Window on Eurasia

Baku Blocks Young Azeris From Studying at Islamic Universities Abroad

Paul Goble

Vienna, June 28, 2006 – The Azerbaijani authorities reportedly are prohibiting young people there who want to study in Islamic universities in Iran, Egypt and other Muslim countries from going abroad as part of Baku’s broader campaign to prevent the spread of political Islam in that south Caucasus republic.

In announcing this step, Rafik Aliyev, the chairman of Azerbaijan’s
State Committee for Religious Affairs, said “unfortunately, today,
religion is not promoting the strengthening of Azerbaijani
statehood.” Some groups, he added, even want to construct there “an Islamic
state,” “Nezavisimaya gazeta-Dipkur’yer” reported on Monday.

The Moscow paper reported that in Azerbaijan today there are 355
registered religious organizations, all but 29 of which are Islamic.
But in addition, there are more than a thousand additional mosques that are
not registered with the state. And the number of these communities or
jamaats is growing “with each day.”

As is the case in neighboring Daghestan and other parts of the Caucasus,
many of these unregistered communities have fallen under the influence
of Islamist radicals, some of whom are missionaries who have arrived
from abroad but many of whom are Azerbaijanis who have studied abroad
and then returned.

Indeed, according to some estimates, there may now be as many as 25,000
Muslims in Azerbaijan who are under Wahhabi influence, much of which
the Moscow newspaper suggests has come not from Saudi Arabia or other parts
of the Middle East but rather from Muslim communities in the Russian
Federation.

One of the reasons for the rapid rise of radical Islam, Aliyev said, is
that Muslims who choose to follow this trend receive enormous financial
assistance from fellow believers abroad, something that allows them to
be more active than Islamic communities which must rely on domestic
support alone.

This latest step by Baku may prove to be significant for three reasons:
First, it suggests that Azerbaijan faces a more serious problem than
many had thought with Islamic radicalism among the one-third of its
people who are Sunni. (Shiism, to which two-thirds of Azerbaijanis are
linked, is generally immune to Wahhabist appeals.)

Second, it represents the latest attempt to suppress radicalism by
cutting it off from its foreign roots, a step that in the age of the
Internet may prove impossible or, more seriously, counterproductive.
Indeed, this action may lead to more tensions rather than fewer.

And third, because many other post-Soviet governments have viewed
Azerbaijan’s approach to Islamic issues in an extremely positive light and even sought to copy Baku’s policy, this latest move in Azerbaijan
may soon spread, possibly to the Russian Federation as well, with all
the unpredictable consequences that might entail.