Tatar Islamic Texts - Dunwoody Press

Tatar Islamic Texts
Allen J. Frank

Tatar Islamic Texts
Allen J. Frank
2008

Tatar Islamic Texts
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Table of Contents
Preface ................................................................................................................... i
Historical Introduction ................................................................................... iii
Rise of Reformism ......................................................................................... v
The Soviet Era ............................................................................................... vi
The Dual Crises of the 1990's .................................................................. xi
The Paradox of Tatar Hanafi Traditionalism ....................................... xiii
Biographies
Jälil Fazlïyev .................................................................................................. xix
Waliulla Yakubov ........................................................................................ xix
Iskhaq Lotfullin ............................................................................................ xx
Ghabdelkhaq Samatov ............................................................................. xx
Bibliography ................................................................................................... xxiii
Part 1: The Current State of Islam in Tatarstan
Introduction ................................................................................................... 1
Jälil khäzrät Fazlïyev, “The State of Rural Congregations Today”
Original Text ............................................................................................. 3
Translation .............................................................................................. 11
Ghabdelkhaq khäzrät Samatov, “What Is the State of Our Faith
Today?”
Original Text ........................................................................................... 17
Translation .............................................................................................. 23
Waliulla Yakubov, “The Fate and Future of Tatar-language
Mosques”
Original Text ........................................................................................... 29
Translation .............................................................................................. 42
Part 2: Russian Civic Patriotism and Tatar Islamic Patriotism
Introduction ................................................................................................. 55
Iskhaq khaji Lotfullin, “Memorial Day Sermon”
Original Text ........................................................................................... 59
Translation .............................................................................................. 63
Talib Saidbayev, “Russia’s Muslim Leaders and Patriotism”
Original Text ........................................................................................... 67
Translation .............................................................................................. 77

Part 3: In Defense of Hanafi Orthodoxy
Introduction ................................................................................................. 87
Shaykh Zeinulla Rasulev ob Ibn Taimii, “Shaykh Zaynullah Rasulev
on Ibn Taimiya”
Original Text ........................................................................................... 93
Translation ............................................................................................ 114
Waliulla Yakubov, “Unofficial Islam in Tatarstan: Movements,
Trends, Sects”
Original Text ......................................................................................... 125
Translation ............................................................................................ 162
Part 4: For the Ancestors: Rituals and Pilgrimage
Introduction ............................................................................................... 195
Jälil khäzrät Fazlïyev, “The Prayers We Perform Are for the Spirits
of the Ancestors”
Original Text ......................................................................................... 199
Translation ............................................................................................ 205
Ghabdelkhaq khäzrät Samatov, “Response to a Question about
Visiting Bulghar”
Original Text ......................................................................................... 211
Translation ............................................................................................ 216
Razïyä abïstay Zakirova, “Let’s Make the Ancestors Happy!”
Original Text ......................................................................................... 221
Translation ............................................................................................ 229

Preface
This work represents the third in a series of source studies devoted
to Islamic texts produced by and circulating among Turkic Muslims
of the former Soviet Union. The first study, co-authored with
Jahangir Mamatov, appeared in 2006 under the title Uzbek Islamic
Debates: Texts, Translations, and Commentary, and examined audio
and written texts in which Uzbek clerics addressed theological and
political issues facing Uzbek Muslims in the decade following
independence, particularly issues relating to secularism and Islamic
reformism. The second work was Popular Islamic Literature in
Kazakhstan: an Annotated Bibliography. It appeared in 2007 and
addressed primarily Uzbek- and Kazakh-language pamphlets sold to,
and circulating among, Muslims in Kazakhstan.
The present work examines popular Islamic literature that the author
collected in Tatarstan in May and June 2006. Except for one notable
Russian-language treatise, all of the texts included here are in the
Tatar language. This collection focuses primarily on texts reflecting
theological and social ideas generally consistent with those
expressed by the Muslim Religious Board of Tatarstan. As such,
these ideas emphasize the defense of Hanafi orthodoxy and the
significance of Islam in maintaining Tatar ethno-national cohesion.
I wish to thank Dilyara Usmanova for her assistance in Kazan, and
Thomas Creamer and Aung Kyaw Oo for their assistance in
Hyattsville, Maryland.
Allen J. Frank
Takoma Park, Maryland
January 2008
i

Historical Introduction
The present volume contains Islamic texts produced in Russia that
articulate a religious and political current that can be labeled “Tatar
Hanafi Traditionalism.” Broadly speaking, several features define
this intellectual current. These include, 1) declared affiliation with
the Hanafi school of jurisprudence (mazhab), that has been dominant
in the Volga-Ural region the 10 th century CE, 2) an appeal as a
“national value” to the ethnic heritage of Islam among the Tatars,
the single largest Muslim ethnic group in Russia, 3) institutional and
historical continuity with the numerous officially-recognized
muftiates in Moscow, Ufa, and Kazan, 4) opposition to reformist
Islamic currents originating within the former Soviet Union, and
entering Russia from abroad since the fall of the Soviet Union, and
5) open allegiance to the Russian nation state, and proclaiming the
historical and current role of Tatar Muslims in the Russian national
enterprise. Nowhere do the authors of these writings refer to
themselves as “Hanafi Traditionalists,” but each of the ideas listed
above figure prominently in their writings. The political and
religious developments facing officially-recognized Tatar clerics
since the mid-1990’s appear to have resulted in the strengthening of
this sort of religious and ethnic conservatism. This sort of
conservatism cannot be attributed so much to the Tatars’ position as
a Muslim minority in a non-Muslim country, as to the challenges
faced by a reenergized Islamic reformism, indiscriminately referred
to as “Wahhabism,” and by the arrival of large numbers of Muslim
immigrants from the Caucasus and Central Asia into the highly
secularized and urban Tatar communities, who had previously
dominated Muslim institutions in most of Russia.
The roots of modern Tatar Hanafi traditionalism can be found in the
eighteenth century, when Empress Catherine II established a regime
whereby the Russian state formally authorized and recognized the
establishment of Islamic institutions for Russia’s Muslim subjects, at
that time mainly located in the Poland, Crimea, the Volga-Ural
region and Siberia. In 1788 Catherine decreed the founding of a
muftiate for Volga-Ural region and Siberia. This body was headed
by a mufti, and was responsible for the oversight of Muslim clerics,
and the administration of Islamic law in these communities,
primarily as it related to family and property law. In so doing,
Catherine granted Muslims the collective right to practice their faith,
iii

