Paul
Goble
Staunton, November 26 – Young people
in Daghestan “are not only more religious but also more conservative in their
religiosity,” according to Irina Starodubrovskaya, something that she suggests
will do little to promote modernization in that North Caucasus republic and may
point toward even more serious problems ahead.
In an interview conducted by Badma
Buyrchiyev of the Kavkazskaya politika portal, the Gaidar Institute specialist
on the regions discusses the findings of her recently completed investigation
into the values of Daghestanis, one that involved a survey of some 1600 of them
(kavpolit.com/articles/irina_starodubrvoskaja_dagestanskih_musulman_obedi-29816/).
The study, which involved an
Internet poll because religious tensions in the republic made more direct
methods impossible, was conducted by the Gaidar Institute and the Russian
Academy of Economics and State Service.
1675 people filled out the survey form, although nearly twice as many
began it and then stopped, Starodubrovskaya says.
It used three key questions to
identify Daghestanis in terms of their religiosity: “Do you pray five times a
day?” “Do you belong to a [Sufi] tariqat?” and “Do you take part in mavlids?” On the basis of that, the authors concluded
that 22 percent of Daghestanis were secular, 27 percent were percent were
traditionalists, and 22 percent were non-traditional Muslims.
Because those who took part were
self-selected, the Moscow scholar continues, one cannot assert that these
divisions mirror those in Daghestani society as a whole. But they are
suggestive, especially in terms of differences among the generational cohorts
in that North Caucasus republic.
And they allow for one important
corrective to the views of many, she says. Typically, the expert community
divides the Muslims of Daghestan and elsewhere into the moderates and the radicals
depending on their attitude toward force. “Our investigation allows us to
suggest that this division is much deeper and touches fundamental values.”
“Thus,” Starodubrovskaya continues, “on
questions of general equality, participation in elections, and trust in other
people, the responses of supporters of non-traditional Islam split practically
right down the middle between these opposing positions,” thus suggesting the
need for a finer grained approach.
Further, she says, “judging from
everything, young people [in Daghestan] not only are more religious but also
more conservative in religiosity. Among them are more who back independent
reading of translations of the Koran in favor of reading interpretations and
also a search for the resolution of religious issues within a single legal
school and not among contemporary teachers.”
On the one hand, that can have a
positive consequence because younger people are more inclined to go back to
primary sources. “However, on the other,
the contemporary individual is someone who thinks independently and the
uncritical acceptance by the young of prepared recipes in such an important
sphere for Daghestan as the religious one will hardly promote the modernization
of the region.”
In addition to her conclusion that “young
people are more religious and more conservative in their religiosity,” Starodubrovskaya
says, the study found that “what unites Daghestani Muslims in the first
instance are modernized values” and that “non-traditional Muslims on the whole
are somewhat more archaic.”
But at the same time, she adds, all
these groups are subdivided and the research shows that they overlap on
particular issues than many are inclined to think, with conservatives backing
free choice and moderates insisting on the observance of traditional values as
far as women and education are concerned.
Such overlap means that there is
more communication among these groups and less certain opposition among them
than many think, a pattern that not only allows for shifts toward modernity but
away from it as well, especially if the young are the more religious and the
more conservative in their religiosity as is now the case.
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