Ingush Alims Denounce Land Deal with Chechnya as Violation of Shariat Law

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 4 – In a move that will only further deepen the commitment of Ingush society to protest the land deal with Chechnya, the collegium of alims of the Muslim community of the republic, meeting as a shariat court, said that those who had signed that deal violated the norms of shariat law and the interests of the Ingush people.

            They made their declaration after reviewing the report prepared by the All-National Commission organized by the Council of Teips. (On that report, which the civil authorities have ignored, see windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2021/07/council-of-teips-approves-report-on.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2021/09/at-ingush-seven-trial-former-official.html.)

            The Ingush alims declared that “any leader must represent and defend the interests of his people. Anyone who betrays these intersts will burn in hell and will have to answer for his actions before the All-High. A leader must do only what does not harm the rights of the people” (fortanga.org/2021/09/bogoslovy-soglashenie-ob-otchuzhdenii-zemel-ingushetii-protivorechit-normam-shariata/).

            According to the alims, “the agreement signed by former Ingushetia head Yu.-B. Yevkurov about the transfer of a significantly large territory for a small republic, despite mass anger of its residents, was not something the shariat court approves.” This action harmed Ingushetia and “divided fraternal peoples, sowing hatred between them.”

            The alims condemned him and others for trying to manipulate the situation to give it a veneer of legality. They explicitly rejected claims that the republic’s legislature had approved the agreement and that that same legislature changed the law so that Yevkurov could do what he did. Neither action happened, the shariat court said.

            Meanwhile, Ingushetia faces serious problems on another front. The government has had to freeze the accounts of the ministry which oversees nationality policy, the media and information because that agency has overspent its funds to house refugees from Ukraine (fortanga.org/2021/09/otgoloski-iz-proshlogo-scheta-ingushskogo-minnacza-zamorozheny/).

            The freezing of the ministry’s account is likely to affect the republic’s state television and radio corporation, four government newspapers and journals, the apparatus of the republic’s Social Chamber, and perhaps likely to anger the population, the maintenance of the republic’s memorial cemetery, Gloazot kashamash.