and made it illegal for Christian missionaries to proselytize among
them. Catherine’s initiatives formally recognizing Muslim
institutions in Russia resulted in the rapid growth of Islamic
institutions and above all, Islamic education. In addition to the
spread of Islamic education to ordinary Muslim villagers, Islamic
scholarship in Russia experienced a substantial flowering. Not only
did cities like Kazan, Astrakhan, Orenburg, Petropavlovsk, and
Semipalatinsk became important centers of Islamic scholarship and
education by the 19 th century, but many Tatars were studying in the
major centers of the Islamic world, particularly Bukhara and
Daghestan, but also in Turkey, Egypt, and the Hijaz. Russia also
became an important region for Sufism. Tatar merchants, and later
industrialists, were important patrons of Muslim institutions in
Russia, including education, and in very real terms the expansion of
Islamic institutions was dependent on the integration of Muslims
into the expanding Russian economy, and by extension, into Russian
society.
Like other religious minorities in the Russian empire, Tatar
theologians disagreed over the desirability of their community’s
integration into Russian society. During the Tsarist era Muslims
were overwhelmingly rural, and culturally were isolated, or rather
insulated, from Russian society as a whole. This isolation was even
more pronounced among Muslim scholars. As a result, some
scholars, such as ‘Abd ar-Rahman al-Utiz Imani (1785-1834),
denounced the legitimacy of a Russian appointed mufti,
emphasizing that territory under Russian rule was part of the Dar alharb
(the abode of war), and therefore muftis could have no
jurisdiction there. Other scholars, such as Taj ad-Din b. Yalchighul
al-Bashqordi (d. 1832) and later, Muhammad-‘Ali Choqori (1826-
1889) took a more quietist position. Choqori in particular stands out
for his strong embrace of a uniquely Muslim patriotism, embracing
both loyalty to the person of the Tsar, and a sort of territorial
patriotism expressed through devotion to the Muslim saints and
shrines of the Volga-Ural region, whose territorial limits
corresponded to the jurisdiction of the muftiate. 1 Another 19 th
century theological debate, partially connected to the Tatars’ status
1
On Muhammad-‘Ali Choqori (1826-1889) and his Russian patriotism cf.
Michael Kemper, Sufis und Gelehrte in Tatarien und Baschkirien: der
islamische Diskurs unter russicher Herrschaft, 1789-1889, (Berlin, 1998), 368-
392; cf. also Ghali Choqrïy, Dastan khajnamä, (Kazan, 2002/1423).
iv

as Russian subjects featured religious reformers, namely Abu’n-
Nasir Qursawi (1776-1802) and Shihab ad-Din Marjani (1818-
1889). Marjani in particular, a legal scholar and historian who had
taught in Bukhara and Kazan, while not directly challenging the
legitimacy of the muftiate, denounced the shrine-centered identity of
scholars such as ‘Ali-Choqori as an innovation, and typical of a
rationalist and reformist current, invoked the earliest centuries of
Islamic era as the ideal model of a Muslim society. 2
Rise of Reformism
By the beginning of the 20 th century, and particularly after the 1905
Revolution, many Muslims, inspired by the reformist writings of
Marjani, began to proclaim a form of Islamic modernism known as
“jadidism,” from the Arabic work “jadid,” meaning “new.” This
movement began as an educational reform movement that
emphasized the need to introduce a Western scientific curriculum
into Muslim education, and called for the integration and
participation of Muslims into the political life of the Russian
Empire, particularly after the establishment of the Russian
parliament (Duma). In Islamic law, jadid scholars emphasized a
rationalist approach to religion, critiquing Sufism, and related
practices, such as pilgrimage, and favoring direct interpretation of
the primary sources of Islamic law, the Qur’an and hadiths, in favor
of the Hanafi traditions of precedence. In addition, jadids strongly
embraced Western conceptions of national identity, and denounced
local sacred shrine-centered conceptions of regional identity that had
been articulated by Muslim authors such as Muhammad-‘Ali
Choqori and others. Instead, these authors articulated a new national
identity, calling themselves “Tatars,” and appropriating the ethnic
and political legacy of the Golden Horde. This new identity was
Turkic (even though the Golden Horde was a successor state of the
13 th century Mongol empire), and served to claim an autonomous
political heritage not only independent of Russia, but one that had
even conquered and dominated Russia in the Middle Ages.
2
Cf. Stéphane Dudoignon, “La question scolaire à Boukhara et au Turkestan
russe, du premier renouveau à la soviétisation (de la fin du xviiie siècle à
1937) », Cahiers du monde russe 37/1-2 (1996), 133-210; Michael Kemper,
“Entre Boukhara et la Moyenne-Volga: ‘Abd an-Nasir al-Qursavi (1776-1812)
en Conflit avec Oulemas Traditionalistes // Cahiers du Monde russe, XXXVII
(1-2), janvier-juin, 1996, 42-51.
v

Nevertheless, jadid ideology in no way dominated Muslim thought
in the last decades of Tsarist Russia. Until 1917 Muslim
communities in the Volga-Ural region remained overwhelmingly
rural and extremely conservative. Jadidist ideas were met with a
general apathy among Muslim scholars in rural areas, and even in
many major cities. Following the 1905 Revolution opposition to
jadidism became more focused among some religious scholars,
particularly in the pages of the journal Din wa Ma’ishat, published
in Orenburg and associated with the Muftiate. Jadids called these
scholars “qadimists,” from the Arabic word “qadim,” meaning old,
although this was not a name they applied to themselves. However
jadidist and Soviet critiques treated this form of traditionalism as
simply “reactionary,” and some post-Soviet Hanafi traditionalists
continue to view the jadidist legacy in positive terms, while at the
same time publishing some qadimist treatises. 3
The Soviet Era
Although the Soviet era witnessed the violent destruction of many
Islamic institutions and of the Muslim clergy in the Volga-Ural
region, it began with the jadids in power, many of whom embraced
the militant rationalism and scientific worldview, if not the atheism,
that characterized Bolshevik Marxism. In the early 1920’s the
Soviets formally recognized the “Tatar nation” and established the
Tatar Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (ASSR), known in
Tatar as “Tatarstan.” The Muftiate in Ufa remained in operation
during the 1920’s, now dominated by jadid theologians. However,
beginning in 1929 the Soviet authorities began a full-scale assault on
Islamic institutions in Tatarstan (and throughout the rest of the
Soviet Union). As a result, tens of thousands of clerics were
imprisoned, exiled, or shot, similar numbers of mosques and
madrasas were closed, all Islamic education was banned. 4 Islamic
3
4
Recent studies of the qadimist phenomenon include, R. G. Mukhametshin,
Tatarskii traditsionalizm: osobennosti i formy problemy, (Kazan, 2005);
Stéphane. Dudoignon, "Qu'est-ce que la 'Qadîmiya'? Eléments de sociologie du
traditionalisme musulman en Islam de Russie et en Transoxiane," L'Islam de
Russie: Conscience communautaire et autonomie politique chez les Tatars de la
Volga et de l'Oural depuis le XVIIIe siècle, Stéphane Dudoignon et al. eds.,
(Paris, 1997), 207-225.
Il’nur Minnullin, “Sud’ba musul’manskogo obrazovaniia v sovetskom
Tatarstane,” Islam v sovetskom i postsovetskom prostranstve, (Kazan, 2004),
161.
vi

