Polygamy Fetwa Case Misunderstood and Debate over that Practice Far from Over, Experts Say

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Dec. 25 – Both Russian and Western media have seriously misunderstood the conflict between the Muslim leadership of the Russian Federation and the Russian government over a fetwa about polygamy and assumed that the debate about it is over now that Moscow has forced Muslim religious leaders to withdraw it.
    According to what appears to be on its way to be conventional wisdom, the muftis issued a fetwa permitting polygamy among Russia’s Muslims on Dec. 19, Russian politicians and commentators reacted with fury, and Moscow forced the muftis to withdraw the fetwa, effectively banning polygamy in Russia for all time.
    But in fact, the fetwa did not extend the right of Muslims to polygamy as far as their faith is concerned or affect the state’s right to ban that practice as far as government-registered marriages are concerned. What it did was to establish certain rules about how such arrangements could take place. Thus, the withdrawal of the fetwa doesn’t affect the right of Muslims as such.  
    Damir Mukhetdinov, first deputy head of the Spiritual Administration of the Russian Federation, pointed this out to the Kavkaz-Uzel portal; and he was seconded by Leonid Syukayynen, a leading specialist on Islam at Moscow’s HSE, North Caucasus expert Yekaterina Sokyanskaya and Marem activist Katerina Neroznikova (kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/406952).
    Mukhetdinov noted that the Council of Ulema of the Spiritual Administration “did not permit and could in no way have been able to permit polygamy because it was already legalized in the Koran” and that Moscow’s insistence on the withdrawal of the fetwa was an action taken by officials ill-disposed to Islam and who “did not understand” what the fetwa was about.   
    What this means is that Moscow has not achieved what it thinks it has but only has infuriated many traditional Muslims who are upset both about the central government’s intervention on religious issues it doesn’t understand and its attempt to alter Islamic precepts as laid on in the Koran.                                      Consequently, the debate of polygamy will continue in Russia, regardless of what Moscow thinks -- and Moscow may have less influence over its course precisely because of the clumsy way it intervened in this particular case.