Window on Eurasia

Orthodox Academic Details What Every Russian Must Know about Islam

Paul Goble

Vienna, July 7, 2006 – Russia’s Christians understand the country’s Muslims better than the latter understand the former, according to a leading Russian Orthodox specialist on Islam and other non-Christian faiths. But there are many aspects of Islam that Russian Christians must know more about if they are to deal with the challenges Muslims present.

In an interview in the popular Russian Orthodox magazine, “Neskuchniy
sad,” Yuriy Maksimov, who teaches at the Moscow Theological Seminar
and is the author of three books on Muslims, discusses the ways in
which Christianity and Islam are similar and different
[http://www/nsad.ru/index.php?issue=19%25ion=9&article=453&print=1].

Most of Maksimov’s observations would be seconded by knowledgeable
members of the two faiths, but three of his remarks reflect positions
that many on one or both sides would find problematic or provocative.

First, he insists that Muslims are enjoined to “kill unbelievers”
who do not convert, a commandment he presents as not being limited by
circumstances or by other injunctions in the Koran, Sunna and hadith on
how Muslims should deal with Christians and Jews in particular and
followers of other faiths as well.

Second, he argues that there is no distinction between “peaceful”
and “militant” trends in Islam. “There are no such trends,” he
says. Consequently, there is no basic distinction at the level of
theology for Muslims between Wahhabis and other groups within the
faith.

While insisting on that point, something many Muslims and many
non-Muslims would very much disagree with, Maksimov does acknowledge
that because Muslims are people and people vary in a wide variety of
ways, it is true that “there are ‘peaceful’ and ‘non-peaceful’ Muslims.”

And third, the Moscow Orthodox scholar says, more Muslims have and are
converting to Christianity both around the world and in the Russian
Federation than are Christians converting to Islam in either place. In
support of that contention, again one that is disputed, Maksimov
provides a brief history of Orthodox missionary efforts.

He talks about the Kryashens, as baptized Tatars are known, and about
the massive conversion in the early 1990s of Georgian Muslims to
Christianity. And he notes that over the last several years, Moscow
churches have said prayers in Tatar for Tatar Christians.

But consistent with Patriarchate policy not to engage in proselytism
among the country’s “traditional” faiths, he says that, there is
no active and all-encompassing effort to conduct missionary work among
the Muslims of Russia, although he pointed adds “the opportunities
for that exist.” That too is something not beyond dispute.

At the end of the interview, Maksimov makes several comments about
Islam in Europe and the Russian Federation that Muslims are likely to find
especially disturbing. On the one hand, he says that he shares the
fears of Elena Chudinova as expressed in her anti-utopian novel, “The
Mosque of Notre Dame de Paris.”

That book which posits a Muslim takeover of the European Union by the
middle of this century and the ghettoization of Europe’s Christians,
is in the form of a fantasy, Maksimov reminds his interviewer. But he
says that the concerns lying behind Chudinova’s bestselling novel are
very real, as the events in France show.

Indeed, he continues, he has it on good authority that the Algerians
and Arabs who rioted in Paris last year were all Muslims. Arab Christians,
of whom there are a large number in France, did not take part in these
events, something that he suggests make Chudinova’s conclusion and
his own inevitable.

And on the other hand, the Orthodox academic says, Europe itself is to
blame because the Europeans of today are not the Europeans of a
millenium ago. Then, Charles Martel stopped the Arab advance at Tours,
and Pedro I of Spain celebrated his victory over the moors by putting a
severed Muslim head on the shield of Aragon.

Unfortunately, in the spirit of political correctness, Europeans now
often do not view Charles as a hero, and present-day Spaniards have
insisted on removing the image of the severed Muslim head from the
state
shield of Aragon in order “’to reestablish a climate of trust
between Muslims and Christians.’”

* * * * * *

If Maksimov’s words were addressed to a mass audience, this week’s
“Nezavisimaya gazeta” featured an article about what Viktoriya
Panfilova, the reviewer, described as the first serious
Russian-language study of Islamic extremism in Eurasia intended for the specialist community
[http://www.religare.ru/article31194.htm].

The book, “The Expansion of Islamists in the Caucasus and Central
Asia” by Zurab Todya (in Russian, Moscow, 2006, 272 pp.), is based on
interviews the Georgian writer conducted with Islamists and those who
have been fighting them in these regions over the last 15 years.

According to Panfilova, the book argues that the extremists have
advanced most successfully “where the authorities are ideologically
weak,” a conclusion that both explains what has happened and also
suggests a very different strategy for combatting Islamist groups than
has been adopted by many post-Soviet states.

Latest Window on Eurasia stories | Religion Archive | Islam in Russia and CIS Archive | Orthodox Church in Russia and CIS Archive | All Window on Eurasia Stories Archive |