institutions among the Tatars were particularly vulnerable to the
Soviet onslaught for a number of reasons. First of all, the burden of
funding Islamic mosques and education was mainly borne by the
wealthiest Muslims, and the Muslim clergy, while not a formal
social class or estate in Tsarist Russia, generally came from the more
privileged layers of society. Thus clerics and their patrons could
easily be, and often were, labeled “class enemies” or “kulaks.” The
most influential madrasas located in cities such as Kazan,
Astrakhan, Troitsk, and Orenburg had in fact been supported by
Muslim merchant and industrial capital, and were obvious targets of
Stalinist attacks. The Soviet assault on Islamic institutions resulted
in the closing of the Muftiate in Ufa. The mufti, Riza ad-Din b.
Fakhr ad-Din (Fakhrutdinov), died in 1936 in very difficult material
circumstances, and immediately following his death the Soviet
authorities arrested the remaining staff, effectively shutting the
institution down.
Nevertheless, even before 1941 some Tatar reformists also were able
to stimulate Islamic reformism in Uzbekistan. Hasan-hazrat
Ponomarev (d. 1937) was a Tatar theologian from Petropavlovsk, in
northern Kazakhstan, who had been a student of Shihab ad-Din
Marjani. According to Ashirbek Muminov, Ponomarev, like
Marjani, was highly critical of the Hanafi legacy in Central Asia,
and even leveled attacks against Imam Abu Hanifa himself (d. 767
CE). Hasan-hazrat was exiled to Tashkent in 1933, where became
associated with a circle of theologians know as the Ahl-i Qur’an,
and gained some renown for his study of the Qur’an. Another
theologian associated with that group in Uzbekistan was Ziyovudin
Boboxonov (1908-1982), who was later to become mufti of the
Soviet-sponsored Central Asian Muslim Religious Board
(SADUM). 5 The Mir-i Arab Madrasa in Bukhara, where the leading
Tatar theologians studied beginning in the 1960’s was administered
by the SADUM.
The German invasion of 1941, an existential threat to the Soviet
state, forced Joseph Stalin to somewhat liberalize his anti-religious
policies. With respect to the Muslims or European Russia and
Siberia, in 1943 he allowed the reestablishment of the Muftiate in
5
Ashirbek Muminov, “Fundamentalist Challenges to Local Islamic Traditions in
Soviet and Post-Soviet Central Asia,” Empire, Islam, and Politics in Central
Asia, UYAMA Tomohiko (ed.), (Sapporo, 2007), 257 n.18.
vii

Ufa, now renamed the Muslim Religious Board for European Russia
and Siberia (DUMES in its Russian acronym). At the same time, he
established three new muftiates following the structure of the Ufa
muftiate, located in Central Asia, Daghestan, and Azerbaijan. He
appointed as mufti of DUMES Gabrakhman Rasulev (1881-1950).
G. Rasulev was the son of Zaynullah Rasulev (d. 1917), the founder
of one of the most influential madrasas in Russia, the Rasuliya,
located in Troitsk, on the Kazakh steppe, and a major Sufi. 6 The
elder Rasulev was not a jadid, and was in fact equivocal, if not
critical, of aspects of Islamic reformism (an edition of one of his
treatises critiquing the influential 14th century Salafist scholar Ibn
Taimiya is included in this volume), however, his son appears to
have been more closely aligned with the reformist current. The
younger Rasulev graduated from his father’s madrasa in 1899, and
later studied at the al-Azhar Madrasa in Cairo. 7 His father passed to
him the administration of the Rasuliya in 1903, where Gabdrakhman
is said to have introduced a jadidism-inspired curriculum. The
madrasa was closed in 1917, and in 1923 the mufti in Ufa, Riza ad-
Din Fakhrutdinov, appointed him mukhtasib of the Urals region.
Rasulev evidently served nominally as mufti after Fakhrutdinov’s
death in 1936, although the institution had essentially ceased
operating after 1936. In addition, Rasulev’s wife Mukhlisa Bubi, a
prominent jadid in her own right, was arrested and executed in 1936.
In the precarious time between his wife’s arrest and his appointment
as mufti, Rasulev nevertheless was actively involved in raising funds
among Muslims to aid the Soviet war effort. Attempts to reopen
mosques and reestablish Islamic education characterized Rasulev’s
tenure as mufti. But his efforts at training a new generation of Tatar
Islamic scholars proved largely ineffective. 8
6
7
8
Cf. Hamid Algar, "Shaykh Zaynulla Rasulev: the Last Great Naqshbandi
Shaykh of the Volga-Urals Region," Muslims in Central Asia: Expressions of
Identity and Change, Jo-Ann Gross, ed., (Durham and London, 1992), 112-133,
and Räüf Nasïyrov, Zäynulla ishan, (Kazan, 2000).
For a discussion of connections between al-Azhar University and Islamic
reformism in Russia before 1917 cf. Stéphane Dudoignon, “Echoes to al-Manar
among the Muslims of the Russian Empire : A Preliminary Research Note on
Riza al-Din b. Fakhr al-Din and the Shura (1908-1918),” in S. A. Dudoignon, H.
Komatsu, Ya. Kosugi, eds., Intellectuals in the World of Islam, through the
Twentieth Century : Transmission, Transformation, Communication, (London,
New York, 2006) 85-116.
L. Iamaeva, “Gabdrakhman Rasulev,” Islam na Territorii byvshei Rossiiskoi
Imperii 4, 68-69; Valiulla Iakubov, Obshcherossiiskii muftiiat i ego muftii,
viii

His successors, Shakir Khiialetdinov (1890-1974), who served as
mufti from 1950 until 1972, and Gabdelbari Isaev (1907-1985), who
served from 1975 until 1980, could also claim very little success in
training religious scholars. Following the Second World War, the
only officially-sanctioned Muslim religious institution was the Mir-i
Arab Madrasa in Bukhara, and between 1950 and 1975 only three
Tatar students obtained permission to study there. 9 The result was
that virtually the only religious scholars who had had any formal
religious education were those who had studied before 1917. The
mufti Talgat Tajetdin (b. 1948, and who is still serving as the head
of one muftiate in Ufa) enjoyed only a qualified success in sending
Tatar students for training Bukhara, but nevertheless in 1979
succeeded in sending four Tatar students there. 10
Much regarding the activities of the DUMES during the Soviet era
remains to be studied, particularly its jurisprudence, but there is little
doubt that during this time it was under a strong reformist influence.
The jadidist legacy remained a prominent factor. This appears to
have been the case with G. Rasulev, and we also know that many of
the older generations of clerics who were prominent in this period,
had trained in pre-Revolutionary jadidist-dominated institutions. For
example, Gabdelkhabir Yarullin (1905-1994), who became imam of
Kazan’s Marjani mosque in 1968, and was a qazi in DUMES in
1970, had begun his training in the jadid Muhammadiya Madrasa in
Kazan under the theologian Galimjan Barudi (1857-1921). 11 It also
appears that the younger generation of scholars, particularly those
trained in Bukhara’s Mir-i Arab Madrasa, came under the influence
of reformist thought that was particularly dominant among Soviet
Islamic scholars in Central Asia under the leadership of the mufti in
Tashkent, Ziyovudin Boboxonov. While the reformist focus of the
9
10
11
(Kazan, 1426/2005), 38-40. Mukhlisa Bibi was the daughter of the prominent
jadid figure Gabdulla Bubi.
It should be noted that unlike in Central Asia, where formal advanced Islamic
education continued underground, in the Volga-Ural region, the advanced
madrasa curriculum in Islamic education appears to have completely ceased to
exist after 1945.
Minnullin, “Sud’ba musul’manskogo obrazovaniia v sovetskom Tatarstane,”
162; A. B. Iunusova, Islam v Bashkortostane, (Ufa, 1999), 231.
Gabedlkhabir-khazrat Iarullin, O privetstvii, (Kazan, 1426/2005), 3-4; Barudi
served as mufti in Ufa from 1917 until 1921.
ix

