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THE CAUCASUS & GLOBALIZATION
Ruslan KURBANOV
Ph.D. (Political Science), Senior Research Fellow, Institute of Oriental Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences (Moscow, the Russian Federation).
REVIVAL OF THE NORTH CAUCASIAN UMMA IN THE LIGHT OF RUSSIA'S FOREIGN POLICY FLAWS IN THE ISLAMIC WORLD
Abstract
The author looks at the extremely complicated, numerous, and contradictory aspects of the upsurge in Islamic awakening, the so-called Islamic renais-
sance, in the Northern Caucasus and offers his opinion of how the North Caucasian Muslims perceive the factor of Islamic glo-balism.
KEYWORDS: Islamic renaissance, Islamic globalism,
Islam in the Northern Caucasus, Islamic community of Russia.
Volume 7 Issue 1-2 2013 HHECAUCASUSnGLOBAfflZATON 95
Introduction
Today, most experts dealing with North Caucasian religious and political reality and looking at the invigorating role of the international factor limit themselves to the narrow problem of the money the "terrorist international" is pouring into the Caucasus to destabilize the situation. The problem caused by the emergence of the North Caucasian Islamic renaissance at the international level is much more complicated and multi-dimensional.
Throughout many centuries, Islam and its local Caucasian interpretations and practices have been unfolding according to their own scenarios, different and sometimes very different from those practiced elsewhere in the Caliphate.
■ First, the Caucasian Muslims were isolated from the rest of the Muslim world: everything going on in the Caliphate in the social, political, military, cultural, and other spheres sounded like a distant echo in this isolated and hard to access region.
■ Second, in the Caucasus the interpretations and practices of Islam were greatly affected by the local spiritual and legal traditions and rites of amazing inner force and viability. Throughout many centuries, Islam had to accept as inevitable the tenacious traces of paganism in everyday life, customs, the norms of customary law (adats), and the mountain dwellers' behavior and mindset. This meant that religious customs and rites were warped, while the Caucasian legal expanse was divided between traditional adat and the Shari'a, something that classical Islam could not accept.
This factor played a huge role in the victory of the Russian Empire and, later, Soviet Russia in the Caucasian theater of war. Czarist and Soviet power made skilful use of the far from homogenous, far from monolith, and very patchy Islamic consciousness, the divided legal expanse, and the fact that Islamic power was unevenly spread in the mountains to split Caucasian society and impose their own political and legal projects on the region.
The Community's Heterogeneity
It should be said that the multinational Muslim community of Russia can be divided into two large national groups, which Alexey Malashenko calls the Tatar-Bashkirian and the North Caucasian.1
Dr. Malashenko himself admits that the terms are conventional or even "inadequate:" "besides Tatars, there are millions of Muslims of other ethnicities in Moscow, the Volga Area, the Urals, and Siberia," and can be used merely as working terms.2
This can be accepted on the whole, but we should bear in mind that the first (Tatar-Bashkirian) group also includes the Muslim Turkic peoples of the Volga Area, South Urals, and Siberia (Tatars, Bashkirs and their ethnic subgroups—Siberian Tatars, Nizhny Novgorod Tatars (Mishars), etc.
The second (North Caucasian) group consists of the Muslims of the North Caucasian peoples who live in the region's seven republics: Daghestan, Chechnia, Ingushetia, North Ossetia, Kabardino-Balkaria, Karachaevo-Cherkessia, and Adigey.
Although Muslims of both groups are scattered across the country and kindred ethnic groups live side by side in many places and pray in the same mosques, their representatives preserve their
1 See: A.V. Malashenko, Islam dliaRossii, Moscow, 2007, p. 11.
2 A. Malashenko, "Dva neskhozhikh renessansa," Otechestvennye zapiski, No. 5 (13), 2003, available at [http://www. strana-oz.ru/?numid=14&article=644].
THE CAUCASUS & GLOBALIZATION
own patterns of social behavior, mentality, degree of religiosity, and attitude toward religious injunctions, the country's non-Muslim majority, and the Russian state.
On the whole, as distinct from North Caucasian Islam, Tatar-Bashkirian Islam is much more integrated into Russian society; it is much more receptive to the idea of a dialog and cooperation with the government, while its traditional social structure is much less cohesive.
