Paul Goble
Staunton, October 9 – Despite campaign by the Moscow Patriarchate, Russian parents have selected for their children courses in secular ethics or the history of religions twice as often as they have chosen to have their offspring study Orthodox culture, according to preliminary figures from the experimental introduction of such courses in 19 federal subjects.
Yesterday, the Moscow radio station Ekho Moskvy published on its website “Statistical Reports from the 19 Subjects of the Russian Federation Taking Part in the Trial of [Such] Modules] for the 2009/2010 academic year,” findings that are likely to spark debate in the coming weeks (www.echo.msk.ru/blog/echomsk/716694-echo/).
While the results cannot simply be extrapolated to the country as a whole, they do suggest that Russian parents, who make these choices, are far less interested in having their children study Russian Orthodoxy than the Moscow Patriarchate has claims, somewhat more interested in studying Islam relative to population, and mostly interested in more secular courses.
Of the 237,939 students taking part, 27.84 percent studied “Foundations of Orthodox Culture” and 10.3 percent “Foundations of Islamic Culture, but 17.09 percent took classes in “Foundations of World Religious Cultures” and 43.97 percent in “Foundations of Secular Ethics.” Those studying Buddhism and Judaism made up the other 0.8 percent.
Those figures suggest that more than 60 percent of the pupils taking part were in classes without a specifically religious profile, more than twice as many as the share – slightly fewer than 28 percent – taking the course on Orthodoxy, a pattern that reflects the secularization of Russian society in Soviet times and since.
And this pattern not only calls into question the routine claims of the Russian Orthodox Church that the share of Orthodox in Russia is the same as the share of ethnic Russians but also indicates that some of the fears of secular or even atheist groups about the impact of religious courses in the schools may be overstated.
Not surprisingly, figures from the 19 regions varied widely. In many predominantly ethnic Russian oblasts and krays, a far higher share of the pupils studied the Orthodox course, although in Penza, students were offered courses only in world religions and “Foundations of Secular Ethics.
Meanwhile, in Chechnya, 99.5 percent of the pupils were enrolled in the “Foundations of Islamic Culture,” a share greater than the percentage of Muslims in the population. In Karachay-Cherkessia, nearly 40 percent of the students were studying Muslim culture. And in Kalmykia, a Buddhist republic, slightly more than half were studying their traditional national faith.
Saturday, October 9, 2010
Window on Eurasia: Arab ‘Islamic’ Names Displacing Persian Ones in Tajikistan
Paul Goble
Staunton, October 9 – Nearly one out of every five newborns in Tajikistan is now being given an Arabic rather than a Persian name and an increasing number of older people are choosing to change their names in the same direction, the result of the growing influence of Islam in that Central Asian republic.
According to a report by Radio Liberty’s Tajik service as translated into Russian by Zpress.kg, Dushanbe officials at the office where births, marriages and deaths are recorded say that this represents a major change over just the last five years. Earlier they said, “we did not know such [Arabic] names” (www.zpress.kg/news/news_only/7/23613/403.py).
The major drivers for this change, which represents not only a break with the national past but also one with Persian culture where the use of Arabic names traditionally has been limited, are the mullahs and imams who enjoy enormous authority and “advise people to choose Islamic names for [their] children,” RL reported.
“I tell people,” Khodzhi Mirzo Ibronov, the mullah of a mosque in Kulob, says, “that Allah prefers such names as Abdulla and Abdurrakhmon,” which have Arabic roots and connections rather than Persian or Tajik ones. At the very least, he suggests, parents should choose names with the “Abd” syllable which in Arabic means “servant.”
This trend is part of a general increase in the influence of Islam in Tajikistan, not only among adults but also among young men who, the service continues, “typically visit evening prayers in nearby mosques after the sermons of the imams” or purchase “compact disks in local markets with the sermons of religious leaders who explain Islamic values.”
Dilshod Rakhimov, a Tajik specialist on culture and art, says that “young men who change their names for Islamic ones are putting their religious attachment above the national one. Each has the right to choose for himself and his children an Islamic name which pleases him but [he added] I think that this is somewhat unserious.”
After all, Rakhimov pointed out, “you do not need to have an Islamic name in order to be a true Muslim. For example, in the Islamic Republic of Iran, people follow their own religion but are not required to have Arabic and religious names.” Instead, in that country, most prefer national ones.