SADUM’s Soviet-era fatwas has been explored, 12 those of the
DUMES have not. Nevertheless, its muftis did issue fatwas on the
issue of pilgrimage, which they condemned as a “harmful
innovation.” 13
The younger generation of Tatar religious scholars who have
dominated the official Muslim institutions after 1991 were also
trained in Bukhara’s Mir-i Arab Madrasa in the late Soviet era.
These included the mufti of DUMES, Talgat Tajetdin, who was the
only Tatar to study in Bukhara during the era of the mufti Shakir
Khiialetdinov. Tajetdin went to Bukhara in 1966, and later studied in
Egypt, at al-Azhar University. 14 According to one estimate Talgat
Tajetdin succeeded in sending an unprecedented ten to fifteen Tatars
to the Mir-i Arab. These include Muqaddas Bibarsov, who today
serves as imam of the Volga Muslim Religious Board in Saratov,
and Nail’ Yarullin, the grandson of Gabdelkhabir Yarullin. The
younder Yarullin today heads the reestablished Muhammadiya
Madrasa in Kazan, 15 Gosman Iskhakov, mufti of the Religious
Board of Tatarstan, who matriculated into the Mir-i Arab Madrasa in
1978, the mufti of the Moscow-based Religious Board of Central
European Russia, Ravil’ Gainutdin, who studied in Bukhara from
1979 until 1984, and the Siberian scholar Nafigulla Ashirov, who
entered that madrasa in 1987, and today heads the Muslim Religious
Board of Asiatic Russia. Similarly, today’s Chief Qazi in Tatarstan’s
Muslim Religious Board, Gabdelkhak Samatov, whose writings
figure in this collection, studied in Bukhara from 1979 to 1981. 16 We
can identify two other alumni of the Mir-i Arab Madrasa who came
to prominence in Tatarstan after 1991, Fäyzrakhman Sattarov, who
reportedly studied in Bukhara for nine years, and Nurulla
Möflikhunov, who served as imam in the city of Chistopol’ from
1966 until 1988. The latter two figures and their theological
positions are addressed in more detail in a treatise by Waliulla
Yakubov included in this volume.
12
13
14
15
16
Cf. B. Babadjanov, “O fetvakh SADUM protiv ‘neislamskikh’ obychaev,”
Islam na postsovetskom prostranstve: vzgliad iznutri, (Moscow, 2001), 170-
184.
Iunusova, Islam v Bashkortostane, 234.
Ghabedkhaq khäzrät Samatov. Millätebezdä Islam dine, (Kazan, 1998), 113.
Iarullin, O privetstvii, 6-7.
Samatov. Millätebezdä Islam dine, 5.
x

The Dual Crises of the 1990’s
The close of the Soviet era brought to a head two separate crises for
the Muslim religious elite, which influenced the subsequent
development of Hanafi Traditionalism. The first was the splintering
of the Muslim religious administrative boards throughout the former
Soviet Union, mainly along regional political lines. The second was
the large-scale reawakening of religious life, which, while publicly
welcomed by these Soviet-era religious figures, took place with the
almost total absence of trained scholars, since the generation of
clerics who had been trained before 1917 had essentially died out.
Similar conditions existed in Muslim communities throughout the
former Soviet, but among Tatars, who had been more strongly
imbued with Soviet secularism and urbanization than virtually any
other Muslim group, the lack of trained scholars was particularly
acute.
During the first several years of independence bureaucratic disputes
among Islamic officials that had become exacerbated during the
Gorbachev era resulted in the defections of congregations and
religious officials from Ufa-based muftiate under Talgat Tajetdin.
These disputes have been discussed in some detail in a number of
works, but suffice it to say that by 1992 separate Muslim religious
boards, most headed by muftis, emerged in Bashkortostan,
Tatarstan, Saratov, and Moscow, motivated in part by growing
dissatisfaction among many clerics with the personality and policies
of Talgat Tajetdin. The disintegration of the DUMES, which in 1992
was renamed the Central Muslim Religious Board (TsDUM) was
also accelerated by the rapid political realignments immediately
following the establishment of an independent Russian Federation. 17
Already by 1992 a number of new muftiates had emerged, some
operating on a regional basis, closely aligned with regional
governments and movements such as the Muslim Religious Board of
Tatarstan under the mufti Gosman Iskhakov, or the Muslim
Religious Board of Bashkortostan (DUM RB). Others such as the
17
Iunusova, Islam v Bashkortostane, 282-288, Rafik Mukhametshin, Tatary i
islam v XX veke, (Kazan, 2003), 175-188; cf. also K. Matsuzato, “Diskursy i
povedenie musul’manskikh deiatelei Volgo-Ural’skogo regiona: vliianie
regional’nykh obrazov samovospriiatiia i strategii oblastnykh administratsii,”
Islam ot Kaspiia do Urala: Makroregional’nyi podkhod, K. Matsuzato, ed.
(Sapporo-Moscow, 2007), 118-158.
xi

TsDUM under Talgat Tajetdin, and the Volga Muslim Religious
Board in Saratov, functioned in a more geographically and
politically diffuse environment. 18 It should be added that the Muslim
Religious Board of Tatarstan (DUM RT) retains particular influence,
administering approximately 850 Muslim congregations (mahallas)
in the republic, and with over 900 officially recognized imams as of
2005. 19
These internecine bureaucratic disputes among the former Soviet
Tatar religious elite were taking place in an environment of national
economic collapse and religious liberalization. At the same time the
full elimination of religious restrictions encouraged Tatar Muslims
to explore Islamic religious practice, stimulated by the opening of
contacts to the rest of the Islamic world that exposed Tatar Muslims
to the full spectrum of Islamic practice and dogma, including to
movements and ideas the various Muslim religious boards, and later
the Russian government itself, came to view as religious and
political threats. It was at this time that the term “Wahhabi” came to
be used in Russia (and in other parts of the former Soviet Union), as
an imprecise pejorative term to signify a range of Islamic reformist
currents, including especially Salafists, even as much of the Tatar
religious elite, especially those trained at Bukhara’s Mir-i Arab
Madrasa, were infused with the same sorts of reformist ideas. 20
Generally, this elite emphasized politically expedient principle of
“moderation,” versus the “extremism” of its “Wahhabi” opponents,
and invoked a history of peaceful coexistence between the numerous
faiths of the Volga-Ural region. That such an approach was
embraced by much of the population should come as no surprise, as
at that time on their televisions the inhabitants of the Volga-Ural
18
19
20
For a concise overview of the various regional Muslim religious boards in
Russia cf. F. A. Asadullin, Musul’manskie dukhovnye organizatsii i
ob’edineniia rossiiskoi federatsii, (Moscow, 1999), 27-32 and passim; cf. also
Matsuzato, “Diskursy i povedenie,” passim, Grigorii Kosach, “Muftiiat
rossiiskogo postsovetskogo regiona: stanovlenie i evoliutsiia,” Vestnik Evrazii 2
(9) 2000, 59-85; and N. Mukhariamov, “Islam v Povolzh’e: politizatsiia
nesostoiashaiasia ili otlozhennaia,” Islam ot Kaspiia do Urala:
Makroregional’nyi podkhod, K. Matsuzato, ed. (Sapporo-Moscow, 2007), 32-
33.
Cf. Wäliulla khäzrät Yaghqub, Tatarstan imam-khatïyblar (Kazan, 1426/2005).
In fact, the term was already being used in the early 20 th century among Hanafi
conservatives as a term to disparage jadids; cf. Shäyekh Ishmökhämmät
khäzrätläre Tüntäri, Shärighat’ne torghïzu shartlarï, (Kazan, 2000); cf. also
Mukhametshin, Tatarskii traditsionalizm, passim.
xii

