Russia’s 100 Most Influential Muslims Extremely Accomplished and Diverse

Paul Goble

            Staunton, August 13 – A small number of Russia’s Musims have appeared on lists of most influential Muslims compiled by a variety of foreign outlets, but until now, no domestic publication has tried to compile a list of the most influential. Now, Kazan’s Business-Gazeta has filled that gap with a list of 100 such people.

            The list was compiled by the Tatarstan publication on the basis of a survey of Muslim leaders about who among the more than 20 million Muslims are the most influential.  The list thus produced is amazingly diverse, ranging from leaders of Muslim communities to Muslims who do not stress their religious background (business-gazeta.ru/article/434348).

            To give some idea of this diverse group of people, here are “the top ten” on a list that will undoubtedly provoke discussion and dissent with Muslims and non-Muslims alike disagreeing on who is on the list at all or on their ranking.  But the 8,000-word article provides a virtual biographic guide to men and women whom most would agree are extremely important.

1.      Mufti Ravil Gaynutdin, head of the Council of Muftis of Russia (SMR) (one of the three most important super-Muslim Spiritual Directorates (SMR), an outspoken defender of the Muslim community and advocate for the creation of a single power vertical within Russian Islam to expand its influence.

2.      Mintimir Shaymiyev, former president of Tatarstan and now even more active as a promoter of Muslim projects including the Bulgar Islamic Academy even as he continues to speak out on political issues.

3.      Khabib Nurmagomedov, a boxer from Daghestan, who is for many people in Russia and around the world “the face of Russian Islam.

4.      Rustam Minnikhanov, the current president of Tatarstan and the informal leader of all Tatars of the world.

5.      Ramzan Kadyrov, head of Chechnya. His political statements and actions remain controversial, the paper says, “but from the point of view of his defense of the values of traditional Islam, no one questions” Kadyrov’s commitment.

6.      Alisher Usmanov, the billionaire head of USM  Holdings who had contributed hundreds of millions of rubles for the construction and reconstruction of mosques and religious educational institutions in Moscow and the Middle Volga.

7.      Talgat Tadzhuddin, head of the Central Muslim Spiritual Directorate (MSD) who has been prominent in Russian Muslim affairs since 1980.  “All remaining Russian muftis are one way or another his pupils.” But he is not the man he was in the 1990s and his influence, once unchallenged is “already far from absolute.”

8.      Suleyman Kerimov, the billionaire businessman who now represents Daghestan in the Federation Council despite his legal difficulties in France. 

9.      Marat Khusnullin, vice mayor of Moscow for city planning and construction, who has helped Muslims redevelop existing mosques and has backed their desire for more mosques in the Russian capital.

10.  Shamil Alyautdinov, the imam khatib of Moscow’s Memorial Mosque, and a theologian read everywhere in Russia except Daghestan where his reformist views are anathema.