On the other hand, North Caucasian Islam is much more determined, with cruelty or even fanaticism, to follow the religious authorities which belong to their own peoples; they are much less tolerant of the non-Muslim majority of Russia and even of co-religionists of other nationalities.
Both groups are highly heterogeneous: there are regional or sub-ethnic types, groups, and communities inside them with different religious and social specifics.
Alexey Malashenko has pointed to other features shared by both areas: cultural and religious self-sufficiency; a bias toward internal cohesion; and preoccupation with their own problems, particularly their relations with the authorities. "Despite the sporadic attempts at demonstrating the desire to integrate, both areas are living as two separate worlds. The Muslim leaders from the capital or Tatarstan are received in Makhachkala or Nalchik as honored guests but treated as Muscovites or people from Kazan."3
Without going into detailed descriptions of theses sub-groups and types, I will limit myself to one example to clarify the degree of inner differentiation and diversity of the conventional Muslim groups in Russia. This is important since this diversity and the different nature of these groups affect the relations among the spiritual structures of Islam in Russia.
While at the first level the Russian Islamic community is divided into two groups (Tatar-Bash-kirian and North Caucasian), at the second level a careful observer of extremely diverse North Caucasian Islam will find the following.
Today the Caucasian Muslim community is an extremely diverse and multisided phenomenon with numerous internal specifics and hues. First, the Caucasus is ethnically the most diverse of Russia's regions; each of the North Caucasian peoples follows its own model of social and religious behavior.
All experts agree that the region's eastern part (Daghestan, Ingushetia, and Chechnia) is more religious than its western part (Kabardino-Balkaria, Karachaevo-Cherkessia, and Adigey), even though in recent years Islam has been conquering the western part as well.4 Experts on the Caucasus divide the Northern Caucasus either in two or four sub-regions (depending on the parameters they are guided by). Enver Kisriev, for example, describes Daghestan as the first sub-region; Chechnia and Ingushetia as the second; Kabardino-Balkaria, Karachaevo-Cherkessia, and Adigey as the third; and North Ossetia as the fourth.5
Second, the region's Islamic space is highly diverse; it is better described as a patchwork of religious communities each with Islamic trends and traditions of its own. Conventionally they can be divided into three sub-groups.
The first sub-group of the Caucasian Muslims consists of the followers of Islam, which, in the course of history, became a blend of Orthodox Islamic, local ethnocultural, and Sufi traditions. Most of the expert community calls this version traditional Islam. It, with certain variations, dominated in the Caucasus before the onslaught of the Russian Empire and later Soviet Russia on the Islamic culture. In the Eastern Caucasus (Daghestan, Chechnia, and Ingushetia), the Sufi component dominates over the other two (Orthodox Islamic and ethnic) components.
3 A. Malashenko, "Dva neskhozhikh renessansa."
4 See: A.V. Malashenko, Islam dliaRossii, p. 13.
5 See: E. Kisriev, "Islam i natsionalnye otnoshenia na Severnom Kavkaze," in: Islam v rossiiskikh regionakh, Moscow,
2007.
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In the Western Caucasus, where Islamic spiritual, political and legal components are much weaker, everyday interpretations and shortened versions of rites were responsible for the local ethno-cultural tradition.
Sufism, which has the strongest position in Daghestan, Chechnia, and Ingushetia, is represented by three Tareqats (orders): Qadiriya, Naqshbandiya, and Shaziliya (spiritual schools of sorts which combine the means and methods of mystical cognition of truth, a code of moral and ethical prescriptions, and forms of inner organization).
The second sub-group of the Caucasian Muslims is represented by the Daghestan Shafi'i school of Islamic law (maddhab) rooted in the pre-Russian past and created by the self-governing Muslim communities of Darghinians, in which the position of Muslim lawyers and judges were strong enough to contest the local elected rulers. There was de facto dual power in the Akusha-Dargo community with two political leaders—an elected ruler and a Shari'a judge (qadi).
The third sub-group of the Caucasian Muslims is represented by the rapidly expanding community of fundamentalists—Wahhabis for public and propaganda purposes and Salafis for the academic community. This is a fundamentalist type of Islam of the Salafi variant that harks back to the roots of the Islamic faith and the way of life of the Prophet Muhammad and the "Pious Predecessors" (as-Salaf as-Saleh), as well as purification of Islam from later distortions. Contrary to what the federal media have to say about the alien and non-traditional nature of Salafism in the Caucasus, it has been present in the region for over 300 years.
