Paul Goble
Staunton, Aug. 5 – The death of Mufti Ismail Berdiyev, 70, who has headed the Coordinating Center for Muslims of the North Caucasus since 2003, represents a real problem for Moscow. While Berdiyev was sometimes eccentric in his proposals, he was a Moscow loyalist and well-liked across the region. Replacing him will not be easy.
An ethnic Karachay who was born in exile in Kazakhstan in 1954, Berdiyev received his training at the Bukhara medressah, the Islamic Institute in Tashkent and at Al Azhar University in Cairo and began his rise through the ranks of Muslim leaders in Stavropol Kray and Karachayevo-Cherkessia at the end of Soviet times (ura.news/news/1052801606).
Unlike many Muslim leaders in the Russian Federation, Berdiyev managed to maintain support not only in the Kremlin but also among his flock; and with his passing, praise for his work has come in from all sides, a reflection of the fact that he had credibility as both a victim of Soviet policies and also a beneficiary of later Soviet and then Russian leaders.
Finding a replacement will be difficult not only because those Muslim leaders with that kind of background are ever more difficult to identify but also because the Muslim communities in the North Caucasus are not only the most committed but in many ways the most diverse of any region in that country.
Berdiyev was able to reach out to almost everyone. Identifying and installing someone equally equipped to do that will be a serious challenge, especially given the increasing Islamization in Dagestan and the often quirky Islamic policies of Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov (jamestown.org/program/new-and-more-radical-islamist-movement-threatens-russian-control-in-north-caucasus/).
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