egion were watching ethnic and religious violence unfolding in
Moldova, Nagorno-Karabakh, and in Central Asia.
Also during this era the influx of Muslim immigrants from Central
Asia and the Caucasus began changing the complexion of Russia’s
urban Muslim communities, which until that time had consisted
primarily of Tatars. Tatars have the same low birthrates, and are
experiencing the same negative population growth as the Russian
population as a whole, and in this regard rural communities, which
historically had been the backbone of the Tatar Muslim population,
are facing rapid declines in population. Both of these issues are
addressed in writings by Waliulla Yakubov and Jalil Fazlïyev
included in this volume. Nevertheless, demographic issues are
generally eclipsed in favor of concerns over “extremist ideology,”
although these demographic issues threaten Tatar Islamic
institutions in a no less real way.
The Paradox of Tatar Hanafi Traditionalism
Beginning in the late 1990’s a number of Tatar clerics, primarily
associated with the Muslim Religious Board of Tatarstan, began to
formulate a systematic theological argument that would help Tatar
Islamic communities and institutions to retain their cohesion. The
corpus of writings establishing Tatar ethnic and communal selfdefinition
had previously been the preserve of the Soviet
intelligentsia. Soviet Tatar scholars had been very successful in this
realm, and in navigating the restrictions of Soviet era. Not only had
Tatars by and large accepted, and even embraced, Soviet secularism,
but they also assimilated the Soviet narrative of Tatar history.
Beyond its ethnic and political aspects, this narrative, in fact rooted
in nationalist pre-revolutionary jadid writings, extolled the Tatar
nation’s collective cultural embrace of modernism and Westernized
education, and its rejection of “benighted” Islamic traditionalism
and “fanaticism.” As we have seen, Tatar intellectuals and
modernists invoked the legacy of the Tatar theologian and historian
Shihab ad-Din Marjani, who, among other things, was a sharp critic
of Central Asian Hanafi tradition and its influence in Russia.
In the face of demographic challenges caused by Muslim
immigration and a shrinking Tatar population, and the theological
threat posed by reformist Islam to many of the Tatar religious
institutions and customs that had survived the Soviet era, clerics
xiii

associated with the Tatarstan muftiate emphasized the role of the
Islamic faith in preserving the cohesion of the Tatar nation under
Tsarist and Soviet rule. The Tatar secular intelligentsia had in fact
begun implicitly acknowledging the Islamic contribution to the Tatar
nation’s cohesion in the 1980’s, when they began “rehabilitating”
jadidism. But generally their appreciation of Islam as a unifying
factor for the Tatar nation was tentative. At one level, they
emphasized the link between reformist Islamic theology and
modernism, but at the level of “the people” they depicted Islam as a
sort of “preservative agent” that kept the Tatar people intact until
they could be “enlightened” by modernism.
That Tatar Muslim clerics should emphasize Islamic aspects of Tatar
national identity is not surprising. However, in so doing these clerics
also challenged emerging reformist Islamic ideas that rejected
nationalism of any sort, and identified Tatars as belonging to a
worldwide Islamic community. The reformist emphasis on
belonging to the umma coincided with their denunciation of customs
and practices (ghoref wä ghadät) deemed to be harmful innovations
(bidghat’) in favor of Islamic practiced based on the Qur’an and the
Sunna. As reformists themselves, the jadids had also denounced
these aspects of popular religious practice as observed in Tatar
Muslim communities. We have also seen how they were linked to
Central Asian theologians through such figures as Hasan-hazrat
Ponomarev. Folk customs as evidence of ethnic authenticity were
strongly endorsed during the Soviet period, reflecting the influence
of European Romanticism on Soviet thought. The study of “folk
customs” was an important element of Soviet Tatar ethnography,
although the idea was to distinguish “genuine” folk traditions from
“artificial” Islamic ones. As a result, Soviet Tatar ethnographers
categorized the “genuine” customs as “pre-Islamic,” which was in
fact the same categorization that the Islamic reformers made. It
should be pointed out again that during the Soviet era the Muslim
clerics of the religious boards indeed denounced many religious
practices, such as pilgrimage to local shrines, as “harmful
innovations.”
Clerics of the Muslim Religious Board of Tatarstan therefore began
a reevaluation of Tatar religious traditions, and in so doing,
themselves “rehabilitated” and “revalidated” much of the Tatars’
Islamic legacy that had been under constant critique over the past
century. To achieve this first of all they implied an association
xiv

etween “Tatar Islam” 21 and the Hanafi school of jurisprudence,
which historically had allowed for local traditions and customs that
did not contradict Islamic practice. Similarly, they contrasted the
“tolerance” of the Hanafi school of jurisprudence with “fanaticism”
of Islamic reformers, in which they included “Wahhabis,” and
jadids. Indeed, in a treatise on the Hanafi school of jurisprudence the
Deputy Mufti of the Religious Board of Tatarstan, Waliulla
Yaqubov, directly links Islamic reformism, including jadidism, with
terrorism. 22 Among Tatar Muslims, there were various rites that
continued to be practiced throughout the Soviet period, including
Qur’an recitations and funerary repasts on specific days after a
person’s death, pilgrimage, veneration of patron saints (pirs) of
livestock, as well as some agricultural festivals, such as the Tatars’
midsummer festival Sabantuy. However, modern Tatar Hanafi
traditionalists are not simply reactionaries on theological matters,
nor are they necessarily nostalgic for Tatar Islam as it was practiced
before 1917. As the texts below indicate, figures such as Yakubov,
and especially the chief qazi of Tatarstan, G. Samatov, while
denouncing reformism and modernism, remain suspicious of Sufi
traditions, particularly pilgrimage to major local shrines such as
Bulghar, which had featured prominently in the regional identity that
Muhammad-‘Ali Choqori, among others, helped define in the 19 th
century.
Tatar Hanafi traditionalism cannot be isolated from the Russian
political context either. The muftis of Russia have had a longstanding
relationship with, and indeed dependence upon, the Russian
secular authorities. The muftis and muftiates have only dared to
display independence during the times when the central authorities
were weakest. 23 This was the case during the Russian Civil War,
when the mufti Galimjan Barudi was literally caught between the
Bolsheviks and Whites. Similarly, the Yeltsin era witnessed the
disintegration of the DUMES in Ufa, and the realignment of new
Muslim religious boards with regional power centers. At that time
some clerics associated with the Muslim Religious Board of
21
22
23
Indeed, invoking a “Tatar Islam” was a direct challenge to the reformist
emphasis on a unitary umma.
Veliulla Yakupov, Hanefi Mezhebi, onun anlamı ve güncelliği, (Kazan,
1426/2005), 4. A Russian version of this pamphlet was available on-line:
http://imancentre.ru/hanafia.htm as of June 2007.
The same can be said of Tatar political figures in general.
xv