At an even lower (third) level of classification of the Islamic communities, each of the larger groups (the Sufi, Shafi'i lawyers, and Salafi) consists of smaller national or even district groups.
For example, in Daghestan Sufism differs in many respects among the Kumyks and among the Avars. The Sufism of the Avars has clearly pronounced district specifics: the Sufism of the Shamil district of Daghestan differs greatly from the Sufism of the Tsumada district of the same republic.
This is true of Salafiya: the degree of acceptance of certain religious injunctions, social behavior patterns, and the attitude toward society and the government is very different among the Salafis of Southern Daghestan, the Salafis of Gimry, Tsumada, Kadar, Gunib, etc. This is still preserved despite the recent consistent efforts of the Salafi ideology to overcome the "frames of ethnic isolation" and "to act as a single ideological and political force"6 in the Northern Caucasus.
The situation is further complicated by the desire of members of traditional religious communities in all Caucasian republics to keep away socially from the members of other religious communities even if they all belong to the same nationality.
For example, not so long ago, the followers of Daghestan Sufi sheikhs Said Afandi al- Chirawi, now deceased (an Avar), Muhammad-Mukhtar Kyakhulaysky (Kumyk), and the late Sirajuddin Hurikski (Tabasaran) limited their association to greetings, handshakes, and small talk.
Communication between Daghestanis and Chechens devoted to traditional Islam is mainly official; the geographically distant ethnicities—the peoples of the Northwest and Northeast—also communicate at the official level. In social matters, the followers of traditional Islam prefer to stay as far away as possible from the followers of fundamentalist and reformist Islam.
Revival of Old Islamic Schools and Trends
When seen in the context of the dynamics and trends of the so-called Islamic renaissance, the diversity of the Caucasian Islamic community reveals the following sub-groups.
6 A. Malashenko, "Dva neskhozhikh renessansa"
THE CAUCASUS & GLOBALIZATION
The first: representatives of the "traditional" Islam formed throughout centuries as a blend of Orthodox Islamic, local ethnocultural, and Sufi traditions. The expert community calls this version of Islam traditional.
It should be said that it was distinguished by strict observance of the division of Islam into mad-dhabs, a product of Islam's long history. Therefore the followers only recognize scholars of their school and practice the asceticism, meditation, and humility offered by Sufism; their Islam exists in a niche limited to philosophical and ritual issues; it has nothing to do with the social and political transformations of the world.
Alexey Malashenko has put Caucasian Islamic traditionalism, a product of partly natural and partly artificial cultural and political isolation, into bolder relief by comparing it with the religious schools and trends abroad, which can still develop and change.
He has referred to the official Soviet ideology, which divided Islam into "foreign" (active, politically involved, frequently anti-Communist, and used by the national-liberation movements) and "Soviet," professed by "backward old men" and "weak women" and immersed in the religious issues proper and rejecting its political bias.7 The fact is, however, that in the Caucasus Islam, due to its deep penetration into society (albeit in a syncretic version), remained, in many places, a regulator of social relations.
This version and practices of Islam lost their inner energy and mobilization potential long ago; today, it is nothing more than the remnants of the first Islamization wave in the region. After travelling across the world during slavery and feudalism, the first wave of Islamization started losing its impact during the initial period of capitalism and at its peak. The Muslims of the first Islamic wave spread Islam far and wide across the Caucasus; they proved unable to respond to the new challenges of history and lost the initiative very much needed to arrive at viable social-economic and social-political models.
The Caucasian War of 1817-1864 and the Imamate can be described as the peak of mobilization and reformist efforts of the Caucasian Muslims of the first wave. (The Imamate was an Islamic state which imitated the Caliphate; Imam Shamil assumed the title of "Commander of the Faithful" earlier used by the caliphs.) When the wave subsided, Islamic tradition in the Caucasus was consistently suppressed, which finally undermined its inner stamina.
