UOS Journal of Social Sciences & Humanities (UOSJSSH (original) (raw)

Islamic Revivalism in Russia: Impacts on Russian Muslim Community

2024

Islam has been a greatly professed religion in the Soviet Union for many centuries. However, despite years of reprisal and persecution in the Soviet Union by the Czar Russian policies, communist designs, and repressive policies under Lenin, Stalin, Gorbachev Islam has managed to preserve its spirit as a way of life that culturally defined every facet of the believer's existence. This was especially true of Islamic lifestyle rituals including, fasting, feasting, pilgrimages, polygamy, and the handing out of alms. In retrospect, the Soviet campaign against Islam had proved to be only partially successful. It managed to curb Islamic activity and perhaps contained Islamic sentiments in the region but it was far from eradicating the Islamic faith. Now Muslims enjoy freedom in practicing their religious obligations in Russia as protected and accommodated by the state constitutionally and legally. Islam is enjoying rebirth and revival in Russia with multiple impacts on Muslims in Russian society. This study will try to explore socio-demographic facts about the Muslim population in Russia, constitutional and legal protection to religious freedom of Muslims in Russia, Islamic revivalist movements, and their impacts on the Muslim community in Russia.

Seeking a Place for Islam in Post-Soviet Russia

Przegląd Strategiczny, 2021

One of the main characteristics of the post-Soviet transformation was the religious resurgence. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the post-Soviet Islamic revival in the 1990s. The awakening of Islam and seeking the place for Muslims in the society significantly influenced the formation of today’s Russian Federation. The authors examine the factors that influenced the role of Islam in newly created post-Soviet Russia and the federal government’s response to its dynamics. The paper is divided into two parts. The first part deals with the Islamic revival after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The second chapter is focused on the Kremlin’s reaction to new radical movements that emerged during the Islamic awakening and the separatist sentiments in Russia’s Muslim regions. Using the qualitative research method, the authors drew a conclusion that Islamic radicalisation in post-Soviet Russia was caused by several external and internal factors. The political developments in the Rus...

The Politicization of Islamic Society in Post Soviet Russia

Journal of Education Culture and Society, 2020

Aim. The paper analyses the Islamic revival in Russia in the late 20th century and early 21st. This was reflected in the registration of religious communities, the publication of periodicals on Muslim literature, and, in my opinion, most importantly - the construction of mosques and madrassas. It highlights the roles of mosques and madrassas built in the North Caucasus, which later became the theological centers for the spread of Islam and educated youngsters according to their propaganda. Methods. The study mainly uses an analysis method based on the study of historicism, documents and empirical material. The basis of the source are books, scientific articles, research works conducted by Russian and foreign experts. Results. The post-Soviet wars (1994-1996 and 1999-2000) in Chechnya contributed to the politicisation and realisation of Islam in this region. In 1996-1999 there were 26 Sharia courts, numerous Islamic parties, charitable foundations and organisations in the republic an...

Islam in Russia: Religion, Politics, and Society

Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2023

Russia's Muslims have enjoyed quite limited attention in the growing body of English-language literature on Islam and its multifaceted manifestations in global, regional, and local contexts. This is somewhat surprising, considering the size and diversity of the country's Muslim population, the vibrancy of their engagements with the changing society, and the scale and variety of issues associated with various expressions of the religion in Russia. In this book, the authors aim to make a contribution to the existing literature by offering frank and open discussions based on academic research and focused on (1) how the image of Islam in Russia is constructed by various actors in a variety of local contexts, and (2) what implications this has for Russian politics and society. The book's focus inevitably implies a multidisciplinary perspective that could illuminate the different aspects of Islam's diversity in Russia, both historical and contemporary. This includes the academic disciplines of history, political science, sociology, religious studies, and media studies. Many scholars have observed that in the last three decades or so religion has played an increasing role in the global rise of identity politics (Brubaker 2017b). With respect to Russia, the collapse of the Soviet Union and its system of "developed socialism" imparted additional complexity and even dramatic turns to this process. While creating an overarching and overriding Soviet identity was already part and parcel of the Soviet project of "constructing communism" in the 1920s, it became gradually complemented and at certain points even superseded by the policy of "nationbuilding," which historian Yuri Slezkin (1994, 414) describes as a "spectacularly successful attempt at a state-sponsored conflation of language, 'culture,' territory and 1

