North Caucasian Mufti Says Ukraine Must Cease to Exist

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Mar. 29 – Moscow has been pressing the Muslim leaders it controls to back Putin’s war in Ukraine, and the more dependent the muftis are, the more they are prepared to say what the Kremlin wants to hear (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2022/04/moscow-pressing-russias-muslims-to.html).

            Two weeks ago, the most loyal muftis of Russia but far from all of them assembled in Vladikavkaz and declared that for Muslims, service in the Russian armed services in Ukraine was a form of jihad (trtrussian.com/mnenie/musulmanskoe-izmerenie-rossijsko-ukrainskoj-vojny-8395145).

            Now, Mufti Ismail Berdiyev, head of the Muslim organization for the North Caucasus as a whole, says that Ukrainians and Ukraine as an entity “must be destroyed completely.” They have no right to exist and Russia should not negotiate with them or even accept their unconditional surrender. It should destroy them (business-gazeta.ru/article/545068).

            His comments came at a Duma roundtable on World Traditional Religions Against the Ideology of Nazism and Fascism in the 21^st century at which some of his fellow muftis make equally hyperbolic statements, but others significantly remained silent, an indication that there are deep divides within the Muslim umma of the Russian Federation.

            Mufti Albir Krganov, head of the Spiritual Assembly of Muslims of Russia, said that fascism must be destroyed in Ukraine and to that end he called for working with the rising generation there so that it will never follow in the footsteps of its parents and grandparents.

            Chechen Mufti Salakh Mezhiyev said that Russia must combat “the fascists, Nazis, satanists, LGBT communities, the Wahhabites and other black devils” arrayed against it in Ukraine. And Supreme Mufti of Russia Talgat Tajuddin celebrated the Russian military’s destruction of the Ukrainian forces opposing it.

            But significantly, the two muftis representing the Middle Volga, Kamil Samigullin of Tatarstan and Aynur Birgalin of Bashkortostan, even though they were present, chose not to speak, an indication that they and their followers are less enthusiastic about the more extreme programs of their colleagues.

            At the conclusion of the roundtable, Mufti Krgnaov read out three appeals from the gathering: one to the UN demanding that it intervene in Ukraine to prevent the discrimination of Russian speakers in Ukraine, a second to the international community urging it to press Kyiv to allow the evacuation of citizens from combat zones, and one to Putin asking that he convene an international conference on combatting fascism.