The present revival of what was left of this version of Islam in the Caucasus should not be mistaken for the beginning of the Islamic renaissance. Islam of the first wave, which flourished in the works of Daghestani murshids and ustazas and was completely realized in Shamil's Imamate, is in a spiritual and creative crisis. It has nothing to offer the Caucasian Muslims except for backsliding to the pre-revolutionary intellectual, scholarly, and cognitive level.
What looks like an upsurge is not an impetus for further development (even though it is often described as such), but a return to the spiritual and social position from which Islam was dislodged by Soviet power. This illusion proved to be a trap for many politicians and students of Islam.
The Islamic renaissance has not yet begun in the region. In fact we should say that the Islam of the first wave, which, on the whole, has regained its lost position and returned the pre-revolutionary ideas about the world and Islam to the old pedestal, cannot satisfy the spiritual quest of the Caucasian Muslims in the 21st century. We have to admit that "fossilized" interpretations of Islam are in a deep crisis. They have no viable answers to the social, economic, national, political, or even cultural and moral problems of today.
The Spiritual Administrations of the Muslims of the Western Caucasus proved unable to mobilize the Muslim youth; this defeat led to an armed uprising of the Kabardinian-Balkar Muslims against the power system in the republic and the Spiritual Administrations. In the last twelve months, sev-
See: A.V. Malashenko, Islam dliaRossii, p. 52.
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eral imams and officials of the Spiritual Administrations of the Western and Eastern Caucasus lost their lives in assassination attempts.
Disenchanted with the official clergy and their interpretation of Islam, young people are joining protest movements and groups in search for fresh ideas and fresh causes to which they can dedicate their lives. They are looking for flexibility and purity; they want to go beyond the limits of their mosques and auls and raise the scope of their own Islamic consciousness to the international level. For these reasons, young people no longer treat the local imams and spiritual leaders as an authority; they listen to the people with worldwide authority and aspire to reach the international level.
Russia and the Muslim World: Relations and Problems
The flaws of Russia's policy in the Islamic world constitute another factor that seriously affects the trends of the Islamic renaissance in the Caucasus. Rinat Mukhametov, an expert from Russia, has written: "Russia's foreign policy is largely bureaucratic. Moscow maintains contacts only with ruling regimes, but not with counter-elites and societies—and this is especially fatal in the Middle East."8
In the revolutionary turmoil in the Middle East, Moscow supports "to the uttermost" (the lack of other alternatives is Russia's fault) the doomed regimes as its only door open into the region. Even if and when the situation goes from bad to worse from Russia's viewpoint, it takes Moscow a lot of time to adjust to the new reality; it does not respond, but complains, and looks for enemies. By the way, the Muslim Brotherhood that assumed power in Egypt and some other Arab countries is still listed, by sheer misunderstanding, as a terrorist organization, contacts with which are banned.
There are no business structures in Russia to deal with the Muslim world. The Russian-Arab Business Council set up by Evgeny Primakov has so far scored no victories: in the economic sphere it is still geared at military-technical cooperation.
Shamil Sultanov, President of the Center of Strategic Research Russia-Islamic World, has voiced his concern: "There is no subject empowered with the development of partner relations between Moscow and the Islamic world. This is very important. The Kremlin needs a corresponding strategy. Putin has said more than once: we have a Muslim community so get down to work. There was no response. Then he said: give me ideas and suggestions. No response."9
The International Theological Conference "The Islamic Doctrine against Radicalism" held on 25-26 May, 2012 in Moscow was the only step in the right direction; it filled the strategic dialog between Russia and the Muslims with meaningful content. This was the first time that the Islamic world represented by luminaries of Islamic theology was invited to Russia. The ulemas invited by the Russian and Kuwaiti Al-Wasatiya centers and the Fund of Support for Islamic Science, Culture, and Education approved what Russia had been doing to oppose extremism.
The world famous Islamic theologians adopted the Moscow Theological Declaration of Muslim Scholars on Jihad, the Application of Shari'a and the Caliphate, which can be ranked with such historical documents as the Mecca and Amman declarations. The scholars preferred to avoid foreign policy issues, but the Arab media regarded the very fact of the visit of prominent and influential people (in the Islamic world a theologian is much more than merely a learned man) as a step toward Moscow, even though Russia's position on Syria found little support in the Arab Muslim world.
