Moscow has Introduced Course Promoting Civic Identity in 42 of Russia’s 80 Muslim Training Centers

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Nov. 18 – To integrate Muslims more fully into the non-ethnic Russian nation, fight Islamism, and promote service in Russian institutions like the military, Moscow has succeeded in introducing a special course promoting civic identity in 42 of Russia’s higher Muslim training centers (the 12 higher educational institutions and 30 medressahs).

            While the share of Muslim training centers which have agreed to introduce this course is more than 50 percent, it is perhaps striking that almost half of these institutions have resisted doing so, an indication of the difficulties Moscow faces in promoting its understanding of how Russia’s Muslims should identify.

            Some Muslims reportedly are especially incensed by the introduction of this course at Kazan’s Russian Islamic Institute and the use of textbooks there that they view as anti-Islamic (facebook.com/KolSharif/posts/220942493613654 and (idel-ural.org/archives/formirovanie-obshherossijskoj-grazhdanskoj-identichnosti-musulman-rossii-studentov-gotovyat-stat-zhertvoj-russkogo-mira/).