Russian Authorities Allowing Salafi Muslim Leaders to Continue to Preach as Long as They Don't Criticize Putin

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 17 – Russian officials are repressing some but not all Salafi Muslim leaders in the North Caucasus, going after those who can be plausibly linked with terrorist groups or independence movements but leaving untouched those who promote their radical Islamist vision but profess loyalty to the Russian government.

            There are clearly enough imams in both categories, and so the Russian siloviki have harassed and arrested many in Ingushetia and other North Caucasus republics. But these Russian forces have left untouched those who do not criticize Putin or his war but who do not change their own religious positions (kavkazr.com/a/pytayu-prosto-tak-presledovanie-salafitskih-imamov-v-ingushetii/33493415.html).

            That the Russian authorities feel compelled to make this distinction now rather than come down hard on all Salafi activists as they have often done in the past suggests that there are now so many Salafi imams that to arrest all of them would simply drive this strain of Islam underground and present the authorities with the even greater threat of an Islamist underground.

            Indeed, that may be the most important lesson of the current arrests. Moscow is prepared to ignore radical Islamists in the North Caucasus and even a growth in their numbers as long as those who achieve positions of responsibility in mosques and Muslim Spiritual Directorates don’t criticize Putin or his war. 

            In the short term, that may be a winning strategy as far as Moscow is concerned; but in the longer term, it opens the way to a further Islamization and radicalization of the population in ways that will threaten Moscow's control even more.