Managing Muslim Minorities in Russia
Managing Muslim Minorities in Russia

Author: Elmira Akhmetova

Publisher: King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies (KFCRIS)

Published: 2018-02-01

Total Pages: 38

ISBN-13: 6038206639

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This paper examines the relations between the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (Saudi Arabia) and the Russian Federation (RF) in the light of Muslim minority rights through analyzing the history of Islam in the Russian territory, with a focus on the rights of Muslims under the Tsarist rule since 1552 and during the existence of the Soviet Union. The first part of the paper suggests that, although Muslims are minority in modern Russia today, Islam established itself as an official religion in the Volga-Urals region and Caucasus during the early years of Islam. It also shows that the historical relations between Muslims and tsarist Russia were not always in conflict. The second part of the paper, which is based on Russian archival sources, presents a brief description of Soviet and Saudi Arabian diplomatic relations. The third part of the paper discusses the status of Islam and Muslims in modern Russia since the collapse of the Soviet Union and suggests that the tragedy of 9/11 and the US-led “Global War on Terror,” as its consequence resulted in religious discrimination and an anti-Islamic mood throughout the country. In 2002, the RF adopted a new law entitled, “On Fighting Extremist Activity.” This led to the decline of religious freedom, which directly harmed relations between Saudi Arabia and Russia. Donations coming from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia through various channels were blocked, Saudi-funded institutions were banned as a part of the prevention of “Wahhabi” influences (which had been banned in Russia since 2002), and books (both original copies and translations) published in Saudi Arabia were banned as well. At the same time, the two governments continued working together on fighting against extremism, educational and cultural programs, and the development of Islamic banking in Russia. The last part of the essay includes some policy recommendations and concluding remarks.

Imperial Russia's Muslims
Imperial Russia's Muslims

Author: Mustafa Tuna

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2015-06-04

Total Pages: 291

ISBN-13: 131638103X

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Imperial Russia's Muslims offers an exploration of social and cultural change among the Muslim communities of Central Eurasia from the late eighteenth century through to the outbreak of the First World War. Drawing from a wealth of Russian and Turkic sources, Mustafa Tuna surveys the roles of Islam, social networks, state interventions, infrastructural changes and the globalization of European modernity in transforming imperial Russia's oldest Muslim community: the Volga-Ural Muslims. Shifting between local, imperial and transregional frameworks, Tuna reveals how the Russian state sought to manage Muslim communities, the ways in which both the state and Muslim society were transformed by European modernity, and the extent to which the long nineteenth century either fused Russia's Muslims and the tsarist state or drew them apart. The book raises questions about imperial governance, diversity, minorities, and Islamic reform, and in doing so proposes a new theoretical model for the study of imperial situations.

Islam in Russia: The Politics of Identity and Security
Islam in Russia: The Politics of Identity and Security

Author: Shireen Hunter

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-09-16

Total Pages: 625

ISBN-13: 1315290111

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This richly detailed study traces the shared history of Russia and Islam in expanding compass - from the Tatar civilization within the Russian heartland, to the conquered territories of the Caucasus and Central Asia, to the larger geopolitical and security context of contemporary Russia on the civilizational divide. The study's distinctive analytical drive stresses political and geopolitical relationships over time and into the very complicated present. Rich with insight, the book is also an incomparable source of factual information about Russia's Muslim populations, religious institutions, political organizations, and ideological movements.

For Prophet and Tsar
For Prophet and Tsar

Author: Robert D. Crews

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2009-05-31

Total Pages: 490

ISBN-13: 0674262859

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Russia occupies a unique position in the Muslim world. Unlike any other non-Islamic state, it has ruled Muslim populations for over five hundred years. Though Russia today is plagued by its unrelenting war in Chechnya, Russia’s approach toward Islam once yielded stability. In stark contrast to the popular “clash of civilizations” theory that sees Islam inevitably in conflict with the West, Robert D. Crews reveals the remarkable ways in which Russia constructed an empire with broad Muslim support. In the eighteenth century, Catherine the Great inaugurated a policy of religious toleration that made Islam an essential pillar of Orthodox Russia. For ensuing generations, tsars and their police forces supported official Muslim authorities willing to submit to imperial directions in exchange for defense against brands of Islam they deemed heretical and destabilizing. As a result, Russian officials assumed the powerful but often awkward role of arbitrator in disputes between Muslims. And just as the state became a presence in the local mosque, Muslims became inextricably integrated into the empire and shaped tsarist will in Muslim communities stretching from the Volga River to Central Asia. For Prophet and Tsar draws on police and court records, and Muslim petitions, denunciations, and clerical writings—not accessible prior to 1991—to unearth the fascinating relationship between an empire and its subjects. As America and Western Europe debate how best to secure the allegiances of their Muslim populations, Crews offers a unique and critical historical vantage point.

