Window on Eurasia

Ethnic Russian Converts to Islam Turning Up in Terrorist Groups

 

Paul Goble

Vienna, August 21, 2006 – Although the total number of ethnic Russians who
have converted to Islam in recent years is not large – certainly
fewer than 20,000 – the participation of a small number of them in
terrorist actions against Moscow is attracting ever more Russian media attention
and concern.

Last week, the Moscow newspaper “Komsomol’skaya pravda” ran a
three-part article by its special correspondent Yaroslava Tan’kova
under the provocative title “Why Russians are Becoming Islamic
Terrorists”
[http://www.kp.ru/daily/23756/56219/],
[http://www.kp.ru/daily/23757/56261],
and [http://www.kp.ru/23756/56360].

The Russian authorities allowed Tan’kova both to read the 70 volumes
of evidence gathered in the case of one terrorist group and to talk
with several of its members now in Russian prisons. Her conclusions and
particularly the comments of experts appended to each article are
certain to disturb many of the paper’s readers.

“In Russia,” she writes, “it is customary to assume tha the
majority of terrorists are from the Caucasus” and thus to accept as
entirely legitimate actions of the militia and other governmental
bodies against “persons of Caucasus nationality.” But in the group she was
able to study “a large half” of the members were “Slavs!”

“The only thing that linked them to the Caucasus was Islam,” she
continues, and all of them converted to that faith not as children but
when they were already “conscious” adults. In her articles, she
provides details about all of these people, both those who have been
killed and those who are in prison.

Tan’kova notes that these ethnic Russian and ethnic Ukrainian
converts to Islam took part in terrorist actions not for money but out of
personal conviction, however misplaced, something that she reports they
were especially proud of and regularly contrasted with the situation of
those they were fighting against.

One reason these Slavic converts are so disturbing to Russian
officials, she says, is that it is extremely difficult for the authorities to
identify them. Because they don’t look like Chechens or “people
from the Caucasus,” they can elude surveillance – something that
Tan’kova says makes them especially valuable for their terrorist
chiefs.

But other Russians are likely to be especially concerned because of the
arguments presented by three experts appended to Tan’kova’s
articles. Sociologist Robert Viland notes that many young Russians are
attracted to Islam because of its “harsh discipline,” something
that gives order and meaning to their lives.

“People are tired of disorder and the excessive freedom in their own
lives which can make them feel unnecessary,” he continues. For such
people, “Islam provides a clearly defined basis for obedience” –
unlike, Viland says, Christian churches that “for a long time” have
become “secular” and “cannot offer people” something similar.

Vyacheslav-Ali Polosin, an advisor to the Union of Muftis of Russia
(SMR) and someone whose conversion from Orthodoxy to Islam a decade agp
attracted much attention, stressed that people should remember
“extremism is not popular among Muslims but that Islam is popular
among extremists.”

Polosin’s view was implicitly seconded by Mikhail Vinogradov, a criminal psychologist who in Soviet times developed a test of
“aggressive pathology” for applicants to the GRU, Interior
Ministry, and KGB which he and his colleagues wanted to apply to society as a
whole but were constrained by human rights activists.

Those who turn to terrorism may draw on religion, he continues, but if
religion does not supply it, then those inclined to take part in such
violence “will find another reason to do so.” And he adds, their
number are certain to be increased by those who feel as many in
Chechnya now do that they have nothing to lose.

Tan’kova’s articles have already attracted the attention of other
media oulets, but many Russians and especially members and hierarchs of
the Russian Orthodox Church may be even more alarmed by the less widely
reported decision of a Russian Orthodox priest to convert to Islam –
and the reasons he gave for his action.

Earlier this month, Vladislav Sokhin, a graduate of the Kursk Orthodox
Seminary, the St. Petersburg Spiritual Academy, and Kursk State
University and a priest in that region since 2001, announced that he
was leaving the Church because he had accepted Islam.

In articles placed on the Islam.ru website, Sokhin laid out the reasons
that had led him to convert. On the one hand, he said he could no
longer tolerate the “paganistic,” almost polytheistic worship of saints so
widespread in popular Orthodoxy
[http://www.islam.ru/pressclub/gost/sohin/] and
[http://www.islam.ru/newmuslim/sohinvl]).

And on the other hand, he continued, he did not want to be constrained
by the Moscow Patriarchate’s slavish obedience to the policies of the
Russian state. A religious leader should be free to express himself
about all issues involving moral questions, something he said the
Orthodox Church does not permit.

Such arguments represent a serious challenge not only to the Church
itself but to Russian society more broadly, according to Roman Lunkin,
the editor of the Russian religious news website Portal-Credo.ru. In a
commentary posted on that site, Lunkin gave three reasons for that
conclusion.

First, Sokhin’s arguments for converting to Islam arise from his own
understanding of the requirements of Christianity. Indeed, Lunkin says,
drawing on the arguments of several other analysts, it is almost as if
he has become a Muslim for Christian reasons
[http://portal-credo.ru/site/print.php?act=fresh&id=427] .

Second, Lunkin says, Sokhin’s desire to escape from the rigid
discipline of the Orthodox Church undoubtedly reflects the views of
many other priests, and thus his decision to leave the Church for Islam may
open the way for others who find themselves at odds with the hierarchy.

And third, as Lunkin notes, Sokhin like many other converts to Islam
has adopted not the traditional and very moderate Islam of Russia but
rather a more fundamentalist, even radical version of the Islamic faith,
something that means his conversion may be seen as part of the broader
trend Tan’kova described as well.

 

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