8 R.M. Mukhametov, "Russian Muslims and Foreign Policy," Russia in Global Affairs, No. 3, 2012.
9 Sh.Z. Sultanov, "Sblizhenie Rossii i islamskogo mira: strategicheskoe partnerstvo ili koniunktura?" available at [http:// www.islamnews.ru/news-7543.html].
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The complications and political instability in the Arab world and Russia's relevant position apart, the top crust of Islamic theologians demonstrated that they were prepared to work with Russia as a strategic partner of the reviving Islamic world. The Russian Muslims who made the dialog possible became, for essentially the first time in their history, a bridge between Russia and Islam.
Al-Wasatiya is the only Arab structure officially operating in Russia; in the early 2000s all the Arab funds and centers were closed down on suspicions of funding Chechen separatists.
Tiny oil-rich Kuwait, which promoted the concept of moderate Islam, became an open window to the Arab world, the Gulf countries in particular, relations with which had never been smooth, and the Muslim world in general. In 2010, President Medvedev awarded the Order of Friendship to Dr. Adel al-Falah, Undersecretary of the Ministry of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs of Kuwait. He was the first Arab religious leader to receive this order.
Response of the Muslim World: By Way of a Conclusion
The response of the Muslim community in Russia and, in particular, in the Northern Caucasus to Russia's foreign policy oversights in the Islamic world can be described as highly interesting. As soon as perestroika began and the Iron Curtain was lifted, the Northern Caucasus demonstrated a lot of interest in the Islamic world. The interest was mutual. The rapidly developing Arab countries were extremely enthusiastic about the Islamic revival in the region.
The Middle East started large-scale funding programs for the religious sphere of the Russian part of the Caucasus. According to Egyptian television preacher Amr Khaled, the entire Islamic world from Indonesia to the remotest part of Africa should be helping the Muslims in Russia, but only the closest and richest neighbors did this.
It was only the richest states (Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, and Iran) that could afford to give money away to the Northern Caucasus and did this; Daghestan was selected as a springboard for the future revival and proliferation of Islam in the South of Russia.
According to ethnologist Vladimir Bobrovnikov, between 1985 and 1990, the number of mosques in Daghestan increased tenfold—from 44 to 431; there were no more than a several dozen mosques in the other republics altogether.
At the same time, previously clandestine Islamic movements began stepping up their activities in the Caucasian republics, in Daghestan in particular. It was in these republics that religious parties became a real and influential force which, supported by a solid material base and having the popular masses behind it, confronted the authorities. Local businessmen and politicians, likewise, helped Muslim organizations in their republics.
For a while, the local governments were unconcerned about the Arab-driven Islamic revival and the restored pre-Soviet Islamic traditions, so remained passive.
Never simple, Russia's relations with the Arab and Islamic world became even more complicated when federal troops were moved into Chechnia in 1994 to pacify the mutinous republic. All the Muslim centers run by Middle Eastern countries in Russia were closed down. The Arab countries were very negative about the developments in Chechnia and made no secret of this. Colonel Qaddafi was the first among the heads of the Islamic states to respond to the hostilities in the South of Russia. In his letter to President Yeltsin, he outlined two problems that, he asserted, bothered the Islamic world the most: first, possible worsening of Russia's relations with the Middle East caused by the former's war against Muslims in the Caucasus and, second, Russia's territorial integrity.
THE CAUCASUS & GLOBALIZATION
The position of the Islamic states was somewhat ambiguous. A new contradiction emerged between solidarity with the co-religionists and their own geopolitical interests. Solidarity with the Caucasian Muslims was set off by the fact that the East did not want a unipolar America-led world and a system of international relations in which the geopolitical leader would be left without a counterbalance of any sort, including a strong Russia.
During the second Chechen campaign, Russian diplomacy in the Middle Eastern countries (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain, Qatar, Yemen, Jordan, Libya, Syria, Kuwait, Iraq, Sudan, and Egypt) demonstrated much more cohesion and much more efficiency. When talking to high officials who still remembered the Soviet Union and its support, Russian diplomats insisted that Russia's territorial integrity was in the interests of the Islamic world. Russia promised to remedy all "infringements on peaceful Muslims" and improve the overall situation; this saved its relatively good relations with the Middle East.
