Muslims Taking Lead in Fighting ‘Creeping Clericalization’ of Russia, Yemelyanov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, December 3 – Many Russians believers and non-believers are troubled by what they see as “the creeping clericalization” of Russian life. They see this drive, supported by the Moscow Patriarchate and in some cases the Russian state, as a threat to their faiths and to the country’s constitution.

            Muslim groups, whose faith is non-clerical in principle – its religious leaders do not have the special status Christian priests and ministers do – are now taking the lead in fighting clericalism, according to Valery-Ismail Yemelyanov, a Russian historian who has converted to Islam and writes commentaries of Credo Press (credo.press/227957/).

                Last month in Nalchik, Muslim leaders convened to discuss “Islamic Legal Culture in Russia: Its Current State and Prospects.”  Its participants stressed that Muslim leaders must not get intertwined in their actions with the actions of the state. That is, there must not be any clericalization. They even adopted a resolution condemning that course of development.

            What this means, Yemelyanov continues, is that the Muslim community recommitted itself to the secular character of the Russian state and even opened the way for additional meeting within the Muslim community and more broadly to defend and promote secularism in the state in order to protect the religious communities from unwelcome distortions of their ideas.

            “In recent decades,” the historian says, “there have been growing signs of clericalism in Russia, of the extraordinarily close coming together of religious structures with government authorities.”  This trend has emerged from and been promoted by the Russian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate, not by Muslims.

            Given this, Yemelyanov continues, “it would be extremely constructive if Russia’s Muslims would call on all ‘traditional’ confessions and religions of the country to assemble and adopt something like a join declaration or manifesto about the impermissibility of the clericalization of Russian society.”

            That trend, he stresses, is “dangerous” because “Russian society is multi-national and multi-religious” and would be divided and undermined by clericalization.”

            Unfortunately, while the Muslims meeting in Nalchik were absolutely correct in their support for a secular state and in their loyalty to that state, they went too far in suggesting that Muslims in Russia should stop talking about shariat courts lest that spark hostility to Islam (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2019/12/are-russias-muslims-now-going-to-stop.html).

                Such courts are absolutely necessary but they are something that functions within the Muslim community rather than being a Trojan horse for the introduction of Islamic ideas into secular law, the historian suggests.  As such, “shariat courts or something like them must exist within the umma” and help that community govern itself rather than challenge civil law.

            Such intra-religious courts are something entirely normal and widespread,Yemelyanov points out, noting that “no one is asking that the ROC MP or the Jews give up their intra-confessional courts.” Muslims shouldn’t be offering to do so either: they simply need to be very clear about the nature and limits of such Islamic courts.