Islam East of the Urals Hardly Marginal or Peripheral, New Study Shows

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 18 – When people talk about Islam in Russia, they naturally focus on the Muslim communities of the North Caucasus and the Middle Volga and the millions of migrant workers from Central Asia and the Caucasus who have come to Russian cities; and they tend to view Muslims elsewhere as marginal.

            But a new book (A.P. Yarkov and A.N. Starostin, Islam from the Urals to Kamchatka (in Russian; Tyumen, 2021, 298 pp.) makes clear, Aleksey Malashenko says in a review that “Islam to the east of the Urals is not peripheral” in either its size or involvement in the developments and debates affecting Muslims elsewhere (ng.ru/ng_religii/2021-10-19/12_517_book2.html).

            Unlike other investigators who have focused on this or that community there, the Moscow specialist on Islam says, Yarkov and Starostin seek to present a picture of the Muslim community of the region as a whole. Because they do, they highlight its growing size and impact on Islam not only there but elsewhere.

            Indeed, Malashenko says, one can call their work “a handbook in the best sense of this word.” For example, the authors report that Muslims now form 13 percent of the population of Tyumen Oblast, seven percent of that in Kurgan Oblast, and 6.7 percent of the population of Omsk Oblast.

            And their book is especially useful because Yarkov and Starostin avoid the attacks on this or that Muslim leader, preferring instead to report on what these people say rather than settling scores within the community or currying favor with the authorities.