Window on Eurasia: Wahhabis to Be Found Almost Everywhere in Russia, Silant’yev Says

Paul Goble

Vienna, June 14 – Roman Silant’yev, the controversial Orthodox historian of contemporary Islam in Russia, said that Wahhabi extremists now are operating throughout the country and thus constitute a threat not only to the country’s traditional Muslims but also to the Russian Federation as a whole.
Although he acknowledged in the current issue of “Nashe Vremya” that “no more than two percent of all Muslims in the country are ‘pure Wahhabis,’” Silant’yev insisted that their real influence is far larger because they have altered the views of many “traditional” Muslims (http://www.gazetanv.ru/archive/article/?id=833).
They have already infected the views of many “traditional” Muslims who now “follow the ideological views of Wahhabism, having been convinced that by so doing they are in fact confessing traditional Islam” rather than a distorted version inherited from the Soviet anti-religious times.
Silant’yev said that Wahhabis have been most active in the North Caucasus, especially in Daghestan, Chechnya and Karachai-Cherkessia. Recently, they have moved into Kabardino-Balkaria and Stavropol as well. And, he suggested, they have already penetrated not the remainder of that region but even “Russian-populated Stavropol.”
The author of two books about Russian Muslims, the first of which cost him his job as executive secretary of the Inter-Religious Council, said that he “had seen Wahhabi centers on Sakhalin, in Bashkiria and Orenburg, in the cities of the Yamalo-Nenets District, in St. Petersburg, Tomsk, Omsk, Chita, and Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskiy.”
And he added that they are often extremely active even when far from traditional Muslim regions: “In 2001, Wahhabis in Vladivostok declared a jihad against the local mayor. In Vologda, a year later,” he said, t”hey began to compose ‘black lists’ of officials they did not like.”
Arguing that any attempt to reach out to the Wahhabis is considered by them “as a manifestation of weakness,” Silant’yev insisted that the authorities must take a tough line. Enough “time has been wasted,” he said, and in response to questions, he argued that much of the blame for the spread of Wahhabism belongs to Russia’s Muslim leaders.
With the exception of Talgat Tadzhuddin, who heads the traditionalist and often abjectly servile Central Muslim Spiritual Directorate (MSD0 in Ufa, the Moscow writer and activist said, many of them are anything but cautious in dealing with the Wahhabis and some of them are openly supportive of that Saudi-originated trend in Islam.
Among the worst of these Silant’yev said, are Ravil’ Gainutdin, who heads the Union of Muftis of Russia (SMR) and who was responsible for Silant’yev’s ouster from the Inter-Religious Council, Nafigulla Ashirov, the supreme mufti of the MSD for Asiatic Russia, and Volga MSD leader and Saratov imam Mukkadas Bibarsov.
As he has done before, however, Silant’yev insisted that the problem with contemporary Russian Islam is broader than just the leadership. The faith in the Russian Federation is currently in “the deepest of crises’: There are not enough trained mullahs, and the failure of traditionalists to publish widely has opened the way for the Wahhabis.
But as bad as things are in the Russian Federation, Silant’yev said in response to a question, they may be even worse in Ukraine in general and Crimea in particular. In both places, he said, Muslim leaders are under more pressure from Turkey and Saudi Arabia and thus are more unpredictable and less loyal to the authorities than Russia’s are.
The “Nashe Vremya” journalist ended the interview with a question about Silant’yev’s curent position as director of the Human Rights Center of the World Russian Council. Although that body has its own website (http://vrns.ru/pravozash/dejat.htm), its existence has remained shadowy.
Silant’yev said that the center he heads has as its core task “the defense of the rights of simple people regardless of nationality or faith. Unfortunately,” he continued, the majority of human rights structures that exist in Russia are not interested in the problems of ordinary citizens.”

Window on Eurasia: Muslims Skeptical of Russian Efforts to Win Their Votes

Paul Goble

Vienna, June 14 – Muslim leaders are dismissing efforts by the leaders of Russian political parties to win their votes as nothing more than “the usual pre-election maneuvering” and “empty public relations.” But at the same time, some Muslims say these efforts point to the growing influence and even power of their community.
On June 1, Federation Council speaker and Just Russia Party leader Sergei Mironov told Muslims at a meeting in St. Petersburg that he and his colleagues in the parliament and his party carefully attend to Muslim concerns and are doing everything they can to protect the rights of Islam and its followers.
Mironov’s remarks came in response to a suggestion by Marat Murtazin, the deputy chairman of the Council of Muftis of Russia (SMR), that “Muslims in Russia are neither listened to nor defended” and that in his view, this situation in this regard is getting worse (http://www.islam.ru/pressclub/vslux/bizamul/).
The response of the Federation Council head did not impress many of the other Muslim leaders present. Mukkadas Birbarsov, the Saratov mufti who heads the Muslim Spiritual Directorate (MSD) of the Volga Region, said that the only reason the Just Russia leader was saying this is because “elections are approaching.”
Mironov’s personal reputation among Muslims is not great because of his role in blocking a power-sharing agreement between Moscow and Kazan, and the standing of his party among Muslims also is anything but high. Consequently, Bibarsov said, Mironov was clearly engaging in “pre-election maneuvering,” and his words were “empty PR.”
And Bibarsov added that “judging by the attitudes of people not only in Saratov oblast but also in other regions where I have been, I am very skeptical about the chances of Just Russia winning support from Muslims” even with promises like those Mironov made at the St. Petersburg meeting.
At the same time, Muslim leaders at the session also expressed their concerns about the other pro-Kremlin party, United Russia. Many of them are still angry about the dismissive reaction of the Kremlin and its United Russia followers to their open letter to President Vladimir Putin earlier this year.
Instead of getting a response from Putin himself, they received a response from a second-level official in the Presidential administration that many of them felt insultingly dismissed their concerns. And they have been further angered by Moscow’s moves against Muslims, including arrests of mullahs and the banning of the works of Said Nursi.
But some Muslims at least see a silver lining in all of this: In the words of one, “’the struggle for the Muslim electorate’ demonstrates a very important and simple truth:” Muslims are now so numerous and hence potentially powerful that no Russian party can afford to ignore their concerns, at least when it is seeking their votes.
And, as Islam.ru put it, this competition for the Muslim vote will lead Muslims to become more active in defending and advancing their interests during this electoral season, and that in turn will ultimately force Russia’s parties to take the interests of the country’s Muslims more seriously – and not just at election time.
Indeed, according to Islam.ru’s Abdulla Rinat Mukhametov, the first party which “adequately formulates a response to this ‘Islamic question,’ will receive the support of Muslims. The only problem is whether such a group is to be found [anywhere in the Russian political system] today.”