Window on Eurasia

Putin Plenopotentiary Calls for Expanding Muslim Training System

 

Paul Goble

Vienna, August 29, 2006 – Aleksandr Konovalov, the Presidential plenopotentiary representative in the Volga Federation District, said earlier this month that he and the Russian government would like to see a dramatic expansion in schools training Muslim leaders and are prepared to do what they can to help make that possible.

Konovalov made those remarks to a session of the working group of the
Social Council on Questions of Interconfessional Policy and the
Preservation of Historical and Cultural Heritage in Ufa on August 11.
At the end of last week, the Muslim Spiritual Directorate (MSD) of Nizhniy
Novgorod posted them on its website.

In his remarks, Konovalov discussed the significant role of Islam in
the Russian Federation today, the importance of developing a network of
centers to train Muslim leaders within the country, and the role he
forsees for the Russian state in that process
[http://www.islamnn.ru/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1228].

With regard to the first theme, Konovalov said that all “healthy and
normally thinking” Russian citizens understand that Islam as a
religion and a culture has been extremely important for “the entire
multi-national and polyconfessional history” of the country.

A major reason for that, he suggested, is that Islam has played a major
role in promoting “peaceful coexistence” among the various peoples
and religious communities not only of the Middle Volga region but of
the Russian Federation as a whole, a contribution that should be extended
rather than denied.

And Konovalov continued, today all Russian society is working to
overcome the “fruits” of the anti-religious policies of the Soviet
past, whose actions hit Muslims and especially Muslim educational
institutions especially hard, leaving that community without the
well-educated imams and mullahs it needs to move forward.

Now is the time, the presidential representative said, to rebuild that
system and to make it even better than the one that existed prior to
Soviet times. That will require a larger and more ramified system of
schools and the literature needed to support them, and it is a task
that will not be easy or inexpensive.

Because the state was involved in the destruction of this system in the
past and because the state will benefit from a renewed Muslim
educational system in so many ways, Konovalov continued, the government
must do what it can, consistent with the Constitutionally mandated
separation of church and state, to promote that.

As a first step, Konovalov said, he has alreadyproposed that the
government set up council for theology in the higher attestation
commission so that those studying theology, including Muslim theology,
in civil institutions will be able to get advanced degrees, thereby
“adding to their authority.”

Konovalov added that he hoped that “cooperation” between the
Russian government and various Muslim organizations, in particular the MSDs,
would continue to develop and that together they could explore other
ways of promoting the education of mullahs and imams domestically.

Many Muslim leaders in the Russian Federation and some lower-standing
government officials have made similar proposals in the past, but
Konovalov is the most senior official to speak out on this point and
consequently in the best position of any of the advocates of greater
Muslim education in Russia to move things forward in this area.

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