian Federation is eager to show that it is accepting of people of Islamic faith for publicity reasons: “There is considered the issue of the possibility of changing the provisions of religious-legal schools in the spirit of the new time, in accordance with the circumstances of the changing socio-political and economic relations” (Abulhanov).

Bukhara is a large city in Uzbekistan which was under Soviet rule during the Communist era. Persian was often taught in Russian madrasas and was also commonly spoken by literary Russians. There are stereotypes about Bukharans concerning their “dishonesty, ignorance, and hostility toward Muslims in Russia” (Frank 2012, 144). Russia does historically have communities of people who have traditionally always been Muslim: “In Siberia and the Volga- Ural region sayyids have only been studied in any detail for their political and religious role in the successor states of the Golden Horde. However, sayyid communities have retained a strong presence in the Volga-Ural region and especially Siberia down to the present day, and their genealogies emphasize strong sacred links with Bukhara and its saints” (Frank 2012, 35). The word sayyid here means descended from the family of the Prophet Muhammad. There are historically Islamic religious sites as well as important communities in Russia and in neighboring former Soviet Socialist republics: “While straightforward claims of Central Asian ancestry are certainly evidence of an emotional, communal, and thereby religious bond with Central Asia, some Muslim communities in Russia understood their links with Central Asia-and with Bukhara in particular-in even more explicitly sacred terms” (Frank 2012, 35). In these regions being sayyid garners muslims a certain level of social status among Islamic communities because being descended from the grandsons of the prophet is considered an important factor in determining power structures: “In Russia individual families, entire villages of Qumirguja in Kazan province claimed descent from the Caliph ‘Umar b. al-Khatta. The largest single group could claim sayyid status” (Frank 2012, 38).

Even Putin insists upon the growth of the Muslim Population in Russia. This may be because of his intent to form closer bonds with nearby nations which are traditionally Muslim: “Russian President Vladimir Putin has more than once put the number of Russia’s Muslims at 20 million. According to the 2021 census, the “ethnic Muslims” who are Russian citizens number approximately 16 million (those who were born into Muslim families and follow the Islamic tradition are considered ethnic Muslims). To arrive at 20 million or higher, the migrant population has to be added to the adherents of Islam among Russia’s citizens” (Malashenko). By padding the number of Russians with data about migrants, Putins shows that he is trying to appeal to a particular audience and not only attract more people to move to Russia, but also that he is supportive of an proud of the existing Russian Muslim population. This is because there is an ongoing conflict between traditional and non-traditional Islam in Russia: “The Russian authorities have grown accustomed to the confrontation between the two factions of Islam and have always viewed nontraditional Islam as alien and hostile, as well as the ideological foundation for extremism and terrorism” (Maleshenko). The Russian Federation has had recent incident with terror caused by radicals: “[T]he number of such converts has been rising among Islamic radicals in the last few years. They participated in the Nevski Express high-speed-train bombing (2009), the terrorist attack at Domodedovo Airport (2010), the murder of Said Afandi al-Chirkawi (2012), and other acts of terror” (Malashenko). “Opinions differ on how much danger radical Islam presents to the stability of a particular region and the country as a whole. Some believe that the “Islamic challenge” is overrated and poses little threat, while other claim that radicalization exacerbates the situation and is making inter-religious and interethnic conflict worse” (Malashenko). There is still a separation between Russian Muslims based on race: “Both socially and ethnically, the ummah in Russia is very heterogeneous, and so far ethnic solidarity still prevails over religious unity” (Malashenko). Despite the fast growth of Islam in Russia (counting ethnically Russian converts, traditionally Russian communities, and immigrants) the state’s attempt to demonstrate acceptance and there is still a disconnect between these different communities of Muslims.

Bibliography:

Abulhanov, Nail B, Абулханов Наиль Бариевич, Rinat A Nabiev, and Набиев Ринат Ахметгалиевич. “‘The Golden Mean’ in Views of Mufti Galimjan Barudi: Attitude to Religious-Legal Schools in Traditions of Russian Muslims.” RUDN Journal of Russian History. Accessed May 26, 2023. https://journals.rudn.ru/russian-history/article/view/ 19124.

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Author, No. 2022. “The World's Muslims: Unity and Diversity.” Pew Research Center's Religion & Public Life Project. Pew Research Center. May 10. https://www.pewresearch.org/ religion/2012/08/09/the-worlds-muslims-unity-and-diversity-executive-summary/.

Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe. Bill, Russia’s Muslims § (n.d.).

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Yegorov, Oleg. 2019. “Is Russia a Muslim Country?” Russia Beyond. May 16. https:// www.rbth.com/lifestyle/330358-islam-russia-russian-muslims.

Project, Last 30. 2015. “Living in Islam: Russian Muslims Tell Their Stories.” OpenDemocracy. November 16. https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/odr/living-in-islam-russian-muslims- tell-their-stories/.

Malashenko, Alexey. The dynamics of Russian Islam - Carnegie Endowment for International peace. Accessed May 27, 2023. https://carnegieendowment.org/files/ Article_Malashenko_Moscow_English.pdf.

Merati, Simona E. Muslims in Putin's Russia: Discourse on Identity, Politics, and Security. Palgrave Macmillan, 2018.

Abdel-Hafez Fawaz, Ahmed. “The Muslims in Russia: Between Historical Legacy and Contemporary Problematics.” Contemporary Arab Affairs 9, no. 3 (2016): 365–82. https://doi.org/10.1080/17550912.2016.1201939.

Tuna, Mustafa Özgür. Imperial Russia’s Muslims: Islam, Empire and European modernity, 1788-1914. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017.