Tatarstan, such as Iskhaq-hajji Lotfullin, gave sermons emphasizing
Tatar sovereignty, which at that moment was a topic of negotiation
between the Yeltsin administration, and the government of Tatarstan
under M. Shaimiev. 24 The advent of Vladimir Putin as President of
Russia in 1999 strongly affected the Muslim religious boards in two
ways. The first was Putin’s centralization of power at the expense of
the regions, which effectively limited the autonomy of the regions,
including Tatarstan, and their religious boards. Secondly, the Second
Chechen War began with Putin’s advent to power. Unlike during the
First Chechen War, when Muslim support for the Russian
prosecution of the war, including among Tatars, was tepid, the
Second Chechen War was in part started by the activities of Salafi
jihadists both from within the former Soviet Union, and outside of it,
and the authorities publicly framed the war as the struggle of
moderation against specifically Islamic extremism. Terrorist acts
conducted in Russia proper helped drive home this perception. The
Muslim clerics of the religious boards were unanimous in
condemning extremism, which they linked with “Wahhabism,” and
in drawing attention to the Russian patriotism displayed by the Tatar
people and their religious leaders, both historically and at the present
time. In so doing, they defined Russian citizenship along civic lines,
and implicitly brought into question Russians who would cast the
war as simply an ethno-religious “clash of civilizations.”
While many clerics in Tatarstan present Hanafi Traditionalism as a
bulwark against Islamic extremism, particularly against reformist
currents originating outside of the Tatar Islamic milieu, proclaiming
this sort of intellectual tradition will inevitably force these clerics to
question the historical role of the reformist jadid tradition. To a
degree this challenge is already under way, with the republication of
several works by the “qadimist” theologian Ishmi Ishan at-Tuntari
(1849-1919), who was one of the first Hanafi clerics to equate the
jadids of the early 20 th century with Wahhabism. 25 Indeed, as we
have seen above Waliulla Yakubov explicitly indicates that Islamic
reformism provides an ideological link between the jadids and
modern-day Muslim terrorists. However, the modernist tradition, in
which the jadids play a prominent role, paradoxically constitutes a
central pillar in the edifice of Tatar national mythology. Tatar
24
25
See Lotfullin’s sermon included in this volume.
Tüntäri, Shärighat’ne torgïzu shartlarï; this is the re-edition of a work originally
published in 1914.
xvi

identity itself is in large measure a legacy of jadidist thought, and
this identity was strongly promoted (and assimilated) during the
Soviet era, albeit mainly without its religious context. Secular Tatar
intellectuals who generally have little appreciation or understanding
of their nation’s Islamic heritage, have continued to proclaim the
Tatars’ jadidist heritage, and for the most part hold a dominant
position on issues of authority in defining the historical heritage of
the Tatar people.
xvii

Biographies
Jälil Fazlïyev (b. 1956)
Jälil Fazlïyev, also widely known as Jälil khäzrät, is one of the most
articulate and energetic proponents of Tatar Hanafi traditionalism.
He holds the position of the Chief Mukhtasib of Tatarstan, is a
member of the presidium of the Muslim Religious Board of
Tatarstan, and is also imam and qazi in the village of Borbash,
located northeast of Kazan in Baltasi district. Besides working as an
imam, Fazlïyev works in the agricultural sector, working in the
village of Borbash’s state farm (sovkhoz) as an economist, and
ultimately as deputy director. 1 Waliulla Yakubov identifies
Fazlïyev’s own mosque as model of how imams should manage
these institutions, and writes approvingly of the mosque’s success
and expansion. 2 In 2006 Fazlïyev’s numerous written works could
be found in bookshops throughout Kazan. These include a fourvolume
collection of 101 of his sermons (wäghaz’lär), that has been
reprinted at least once. The sermons are mainly of a general
informative nature, explaining basic Islamic practices and concepts.
At the same time many of the sermons contain candid observations
on the problems facing Muslim communities in Tatarstan today.
Generally when he comments on the current state of affairs for Tatar
Muslims Fazlïyev remains focused on practical, rather than
theological or narrowly political matters. He is also the author of a
collection of lessons, and broadcasts his lessons on Tatar radio and
television as well. 3
Waliulla Yakubov (b. 1963)
Waliulla Yakubov is currently the Senior Deputy Mufti of the
Muslim Religious Board of Tatarstan, that body’s chief
administrator of waqfs (pious endowments), and since 1992 the
imam of Kazan’s Apanaev Mosque. He is a historian by training,
and is a particularly prolific and articulate proponent of Hanafi
Traditionalism in Tatarstan. He is also since 1992 the chairman of
1
2
3
Jälil khäzrät wäghaz’läre, IV, (Kazan, 2005), 4.
Wäliulla khäzrät Yaghqub, Tatarstan imam-khatïyblar (Kazan, 1426/2005), 8.
Jälil khäzrät däresläre, (Kazan, 2006), 3.
xix

the Iman Publishing House, probably the most extensive publisher
of Islamic popular literature in the former Soviet Union. He is also
the author of a large number of pamphlets on the Islamic history,
and current Islamic institutions in Tatarstan, including the pamphlet
“The Hanafi School of Jurisprudence,” which has been published in
Tatar, Russian, and Turkish versions.
Iskhaq Lotfullin (b. 1942)
Lotfullin is currently imam and mukhtasib of Kazan’s Trans-Qaban
Mosque. His training has been entirely within Russia, and during the
Soviet era worked outside of the religious field as a police officer.
According to one brief biographical sketch, he grew up in a religious
family, and because of his unsuccessful attempts to enter the Mir-
Arab Madrasa, was banned from the Communist Party. In 1989 in
the city of Ufa he opened the first officially-permitted madrasa in
Russia. 4 In 1991 he became the chairman of the Trans-Kaban
Mosque, and is involved in secular political activity, as well as
religious affairs. He is the co-author, together with F. Islaev, of an
historical pamphlet titled “The Jihad of the Tatar People,” published
in Kazan in 1998, in which he closely links Tatar identity with
Islamic status. 5
Ghabdelkhaq Samatov (b. 1930)
Ghabedkhaq khäzrät Samatov is currently the Chief Qazi of the
Muslim Religious Board of Tatarstan. In a biographical sketch
devoted to Samatov, his longtime friend Minnäkhmät Zäynullin
writes that in was born in a Tatar village in very difficult social and
economic circumstances. As a young man he learned the basics of
Islamic ritual from elders in his village. 6 He served in the Red Army
and was discharged in 1951, after which he married and moved to
Kazan where he obtained work in a defense plant. In Kazan he
studied secretly at night with a “scholarly person” named
Ghabedlkhaq Sadïyqov, and he himself gave lessons based on what
he had learned. Among the subjects Samatov taught at that time was
4
5
6
http://www.i-student.ru/imam_info/?id=121, viewed January 2007
This pamphlet has been posted on the Tatar nationalist website “Azatlyk” as of
January 2007; cf. http://www.azatlyk.com/other/11_02r.html.
Ghabedkhaq khäzrät Samatov. Millätebezdä Islam dine, (Kazan, 1998), 4-6.
xx