Imperial Russia's Muslims
Imperial Russia's Muslims

Author: Mustafa Tuna

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2017-11-16

Total Pages: 290

ISBN-13: 9781108447799

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Imperial Russia's Muslims offers an exploration of social and cultural change among the Muslim communities of Central Eurasia from the late eighteenth century through to the outbreak of the First World War. Drawing from a wealth of Russian and Turkic sources, Mustafa Tuna surveys the roles of Islam, social networks, state interventions, infrastructural changes and the globalization of European modernity in transforming imperial Russia's oldest Muslim community: the Volga-Ural Muslims. Shifting between local, imperial and transregional frameworks, Tuna reveals how the Russian state sought to manage Muslim communities, the ways in which both the state and Muslim society were transformed by European modernity, and the extent to which the long nineteenth century either fused Russia's Muslims and the tsarist state or drew them apart. The book raises questions about imperial governance, diversity, minorities, and Islamic reform, and in doing so proposes a new theoretical model for the study of imperial situations.

The Orient Within
The Orient Within

Author: Mary C. Neuburger

Publisher: Cornell University Press

Published: 2011-05-15

Total Pages: 243

ISBN-13: 1501720236

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Bulgaria is a Slavic nation, Orthodox in faith but with a sizable Muslim minority. That minority is divided into various ethnic groups, including the most numerically significant Turks and the so-called Pomaks, Bulgarian-speaking men and women who have converted to Islam. Mary Neuburger explores how Muslim minorities were integral to Bulgaria's struggle to extricate itself from its Ottoman past and develop a national identity, a process complicated by its geographic and historical positioning between evolving and imagined parameters of East and West. The Orient Within examines the Slavic majority's efforts to conceptualize and manage Turkish and Pomak identities and bodies through gendered dress practices, renaming of people and places, and land reclamation projects. Neuburger shows that the relationship between Muslims and the Bulgarian majority has run the gamut from accommodation to forced removal to total assimilation from 1878, when Bulgaria acquired autonomy from the Ottoman Empire, to 1989, when Bulgaria's Communist dictatorship collapsed. Neuburger subjects the concept of Orientalism to an important critique, showing its relevance and complexity in the Bulgarian context, where national identity and modernity were brokered in the shadow of Western Europe, Russia/USSR, and Turkey.

Nation, Ethnicity and Race on Russian Television
Nation, Ethnicity and Race on Russian Television

Author: Stephen Hutchings

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2015-03-05

Total Pages: 300

ISBN-13: 1317526244

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Russia, one of the most ethno-culturally diverse countries in the world, provides a rich case study on how globalisation and associated international trends are disrupting, and causing the radical rethinking of approaches to, inter-ethnic cohesion. The book highlights the importance of television broadcasting in shaping national discourse and the place of ethno-cultural diversity within it. It argues that television’s role here has been reinforced, rather than diminished, by the rise of new media technologies. Through an analysis of a wide range of news and other television programmes, the book shows how the covert meanings of discourse on a particular issue can diverge from the overt significance attributed to it, just as the impact of that discourse may not conform with the original aims of the broadcasters. The book discusses the tension between the imperative to maintain security through centralised government and overall national cohesion that Russia shares with other European states, and the need to remain sensitive to, and to accommodate, the needs and perspectives of ethnic minorities and labour migrants. It compares the increasingly isolationist popular ethnonationalism in Russia, which harks back to "old-fashioned" values, with the similar rise of the Tea Party in the United States and the UK Independence Party in Britain. Throughout, this extremely rich, well-argued book complicates and challenges received wisdom on Russia’s recent descent into authoritarianism. It points to a regime struggling to negotiate the dilemmas it faces, given its Soviet legacy of ethnic particularism, weak civil society, large native Muslim population and overbearing, yet far from entirely effective, state control of the media.

The Image of Islam in Russia
The Image of Islam in Russia

Author: Greg Simons

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2023-09-25

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780367642648

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This book covers the developing and important issue of the role and place of Islam in the increasingly complex dynamics of Russian politics. It is achieved by examining various aspects of Islam and Muslims in Russia from a multidisciplinary perspective. Islam and Muslims are currently at the forefront of popular culture, mass media and political imaginations in the age of the 'Global War on Terrorism'. Frequently, these are for the 'wrong' reasons as they are not well understood, but rather stereotypically misrepresented, often for various political reasons. Russia is also highly stereotyped; the diverse and mysterious country is often misunderstood in terms of the communicated cultural, social and political images. This book is an attempt to expose and analyse the wealth in diversity of Islam and Muslims in Russia, a country where different religions have occupied the same political spaces, for better and worse, for many centuries. The content of this book is focused upon the contemporary social, political, cultural and identity contexts of Russia in terms of the interrelated dynamics and forces that are shaping the relations and place of Islam and Muslims in Russia today. The chapters in this book were originally published in the journal Religion, State & Society.