Window on Eurasia

Ethnic Russian Converts Seen Threatening Tatar Dominance of Islam in Russia

Paul Goble

Tallinn, June 15, 2006 – Even as Tatars this week marked the 1,117th
anniversary of the adoption of Islam by their forefathers in the Middle
Volga, some of their number expressed concern that a recent wave of
ethnic Russian conversions to Islam could reduce Tatar sominance of the
Islamic community in the Russian Federation.

In an analysis posted online this week, Anvar Sharipov, himself a
Tatar, analyzes the impact of these conversions and argues that they not only „strengthen the social potential” of Islam in Russia but create
„a number of problems in the Russian umma that had not existed in the
past”
[http://islamnews.ru/index.php?name=Articles&file=Article&sid=472].

No one disputes the fact that ethnic Russian converts to Islam are
generally young and highly educated people „who are distinguished by
a high degree of religiosity and social activity,” qualities that
Sharipov says have allowed them „with each passing year to play an
ever greater role in the Islamic life of Russia.”

But in addition to this „intellectual impulse” introduced by the
Russian Muslims, these converts have „completely unexpectedly”
created a number of problems, not least of which is the discussion of
the proper role of Tatars and the Tatar language in the religious life
of the umma of the Russian Federation.

Indeed, some of them now use the websites with which they are connected – Sharipov does not name names but he is clearly thinking about Islam.ru – to talk about the role of the Tatars so frequently that
one might think that „the Muslims of the Russian Federation do not have
any more important issues to discuss.”

And some of their commentaries, he continues, appear driven by or
intended to provoke a kind of „Tatarophobia” among the Muslim
community.

One of the reasons for concern about this development, Sharipov says,
are the now notorious efforts by some associated with the analytic
center of the Volga Federal District to promote an ethnic Russian Islam
as part of a broader effort to weaken the Islamic community not only
there but across the country.

It is even possible, Sharipov suggests, that „certain Islamic mass
media, even without wanting to do so, are becoming the instrument for
the realization of certain strategies and social experiments for
administering the ethno-political and confessional conflicts in the
Russian Federation.”

But more seriously, he continues, their commentaries contribute to
„the devaluation of the culture and centuries’ old Islamic
traditions of the Tatars, the most numerous Muslim people in Russia who compose the intellectual, scientific and demographic core of the
Russian umma.”

And that „devaluation” is a threat to Islam throughout the Russian
Federation because „it is a well-known fact that the overwhelming
majority of Tatars came to the religion of their ancestors through the
Tatar language and national culture which in the popular consciousness
are indivisible from Islam.

The insidiousness of such attacks is reflected in terminology, Sharipov
says. „Muslim religious thought has for a long time pointed to the
ineffectiveness of the use of church terminology for the Islamic daawat
not only because it is completely inappropriate for understanding them
by Muslim peoples but in part because it represents a break with the
principles and teaching of Islam.”

Thus, he continues, „the use of the Russian language, where there is
no alternative to Christian termonology as a language for inter-Muslim
communication in the opinion of many linguistics and thinkers of the
past and present will only make possiblt the department for the
traditions of righteous ancestors and the clericalization of Islam on
the model of Orthodoxy.”

Indeed, the widespread use of such terms as „Muslim clergy” and
„Muslim priests” shows how far this process has proceeded, often
because of the failure of Muslims to develop alternatives. But it means
that the remark of one Tatar is worth heeding: He said he „will not
go to the mosque because there they speak Russian.”

„It would be incorrect to explain the courses of Tatarophobia among
part of the Russian Muslims only by reference to the particular
features of the Russian mentality which has roots in the depths of the medieval world,” Sharipov says. „In large measure, this is not the fault but the misfortune of Russian Muslims as a whole and Tatars in
particular.”

In order to become a full-fledged Muslim, Sharipov insists, it is not
enough simply to declare oneself to be one and to make the necessary
prayers. „For this one must enter into a genuinely Muslim milieu. And
unfortunatley, in Russia, such a milieu does not exist -- in the best
sense it is in an embrionic state.”

As a result, „having become Muslims, [ethnic] Russians form their own
alternative milieu, one that if you like could be called ‚parallel
Islam’ based on their own understanding and subjective worldview.”
And being recent converts who may know little of other Muslims, they
often view their version of the faith as „the last word.”

That not only leads them into conflicts with the Tatars who even now
form the majority of mullahs and imams in the Russian Federation,
Sharipov concludes, but weakens the country’s umma and discredits
Islam in the eyes of many non-Muslims as well as many „ethnic
Muslims” who might otherwise return to the faith.