Qur’an recitation. Zäynullin describes Sadïyqov as very learned, but
provides little specific information regarding his training. Yet based
on what Zäynullin claims Sadïyqov taught, the focus was less on a
rigorous Islamic theology than a jadidist and even nationalist Tatar
hagiography, which was no less perilous to transmit in the Soviet
context of the 1950’s. Specifically, he taught Samatov about the
biographies and writings of figures such as Ghayaz Iskhaqi, Hadi
Atlasi, Ghabderäshid Ibrahimov, and other nationalist and jadidist
figures. 7 His professional religious career began, according to
Zäynullin, in 1979, when he obtained permission to study at
Bukhara’s Mir-i Arab Madrasa in Kazan, at that time the only
officially-recognized madrasa in the Soviet Union. Regrettably,
Zäynullin provides no details on how and why Samatov obtained
permission to study Islamic theology in Bukhara. He studied there
for two years (Zäynullin alludes to vague conflicts with the KGB),
and returned to Tatarstan in 1981 where he served as imam of the
mosque in the city of Al’met’evsk from that year until 1986. From
1986 until 1988 he left Tatarstan to serve as imam in the city of
Orenburg, and from 1988 until 1991, he returned to Tatarstan and
served as imam in Chistopol’ where he opened a madrasa. In 1991
he returned to Kazan and became was selected to become the Chief
Qazi and Mukhtasib of Tatarstan. In that year he also became the
imam of Kazan’s Marjani Mosque, and he held that position until
1995, when the current mufti of Tatarstan, Gosman Iskhaqov
replaced him as imam of that mosque. 8
Samatov’s best known work is Millätebezdä Islam dine (The Islamic
Faith in Our Nation), which is devoted to the religious history of the
Tatars. Valiulla Yaqubov indicates that in fact the author of a large
part of the work was Ghabdelkhaq Sadïyqov, who wrote the history
7
8
Ghayaz Iskhaqi (1878-1954) was one of the most prolific Tatar literary figures
before 1917, and a major figure in the anti-Soviet Tatar exile community after
1917. He also figured prominently in the short-lived Idel-Ural independence
movement during the Russian civil war. Hadi Atlasi (1876-1938) was a Tatar
nationalist historian and author, and a member of the Duma before 1917. He
was executed by the Soviets in 1938. Ghaberäshid Ibrahimov (1857-1944) was
a Siberian Tatar reformist thinker and theologian. He opposed the Soviets
during the Civil War and ended in exile in Japan, where he became a prominent
pan-Islamic figure, and a sharp critic of the Soviets.
Valiulla Iakupov, Kazan’ musul’manskaia: spravochnik, (Kazan, 1426/2005),
22.
xxi

of the muftis and muftiate in Russia that appears in the book. 9
Sadïyqov may also be the author of the biographical sketches in the
book devoted to major jadidist and nationalist figures. The bulk of
the book contains Sadïyqov’s and Samatov’s history of the muftiate
in Ufa, and also includes biographical sketches of prominent Tatar
theologians, intellectuals, and literati. It also includes a brief chapter
by a separate author on Sufism in Tatarstan during the Soviet era,
and the chapter included in this collection. Another of Samatov’s
works is a collection of his replies to legal questions in the capacity
of Chief Qazi of Tatarstan, published in 2001. 10
9
10
Valiulla Iakupov, Obshcherossiiskii muftiiat i ego muftii, (Kazan, 1425/2005),
4-5; Samatov, however, is the author of the chapter on the last mufti of
DUMES, Talgat Tajetdin.
Ghabedkhaq khäzrät Samatov, Bash qazï khökemnäre, (Kazan, 1422/2001).
xxii

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xxvi

Part I:
The Current State of Islam in
Tatarstan

Introduction
The selections included here presents evaluations by three
prominent clerics in the Muslim Religious Board of Tatarstan that
address the overall state of the Muslim religious community in
Tatarstan. The authors present a generally pessimistic picture.
Fazlïyev, the imam of a rural congregation in northwestern
Tatarstan, characterizes in rather bleak terms village congregations,
which in the past hade been cornerstone of Tatar Muslim
institutions. As a figure in a semi-official body, it should come as no
surprise that Fazlïyev proposes state funding, and by extension,
regulation, of Muslim religious institutions, evidently following the
example of Turkey, and providing Tatar Islamic institutions the
same sort of official consideration as some state churches in Western
Europe. Fazlïyev also addresses the issue of the financial support of
mosques in the absence of pious endowments (waqfs) or widespread
private land ownership from which Muslim landowners could
theoretically provide offerings. In other sermons Fazlïyev also
addresses many other threats to the Tatar community as Muslim
community, such as low birthrates, alcoholism, minimal religiosity
and piety, and so forth.
Samatov’s polemical essay, composed in 1997, addresses the
broader social, economic and religious crises of the 1990’s and their
effect on the Tatar Muslim religious community. Like Fazlïyev,
Samatov laments the widespread ignorance about the Islamic faith in
post-Soviet Tatar society, particularly among urban Tatars. He also
considers official religious institutions as the best method for
regulating heterodox and “dangerous” religious currents that are
flourishing among believers lacking in even the most basic Islamic
knowledge.
Yakubov’s remarkable essays in this section address the
demographic and linguistic issues facing mosques that historically
Tatars had dominated, but that are now, as he describes it, being
overwhelmed with immigrant Muslims. Here Yakubov expands his
scope to Russia as a whole, particularly Russia’s major urban
centers where before 1917 Tatar clerics had dominated Muslim
institutions. In defending the primacy of the Tatar community and
the Tatar language in administering these primarily urban mosques,
the author directly challenges reformist-oriented arguments that seek
to diminish or even eliminate ethnic distinction within the
community of believers. Yakubov addresses this pamphlet to
Russia’s Tatar imams, and provides evidence from the sunna that
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Part 1: The Current State of Islam in Tatarstan
ethnic identity existed at the time of the Prophet Muhammad, who
acknowledged the existence of differing ethnic identities among his
followers. He also argues that just as the Tatar dominance of
Russia’s Muslim institutions contributed to the preservation of the
Tatars as an ethnic and religious community under Russian rule, the
linguistic russification of these same institutions threatens the
linguistic and ethnic cohesion of the modern Tatar nation. In
addressing the russified and reformist Tatars’ call for Russianlanguage
mosques, he dismisses these Tatars as cultural and
historical amnesiacs. With respect to Muslim immigrants, he uses
nativist arguments, calling on them to accept the language of the
country’s Muslim majority.
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Jälil khäzrät Fazlïyev
ORIGINAL TEXT 1
1
Jälil khäzrät Fazlïyev, “Awïl mäkhälläläre bügengi khäle,” Jälil khäzräte
wäghaz’läre, 3-nche kitap, (Kazan, 2002), 112-119.
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Part 1: The Current State of Islam in Tatarstan
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6

