Paul
Goble
Staunton, March 7 – A change at the
top of the Muslim Spiritual Directorate of Tatarstan yesterday represents a new
effort by Moscow to limit foreign influences on the Russian umma and to
restrict the ability of the republic authorites to use Islam as a political
resource in their struggles with the central Russian government.
At one level, of course, the
resignation of the incumbent mufti may reflect nothing more than the result of
injuries he received during an assassination attempt last summer, and the
selection of his replacement, a 28-year-old mullah, may reflect official that
his age will either allow him to reach out to younger Muslims or further reduce
the influence of Islam in the region.
But at another, more fundamental
level, as numerous commentaries on this event suggest, this change in Kazan
reflects but does not finally resolve three long-simmering tensions in the
Muslim community of Tatarstan and the relationship of that community to the
secular authorities in Kazan and in Moscow.
First, they reflect a longstanding
tension between the traditionalist trend in Tatar Islam, known as kadimism,
which has usually sided with the state but only at the cost of influence among
the Tatar faithful, and the modernist tradition, known as jadidism, which the
tsarist, Soviet, Russian governments have all viewed as a greater threat to
state power.
Second, they reflect the conflict
between Saudi and Turkish influences on the Muslim community of the Middle
Volga, influences that both Moscow and Kazan would like to limit but that they
have been forced over the last decade to tack between, supporting now one and
then another in the hopes of limiting both.
And third, these events reflect
Moscow’s unhappiness with what it sees as the rise of Islamist extremism in
Tatarstan, the inability of the republic’s Muslim Spiritual Directorate and the
republic government to combat it, and the fear that both are promoting the
growth of Islam even if that means the appearance of some radical elements.
Ildus Faizov, who had been muft,
resigned as did his first deputy Abdulla Adygamov. Faizov said he was leaving
because the injuries he received in July 2012 had left him unable to perform
his duties, but many have suggested he left because he was pushed, either by
Moscow which is worried the rise of radicalism in Tatarstan or by Kazan which
has been unhappy with his pro-Moscow positions.
Faizov’s replacement, still on an
acting basis but likely to be made a permanency, is
Kamil Samigullin, imam-khatyb of the Tynychlyk mosque in azan and head of the Tatarstan
MSD’s publications arm. As of last year,
he became a deputy mufti and so may have been groomed as a replacement even
though few appear to have expected his rapid rise.
But
more interesting than his position and age is his background.In 2003, he
studied at the North Caucasus Islamic University in Daghestan. From 2004- to
2007, he studied at an Istanbul medressah where he became a sufi. He then
received his degree from the Russian Islamic University in Kazan. He speaks
both Arabic and Turkish.
Some of the
comments about what Samigullin’s elevation means are fascinating even if it
remains uncertain whether the new mufti will have the freedom of action to pursue
any of them. Islamrf.ru suggested that
his levation represented an attempt to elevate kadaism over jadidism and that
it would fail as past attempts have (islamrf.ru/news/analytics/amal/26477/).
It noted that Samigullin has promoted
the kadamist agenda of ultra-orthodox belief and subordination to the Russian
state (kazan-center.ru/osnovnye-razdely/9/277/) but suggested
that past efforts in that direction had failed, including one by an earlier
youthful mufti in 1915 who even went so far as to create a Tatar branch of the
Russian blackhundreds before being ousted.
The portal’s editors suggested that
the new mufti might face the same fate because constant stress on his version
of “traditional Islam” will undermine the MSD and because “no normal Russian
Muslim will associate himself with the blackhundreds” because then he would
lose his ability to work with other religions or with the republic government.
Ruslan Aysin, a Kazan political
scientist, suggested that the decision to elevate Samigullin was made by Kazan
with the agreement of Moscow because “such are the rules: Tatarstan today is
not in a position to decide such questions autonomously,” although he lie
others implied that the choice was a compromise (wordyou.ru/kolonki/moskva-kak-mnogo-v-etom-slove-dlya-serdca-muftiya.html).
What the new mufti will be able to
do, Aysin continued, will be limited by “the strategic decisions” which will be
made by “a special administration with a staff of 40” in the apparatus of the
Tatarstan president. Being young, Samigullin may be able to reach out to
younger Muslims, but for the same reason, he may lack authority with older
Muslim leaders.
What Samigullin may be able to do,
the political scientist suggested, is to keep things quiet for a time, at least
through the Universiad games later this year; and perhaps that requirement more
than any other played a key element in the calculations of Moscow, Kazan and even
Faizov himself.
In a discussion
of these possibilities in yesterday’s “Nezavisimaya gazeta,” Gleb Postnov
suggests that Samigullin’s elevation will “strengthen Turish influence on the
Muslims of the republic” and thus limit that of the Arabs, who have been held
responsible for the spread of Wahhabism in the Middle Volga and elsewhere (ng.ru/regions/2013-03-06/6_tatarstan.html).
He quotes Rais Suleymanov, the head
of the Volga Center for Regional and Ethno-Religious Research, on this point.
Accordidng to Suleymanov, who is viewed as an Islamophobe by many, the
Tatarstan government forced Faizov to resign but will soon recognize that this
was “a major political mistake.”
Faizov was an opponent of “any
foreign religious influence” in Tatarstan, and he was ousted because of the influence
of the Wahhabi “holding” in the republic government, Suleymanov says. But now, as Kazan is going to learn. “the main
thing is not to allow Turkey” and a Turkish-trained mufti to dominate “the
religious space of Tatarstan.”
But perhaps the most insightful
comment was made by Damir Khazrat Mukhetdinov, rector of Moscow’s Islamic
University. He said that he doesn’t “think
that the promotion of Samigullin … will promote the unity of the Tatarstan
umma. Just the reverse.” Samigullin may be able to reach out to the young, but
he lacs the standing to win many of the mullahs and imams (damir-hazrat.livejournal.com/88330.html).
Samigullin’s youth may work against
him and the Islamic community in the Middle Volga in another way: It may allow
those behind the scenes either religious or secular to take control “of all its
financial flows” and mean that the decisions of the new mufti will be “entirely
under [their] control.”
But such people have to know quite
well, Muhetdinov continued, that “an ultra-orthodox kadammst will not become a
consolidating figure but rather will generate a new wave” of conflict. “Evidently,”
he continues, Samigullin’s elevation is the result of behind the scenes
struggles “among different clans within the Tatarstan elites,” some of whom may
want to “destabilize” the situation sooner or later.
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