That is what makes the situation in Tajikistan so intriguing. Several years ago, Arabic names were “unknown,” but now they are common, reflecting not only the choices of parents but also of young people who seek to change their names. Two decades ago, the most common names came from Firdousi’s epic poem, “Shahname” or after 1991 from Iranian history.
But today, RL reports, some Tajiks are dropping those Iranian names because it turns out that that some of them, like Jamsid, refer back to a Persian monarch who was not a Muslim but rather a follower of Zoroastrianism. In increasingly Islamicized Tajik society, such references are no longer acceptable.
One 19-year-old Tajik with whom the RL Tajik Service spoke said that recently he had decided to change the name his parents had given him, Shokhrukh, to Muhammed because his increasing familiarity with Islam had convinced him that he should bear a Muslim rather than a Tajik name.
Many of his age cohort are doing the same, but neither he nor they have “officially registered” such changes. That is because the process the Tajikistan government has for changing names is “lengthy, complicated and expensive,” involving not only the collection of numerous documents but quite often the giving of bribes.
As for the newly named Muhammed, he said his lack of registration of this change has no importance for him: “My friends and family call me by my new name, and this is quite sufficient.”
Staunton, October 9 – Nearly one out of every five newborns in Tajikistan is now being given an Arabic rather than a Persian name and an increasing number of older people are choosing to change their names in the same direction, the result of the growing influence of Islam in that Central Asian republic.
According to a report by Radio Liberty’s Tajik service as translated into Russian by Zpress.kg, Dushanbe officials at the office where births, marriages and deaths are recorded say that this represents a major change over just the last five years. Earlier they said, “we did not know such [Arabic] names” (www.zpress.kg/news/news_only/7/23613/403.py).
The major drivers for this change, which represents not only a break with the national past but also one with Persian culture where the use of Arabic names traditionally has been limited, are the mullahs and imams who enjoy enormous authority and “advise people to choose Islamic names for [their] children,” RL reported.
“I tell people,” Khodzhi Mirzo Ibronov, the mullah of a mosque in Kulob, says, “that Allah prefers such names as Abdulla and Abdurrakhmon,” which have Arabic roots and connections rather than Persian or Tajik ones. At the very least, he suggests, parents should choose names with the “Abd” syllable which in Arabic means “servant.”
This trend is part of a general increase in the influence of Islam in Tajikistan, not only among adults but also among young men who, the service continues, “typically visit evening prayers in nearby mosques after the sermons of the imams” or purchase “compact disks in local markets with the sermons of religious leaders who explain Islamic values.”
Dilshod Rakhimov, a Tajik specialist on culture and art, says that “young men who change their names for Islamic ones are putting their religious attachment above the national one. Each has the right to choose for himself and his children an Islamic name which pleases him but [he added] I think that this is somewhat unserious.”
After all, Rakhimov pointed out, “you do not need to have an Islamic name in order to be a true Muslim. For example, in the Islamic Republic of Iran, people follow their own religion but are not required to have Arabic and religious names.” Instead, in that country, most prefer national ones.
That is what makes the situation in Tajikistan so intriguing. Several years ago, Arabic names were “unknown,” but now they are common, reflecting not only the choices of parents but also of young people who seek to change their names. Two decades ago, the most common names came from Firdousi’s epic poem, “Shahname” or after 1991 from Iranian history.
But today, RL reports, some Tajiks are dropping those Iranian names because it turns out that that some of them, like Jamsid, refer back to a Persian monarch who was not a Muslim but rather a follower of Zoroastrianism. In increasingly Islamicized Tajik society, such references are no longer acceptable.
One 19-year-old Tajik with whom the RL Tajik Service spoke said that recently he had decided to change the name his parents had given him, Shokhrukh, to Muhammed because his increasing familiarity with Islam had convinced him that he should bear a Muslim rather than a Tajik name.
Many of his age cohort are doing the same, but neither he nor they have “officially registered” such changes. That is because the process the Tajikistan government has for changing names is “lengthy, complicated and expensive,” involving not only the collection of numerous documents but quite often the giving of bribes.
As for the newly named Muhammed, he said his lack of registration of this change has no importance for him: “My friends and family call me by my new name, and this is quite sufficient.”
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