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Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia
Wahhabism on the decline in Russia
2005-04-30
The influence of Wahhabism -- the branch of Sunni Islam popular in Saudi Arabia but which Russian President Vladimir Putin and others say threatens the Russian Federation -- is undergoing a decline in Chechnya and elsewhere across the Northern Caucasus, says a senior Muslim official with long experience there.
Coincidentally, there's been a decline in the number of Chechnyans.
In an interview carried on the Rosbalt agency this week, Mufti Shafig-Khadzhi Pshikhachev said Wahhabism's decline was because conditions in that region that had powered its rise during the 1990s have fundamentally changed.

Although many may be inclined to dismiss Pshikhachev's statement as pollyannish self-interested -- after all, he is in charge of many Muslim communities there, is certainly interested in shifting the blame to others, and is asking the government to fund traditional Islam -- the thrust and detail of his argument suggest he should be taken seriously.

Pshikhachev, who is now executive director of the International Islamic Mission but earlier served for 15 years as the chief mufti of Kabardino-Balkaria, argues three factors were behind Wahhabism's explosive growth in the North Caucasus.

First, because of Soviet anti-religious policies, he notes, the state of Islam in 1991 both organizationally and ideologically was in a bad way. On the one hand, few Muslims knew much about their faith and allowed a variety of non-Islamic ideas to corrupt it. And on the other, the number of mosques and well-trained mullahs was low.

Second, the opening of the southern border of the Russian Federation allowed the influx of large numbers of Muslim missionaries from Saudi Arabia and elsewhere. These missionaries presented themselves as representatives of "true" or "pure" Islam who had come to rescue the Muslims of the North Caucasus from their past and from themselves.

And third, large numbers of young people in the region found themselves unemployed and otherwise neglected by government institutions. As a result, they were open to mobilization by the missionaries who urged them to challenge not only their elders but also the existing Muslim leaders and hierarchies.
Poor, dumb and easily mis-led. Fertile ground for a holy man.
Many young people in that region, Pshikhachev says, did just that. But very quickly, they and especially their parents became disillusioned with the Wahhabis, many of who did not practice what they preached and who seemed more concerned with pursuing a nakedly political agenda rather than promoting Islam.

Moreover, the mufti continues, the number of mosques staffed by locals increased. Mullahs received the kind of instruction that gave them a better chance to defend the region's Islamic traditions against the ideas of foreign missionaries. And traditional Muslim leaders found they could count on the government for help.

And finally, Pshikhachev says, after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States, external support for the missionaries fell precipitously. As a result, Wahhabi missionaries found themselves without the resources to continue their work and withdrew.

As a consequence, the mufti continues, there is no possibility of any repetition of the kind of events which shook Dagestan in 1999 either there or elsewhere across the North Caucasus. That does not mean, however, there is no Wahhabi influence in the North Caucasus, Pshikhachev continues. But the influence now is "ideological" rather than "practical," and consequently, Wahhabism as an organized force has relatively little impact on the course of social and political life there.

Because of that trend, he continues, those who say the second post-Soviet Chechen war is increasingly a religious one are simply wrong. "The longer the war goes on," Pshikhachev adds, "the more one senses its non-religious quality."

Of course, people there use the language of Islam, he adds, but that in no way means they are fighting on its behalf.
"No, no! Certainly not!"
At the same time, however, Pshikhachev warns Muslims across the region sometimes are being radicalized by the heavy-handedness of officials. But this radicalization should not be equated with Wahhabization. And he suggests despite some bumps on the road, relations between the state and believers are relatively good and improving.

If Russian government officials there and in Moscow understand the importance of that and if they defend the rights of believers and provide support to mullahs in registered congregations and Muslim spiritual directorates, Pshikhachev concludes, then the influence of Wahhabism will continue to ebb.
Posted by:Dan Darling

#1  the branch of Sunni Islam popular in Saudi Arabia Popular? It's the compulsory state religion of SA for Sunnis. Popularity requires expression of a choice. There is no choice hence you can not use the word popular. More dissembling by the MSM.
Posted by: phil_b   2005-04-30 7:55:39 PM  

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