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Jälil khäzrät Fazlïyev

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Jälil khäzrät Fazlïyev

Part 1: The Current State of Islam in Tatarstan
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The State of Rural Congregations Today
In the Name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate
The State of Rural Congregations Today
TRANSLATION
Praise God, in recent years great possibilities have opened up for
adhering to religion. The perverse policy that was carried out against
religion in those years was deficient. Mosques have been built in
many villages. In Russia laws regarding religion have been adopted.
The right to maintain faith has been granted to everyone in the
constitutions of both Russia and Tatarstan. But there are still plenty
of things to do and plenty of problems to solve.
Let people who disagree forgive me, but the phrase, “Everyone has
the right to adhere to religion” exists only on paper. This is because
it is not being materially fulfilled. [Here are] a few examples. Well, I
have the right to obtain an education, schools were built, teachers
were put in place; doctors were provided with compensation. The
right to leisure was granted. There are clubs; there are employees of
[clubs] that aren’t open once in a month. I have the right to adhere to
religion. But if I say, “I perform the daily prayers,” there is no place
[to pray] in the workplace, at school, or in hospitals. In some
villages either there’s no mosque, or if there is, there are no funds to
light it; or there’s no imam, and if there is an imam, there’s no
money to pay him. Paying for these expenses altogether is not
considered. Today we are a secular state, or rather, then when we
say that religion is separate from the state, then atheism has ceased
being the state ideology. That being the case, then the time has come
when religious organizations and those who take part in them should
stop being a second-class unfunded group. We’ve stopped fighting
against religion; everyone has the right to adhere to religion; do
those who serve believers not have the right to feed their children?
When will we stop begging other organizations, other leaders, other
countries? Thank you. When we come with a request most of our
leaders won’t even turn around, and they [only] help when it suits
them. In the countryside there are no organizations but the collective
farm or state farm. All the same, somehow a way is found and help
is given; government money is retained. Then why can’t that be put
into a legal and established procedure? When he’s able to ask, a
more modest person will now go that way. Consequently, it will
overshadow the honest religious figures. But the humble person now
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Part 1: The Current State of Islam in Tatarstan
lives poorly. Why do instructors of secular subjects have the right to
get an official salary, while those who teach religious subjects
don’t? On the contrary, today the schools teaching religious subjects
function on the basis of a state license, and teach fifty percent
secular sciences. And I’m not telling the whole of it either. Money
has been appropriated for convicts; is it right that in order to
appropriate money in the budget for religious figures they don’t
even have the rights that criminals have?
In our country today alcoholism, drug addiction, prostitution, crime,
and similar afflictions are spreading day by day. What kinds of
measure, marathons, concerts, soirees, and activities aren’t being
organized against these? And then what’s the outcome? Does it
reduce their incidence? We’re no longer fighting against religion. A
legal status has been granted to religion in society. A lot of funds
have been expended for building places of worship. How is it right
not to make use of the funds that society posseses for the people, and
not to serve the people?
A wise person once said, “Now in society the system is such that as
the people are provided with jobs, then places of worship should be
filled with worshippers.” Today in our country workers are
decreasing year by year, unemployment is increasing, and there’s no
one performing the daily prayers. That being the case, soon there
will be no order. Everybody will end up being police. Eventually
jobs will only increase for police officers and doctors.
Sometimes they’re asking, “Now they’ve built mosques, why hasn’t
alcoholism stopped? Why aren’t there any less people attacking one
another?” A school was built for some village, not all of the people
have a high school education. In order to have a high school
education that school would have to be working constantly. Those
who want education have to obtain a high school education and take
the examination. So, if the conditions aren’t there for the mosque to
function and for people to go there can there be any hope of
providing religious training? To think that once a mosque is built,
everyone will be well-balanced is like hoping that if there’s a
conservatory in Kazan, everyone will be a composer.
A mosque is not simply a building. What will we do so that a
mosque does what it’s supposed to do? Would the money set aside
for heating, cleaning, and lighting a mosque large in the state
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The State of Rural Congregations Today
budget, or else in some organization’s budget? Are the funds meant
for paying a salary to its imam, muezzin, or instructor large? Having
a ceremony and starting it up with difficulty, we open a mosque, and
we forget about that. In reality, it’s appropriate to have it opened at
least five times a day. Who performs this task? Why won’t it be tied
to his duties? When looking today at mosque expenditures, most of
them can’t mainly come from the “Burial Services Bureau.”
Regardless of which one it is, there is no question that the spirit of
religion is the ability to give moral education. Its experience in this
realm is counted in millennia. What information was there that
served the people for thousands of years. In today’s computer era
there is no one who has thought up a doctrine that replaces religion;
nor will there be. In the Qur’an our Lord God spoke clearly about
this. After our Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), no prophet
will come into this world. And after Islam, no religion will come
either. Until Judgment Day the Qur’an will not cease being the law.
So breaking your head and following whatever new teaching is a
sign of stupidity and faithlessness.
Academician Dmitrii Likhachev wrote, “It is not life that determined
consciousness, but consciousness that determines life. Morality has
a greater affect on society than any laws or constitution.” 1 Let’s not
forget these words. A scholar who was engaged in the exact
sciences, who was internationally recognized, is saying [this].
Ignorance is all one needs to go around saying loudly, “Science is
needed to understand religion,” and “there is no God.” It’s
interesting, but now we’re tasting the bitter fruit of those who were
going around proclaiming that. Regardless of this, we don’t like to
change, and we continue to live like pigs that are used to the mud.
In schools today [when] they’re only teaching exact sciences, and
only paying attention to sports and music, it isn’t right not to
providing religious moral instruction. One cannot educate a good
person outside of spiritual instruction. The great Russian writer
Anton Chekhov spoke about this quite beautifully. “If one accustoms
a scoundrel to science, one gets a brilliant scoundrel.” 2 Today,
when we can’t introduce religious moral instruction in the
1
2
The quotation appears in the original Russian.
The quotation appears in the original Russian.
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Part 1: The Current State of Islam in Tatarstan
educational system, we can’t avoid educating “brilliant scoundrels.”
The tragedy that took place in Laishevo clearly underscores this. 3
Those criminal adolescents had studied well, lived in good families,
and were involved in sports and art, but they lacked in spiritual
instruction.
Today we want to spiritually heal our society. We need to turn and
face religion. It is necessary to establish appropriate places for
religious figures in society. It is right for them to have rules in order
that they live and function equally with others. It’s essential to
supply trained and educated religious figures with the space and the
time for giving spiritual instruction in schools. Young people who
have graduated from a madrasa that has a state license don’t have
the right to teach in schools, and the conditions don’t exist to go
back and work in a mosque. This situation shows that the state does
not have a consistent policy in this area. That being the case, then
who is to blame for our young people joining inappropriate currents,
after all? It’s legally permitted to study; then it is also right that they
have the right and the ability to use [it].
Nowadays we’re talking a lot about religious movements and sects
that are alien to us, and about their negative influence. We follow
the path of being free from their influence. If the government takes it
upon itself to finance religious organizations, it would be easy to
resolve this issue. There is a saying, “Whoever sits on a sled, let him
have that place.”
The condition of most rural mosques is especially unfortunate, in
both large and small villages. One can’t maintain a mosque on
donations. Land taxes have come into existence too. Otherwise,
most mosques were built on empty lots. The economic situation of
the collective and state farms [make it] difficult to ask [them] for
assistance. There are no aid organizations at all in the countryside.
There are some who want to solve the economic situation of
mosques with ‘ushr. 4 That isn’t right either. First of all, ‘ushr and
3
4
Laishevo is a town in Tatarstan, near the confluence of the Volga and Kama
Rivers. It is unclear what incident he is referring to here.
‘Ushr is a tax paid by Muslims consisting of one-tenth agricultural produce or
income.
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The State of Rural Congregations Today
zakat 5 are for orphans and the poor. Secondly, if all of that land were
private holdings, ‘ushr could be given from all the land; at present,
there is very little land in private use.
If collective and state farms offered ten percent of their gross
income, then at that time they would experience a difficult time. But
they are under state law, and not under Islamic law. Now many
collective farms are considered shareholder companies. In
strengthening their faith, the shareholders will resolve this issue. But
it’s necessary to guarantee the existence of our mosques and
madrasas today. Hopefully God the Exalted will place guidance in
the hearts of our leaders, and let them solve this problem correctly.
We have entered a new century, and a new millennium. But the old
problems still remain. In the new millennium, in the new century, let
religious figures, government leaders, our intellectuals, and our
scholars work together, and may we find ways of protecting our
society from unpleasant phenomena. Let’s live building a beautiful
life, carrying out God’s laws, and avoiding what’s forbidden.
Hopefully we will be happy and meet in Paradise.
Peace be upon you, and the mercy and blessings of God.
5
Zakat is a charitable tax incumbent upon all Muslims consisting of one fortieth
of a household’s income.
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