Paul
Goble
Staunton, February 2 – More than 90
percent of Tatars under the age of 30 identify themselves as Muslims with a
large share of them taking part in one or more religious activities, according
to a leading Kazan sociologist. But she says that this pattern in no way has
undermined the stability of the republic as some observers have claimed.
Guzel Guzelbayeva, a sociologist at
the Kazan Federal University, bases those conclusions on polls of more than
1500 Tatars that she conducted in 2008 and 2011 (She plans to do another this
year.) and on in-depth interviews with more than 70 young Tatars about their
attitudes toward and experience with Islam (islamrf.ru/news/analytics/point-of-view/25988/).
Since the end of communism, she
notes, there has been a rebirth in interest in Islam, particularly among Tatars
over 60 and those under 30. If the increase among the older group was not
unexpected, that among the young is “an interesting, unexpected and new
phenomenon,” Gulzebayeva suggests.
Young Tatars turn to religion as
part of their search for spiritual direction given what they see as the failings
of contemporary mass culture, she says. But they also do so because religious
practice and belief has become “fashionable” rather than being steps that put
an individual at odds with his cohort and society as a whole.
“The new generation in Tatarstan
lives in different circumstances” than those in the past “It is possible to
watch TV programs about Islam every Friday, part of the population observes
fasts, many mark religious holidays. and the secular media and ordinary
citizens show a lively interest in religion,” she says, adding that “to believe
in God is now something normal.”
As a result, she continues, “it is
becoming unfashionable and something of an oddity to say of oneself that ‘I am
an atheist.’”
.
This
increase in religious interest among the young sets them apart from those in
their 30s, 40s, and 50s, Guzelbayeva says, with many of the latter, who grew up
in Soviet times, expressing incomprehension about why young people now are
turning to religion. They form part of the 15 percent of Tatarstan residents
who oppose the use of the hijab.
Young
women have told her, the sociologist says, that they have encountered “excessive
attention to their dress” when they wear the hijab and “even open condemnation.”
But they have also indicated that this opposition to Muslim dress has been
dissipating over the last several years.
One
of the most interesting developments among this younger generation of religious
Tatars is that they are forming groups on their own to address social problems
or even, in one case, that of the Altyn Urta organization, to combat the
influence of Muslims who criticize “traditional” Tatar Islam.
Religiosity
among the young has grown most rapidly in Kazan rather than in other cities or
in rural areas. And its growth, the sociologist says, has had an important
consequence: “Unlike the Russians, most of whose believers are women, among the
religious Tatars, there are roughly equal numbers of men and women.”
While
some have sought to present Tatarstan as a hotbed of Islamist extremism, the
data do not support that conclusion. People there are more concerned about
social problems than about Islam. “They do not see a threat from Islam and Muslims.”
Thus, “Tatarstan remains a stable region, one in which the probability of
conflicts on a religious basis are extremely small.”
And
Guzelbayev concludes her comments with data that may help to explain why: While
Tatars as a whole overwhelmingly identify as Muslims, only about six percent of
them are what the sociologist calls “deeply religious,” roughly the same share
in the republic’s population as those who say they are “non-believers.”
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