#48 VALDAI PAPERS RUSSIAN ISLAM AND THE SITUATION IN THE MIDDLE EAST

Islam is one of Russia’s four traditional religions – faiths with longstanding presence in the country. Unlike many European countries, where immigration contributes to the growth of the Muslim population, Russia’s Muslims are local people, long-established populations with ethnic traditions reaching centuries back. These communities include the Tartars, the Russian Federation’s second-largest ethnic group, the Bashkirs, Crimean Tartars, peoples of the North Caucasus, and communities from Central Asia and Kazakhstan, with long-standing ties to Russia. Islam’s main centres lie well beyond Russia’s borders, but except for the years when the Soviet regime pursued a conscious policy of repressing religion, Russia’s Muslim community has never been on the distant margins of the Muslim world. Overall, the Volga region, Crimea, and the North Caucasus continue to develop in a dynamic manner, retaining local traditions and colour, and never losing their ties with the Middle East. Russia’s Muslim community entered the twentieth century as a rapidly developing group bursting with vision and reformist ideas. The Soviet anti-religious experiment forced this community into regression, not only through a wide-scale repression against Muslim leaders and institutions, but also by cutting Russian Muslims off from their fellow Muslims around the world. The post-Soviet period has been marked not so much by an Islamic renaissance as it is by a re-Islamization, given that Muslim institutions had been largely destroyed in many regions and that the religion lingered on only at the most basic ritualistic level. This desolation and degradation of local Islamic centres left an empty space easily fi lled by foreign infl uences, above all from the Middle East. This coincided with the objective growth in the Middle East’s role and infl uence during the last half of the 20th century and the start of the 21st century, as the ‘Islamic globalisation’ movement gathered strength. Thus many developments in the Middle East will inevitably have an impact among Russian Muslims. From this point of view it is easier to understand what is happening in Russia’s Muslim community, comparing the processes underway here with what we are seeing in the Arab world. The Middle East is in many ways the key to making sense of Russia’s own Islamic mosaic and understanding the radicalization and politicization of some communities and the spiritual and ideological distortions and mistaken views that have spread among Russia’s Muslim community in recent years. The political, ideological and religious upheavals in the Middle East have had a direct impact on Russia’s Muslim community. Russian Muslims follow the developments in this part of the world closely. They take an active part in these processes, not always in a constructive fashion (think of the thousands of young people who have joined terrorist groups in Syria and Iraq). But at the same time, Russian Muslims display a high degree of general stability and resistance to radicalization. It is important now to help the Muslim community traverse this diffi cult transformation period and emerge as a constructive, united and positive force rather than as a collection of disparate, radicalized organizations that are hostile toward Russia and other parts of the world.

Islam in Russia: Challenge or Opportunity

According to the 2010 census, ethnic Russians accounts for 77.7 percent of 142.3 million estimated Russian population. The image of Russia in the world is rarely associated with Islam and Islamic identity, in general. While Orthodox Christianity is the country’s predominant confession, not many know that Russia is home to as many as 20 million Muslims of various ethnic backgrounds. Russian leaders and politicians repeatedly stress the significance of Islam as integral to the political fabric of statehood, historically and in the contemporary era. Islam in Russia is a complex, transversal and multidimensional issue and its growing importance in Russia will shape the future of the country in at least five main directions: the overall demographic balance of the country; the strategy of ‘normalizing’ the regions of the North Caucasus; Russia’s migration policy; Russia’s positioning on the international scene; and the transformation of Russian national identity. This article examines the current role of Islam in Russian society, focusing on its role in Moscow internal and external policies and paying special attention to issues such as Muslims demographics, immigration, different streams in Russian Islam and the threat of terrorism.

Introduction: the image of Islam in Russia

Religion, State and Society

Russia has a long, complicated and, at times, contradictory relationship with Islam and Muslims. Islam is classified as one of the 'traditional' religions, along with Christianity, Judaism and Buddhism. Throughout Russia's history across the centuries, the efforts by the state and Muslims to define their relationship have led to contradictory outcomes. This special issue grew out of a conference that took place in 2016, seeking to explore the complicated nature of the image of Islam in Russia from a multidisciplinary perspective. A collection of six contributions explore how Islam is viewed and projected in the public and media sphere in contemporary Russia, including state attempts to 'manage' the development of Islam, initiatives to transform the public image of Muslims and the charitable work of a mosque at the local level.