‘We are an Orthodox State Not Arabistan,’ Moscow Officials Say in Rejecting Calls for More Mosques

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 4 – The 1993 Russian Constitution may specify that church and state are separate in that country, but Moscow officials repeatedly have explained their rejection of requests to build more mosques in Moscow by saying “we are an Orthodox state, Russia and not some sort of Arabistan.” 

            Bakhrom Khamroyev, a human rights activist who assists Central Asian immigrants, says he has heard that refrain repeatedly over the years whenever he or others have requested that Moscow build more mosques given that the four now in the city are far from sufficient to handle the several million Muslims there (mbk-news.appspot.com/suzhet/ne-kakoj-to-arabistan-a-rossiya/).

            And such attitudes are widespread even though some officials like Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin have issued positive statements about the role of Muslims in the capital (vm.ru/news/654472.html) and have closed streets and opened 39 squares for public prayer (moscow.sm-news.ru/otkroyut-39-ploshhadok-dlya-molitvy-v-moskve-ogranichat-dvizhenie-po-sluchayu-uraza-bajram-9335/).

            The shortage of mosques in the Russian capital is always underlined by the massive crowds who come to pray at the end of Ramadan. The four mosques now operating hold no more than 20,000, but the number who want to pray with others this year as in the past exceeded more than a quarter of a million.

            Over the last half dozen years, the civil authorities have allowed Muslims to rebuilt the Cathedral Mosque in the capital and expand its capacity. But Khamroyev says this is not to make things easier for Muslims there but to offer a positive image of Russian policy to the Muslim world. “This in essence is a state mosque and in fact only for show.”

            “If the authorities really waned to help Muslims, then they would build many more mosques,” he says. Khamroyev suggests that in fact the authorities want the Muslim crowds to spill over into the streets so as to suggest to other residents that Muslims are “somehow disorderly and abnormal,” thus mobilizing them against Islam.

            Russian media have trumpeted the fact that a new mosque, the fifth in the capital, will open next year (islamnews.ru/news-muftij-sobyanin-razreshil-postroit-mechet-v-novoj-moskve). But in reality, it will only be part of “the inter-confessional religious complex” that Sobyanin has planned for “New Moscow” (mbk-news.appspot.com/suzhet/ne-kakoj-to-arabistan-a-rossiya/).

            The fact that there are only four mosques now and that new ones are being opposed by the authorities at every step is especially offensive to believers because there are now about 1,000 Russian Orthodox churches there – and the Moscow Patriarchate is pushing to open more almost every day.