Very soon Moscow acquired a chance to start talking about fighting "terrorism" (rather than separatism during the first Chechen war) in Chechnia. The Muslim world, fighting against those who called themselves "radical Islamists," found this argument much more palatable.
When talking to one of the muftis of Russia, the then Speaker of the Sudan National Congress Party Hassan al-Turabi said that today you (the Muslims) should strive not for national self-determination but pursue another strategic aim, that is, the continued existence of a strong and effective Russia as a guarantee of security for all Muslims in the multipolar world.10
On the whole, the heads of practically all the Arab states were of the same opinion, while actively helping the Chechen refugees. Mass demonstrations and rallies took place in many Arab countries to draw the attention of the world community to the plight of the peaceful population in the areas of fierce fighting.
The popular rallies were reflected in what was said at the 27th OIC Foreign Ministerial Conference in Kuala Lumpur, which expressed "its grave concern over the tragic crisis in the Republic of Chechnia of the Russian Federation and the loss of lives and properties".
The two military campaigns made Chechnia the centerpiece of the Caucasian region; it figured prominently in Russia's domestic and foreign policies, particularly in its relations with the Arab world. Today, the republic "arising from the ashes," which is no longer an irritant in Russia's relations with the Middle East, can be described as Russia's foreign policy trump card. In the course of several years, the completely ruined republic has become not only an effective foreign policy instrument of the Foreign Ministry of Russia. It has become the shop window of Russia's Caucasian community: all Arab sheikhs and Turkish technocrats are taken to Chechnia, the best exhibit of successful administration and successful development.
I should say that today the foreign policy interests of Chechnia in the East and the ambitions of its head perfectly fit Russia's strategy in the Arab world. To some extent, Ramzan Kadyrov can be called another Russian foreign minister whose task is to normalize relations with the Arab and Muslim world.
He supports propaganda of moderate Islam; the head of Chechnia said to a UAE delegation: "I would like to stress that, in the first place, we are tied together with the United Arab Emirates by brotherly relations; the economy, sports, and culture come second."
Famous reader of the Koran Mishaari Raashid from Kuwait came to Chechnia on an invitation of the Al-Wasatiya Center of Moderate Islam; he led the collective prayer meeting in the Akhmad Kadyrov Mosque. Recently well-known Shari'a Egyptian scholar Osman Abdurrahim came to Chech-nia to preach moderate Islam.
President of Ingushetia Yunus-Bek Evkurov headed the Russian delegation at the fifth session of the Russia-Islamic World Strategic Vision Group held in Kuwait on 21-24 December, 2009. Ingushetia was chosen as the place of the Group's next session.
Quoted from: [http ://pda. islamrf.ru/news/culture/islam-world/2672/].
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The end of the acute crisis in Chechnia and Russia's gradual return to the international scene as a strong and independent player with great and increasing authority have its relations with the Arab world a fresh boost. The business community followed suit to consistently increase trade turnover with the Middle East.
According to Vladimir Evtushenkov, Chairman of the AFK Sistema Board of Directors, the Middle East is one of the best regions for investments; this is especially true of the Gulf countries and Lebanon.
Russia stands a good chance of widening the scope of its economic cooperation with the Arab countries to the high-tech sphere and the banking sector; it can sell the products of its metallurgical industry and materials for industrial use and transfer its technologies, especially those used in the oil and gas industry.
Cooperation in the sphere of weapon trade is a field of special importance; many of the Middle Eastern countries spend billions of U.S. dollars on Russia-produced weapons and armaments. Strategic cooperation within all sorts of international structures, OPEC in particular, is going ahead.
Russia wants to attract Middle Eastern investments (especially money from the rich Arab countries) to the Northern Caucasus. Head of Chechnia Ramzan Kadyrov proved to be a valuable addition to President Medvedev's Middle Eastern tour. In Syria, Kadyrov, as a member of the Russian delegation, took part in the talks and the signing of important intergovernmental agreements; in Damascus he met the leading Syrian politicians, members of the business community, and the mufti of Syria.
In other words, the Northern Caucasus is gradually regaining its central role in many spheres of Russia's relations with the Arab world. The future of these relations and their efficiency depend not so much on Moscow, the Caucasus, and the Muslim world: the interests of third forces can be clearly seen in the revolutionary wave that has engulfed the region.
