The Issue: Alienation of radical nationalists and of certain Muslim clerics from the Tatarstan’s government sets the stage for politicization of Islam.

Revitalization of Islam in Tatarstan dates back to the perestroika of the late 1980s. It was a part of a more general process of searching for new ideological alternatives that involved all peoples of the USSR. Islam was an important tool of the Tatar national movement that served to reinforce a distinct Tatar identity and demands for greater autonomy or independence.

The most common approach at that time was to restore Islam as a conservative national tradition, a set of certain popular rites. Islam then was not yet an independent political force. The national movement used Muslim symbols, such as green flags and traditional hats, instrumentally, to back up their political demands with claims of national authenticity.

Some scholars draw direct parallels between the leaders of the national movement in the late 1980s and the so called “national communists” of the 1920s who strategically used Communist rhetoric to legitimate their demands of greater autonomy for their peoples. Likewise, the Islamic renaissance of the late 1980s was an important asset in the struggle to promote Tatarstan’s autonomy. The instrumentalist role of Islam is exemplified by numerous instances of its non-canonical usage: reciting prayers in theaters and staging theatrical shows devoted to such feasts as Ramadan and the feast of Sacrifice and played on stadiums or in the streets near national monuments. The first public celebration of the feast of Ramadan in the city of Kazan on April 16, 1991 culminated in a procession of thousands of people to the Freedom Square chanting slogans of the national movement. Since mid-1990s such public celebrations of religious holidays have become rare. Rather, celebrations have become private and local. The only public component left is formal greetings published in the press on the occasion of a religious holiday. The Russian-language newspapers of Tatarstan sometimes totally ignore them. At the same time there has emerged a strand of Islam that is self-sufficient, independent of either the remnants of the nationalist movement or the local government. Moreover, this strand of Islam has recently exhibited some political ambitions.

As of 1990 there were only 154 Muslim parishes in Tatarstan (for about two million Tatars living there), most of them had formed after the start of Gorbachev’s reforms. Of the 55 imams 41 were older than 60 years of age, only one had university-level theological education and only eight had secondary (high-school level) Muslim education. 1990 was a year of great changes. It was in that year that for the first time in Tatarstan since the early 20th century two Muslim secondary schools have emerged. (Throughout most of the Soviet period the Tatar religious leaders got their education in Central Asia). Creation of numerous new parishes and building of mosques continued at a high pace; the number of parishes has increased from 18 in 1988 to more than 700 in 1992. Those rapid changes were not controlled by the government or even by the Spiritual Board of Muslims; according to Valiulla Yakupov, the current deputy head of that body, “almost half the mosques [at the time] were built without any licensing documents from any Muslim authority”. Foreign assistance coming from rich Muslim nations played an important role in bringing the change about.

In 1992 there emerges the Spiritual Board of Muslims of Tatarstan; previously, the Tatarstan Muslim organizations were subordinated to the Spiritual Board of Muslims of the European Part of Russia and Siberia with headquarters in the city of Ufa, Bashkortostan and headed by Talgat Tadjutdin. Tatar nationalists played a substantial role in the process; they called on the Ufa mufti to relocate his headquarters to Kazan, the capital city of Tatarstan, because, according to them, the coming secession of Tatarstan from Russia would require independent religious structures. The mufti declined those calls and instead established an office of his representative in Kazan. And then the emergence of an alternative Muslim governing body precipitated a schism among the Muslims of Tatarstan.

The acrimony surrounding the schism was indirectly related to the abolition of the Council on Religious Affairs in Moscow, the Russian government watchdog organization. After its demise, the receipt and distribution of financial assistance from foreign Muslim countries had become uncontrolled. The clerics of Tatarstan strived to tap into the financial flows that went mostly to the city of Ufa. On the 2nd International Islamic Forum “The Islamic Education in East Europe and Muslim States” held in Moscow on September 28 – October 1, 1992, the leaders of international Muslim organizations concluded agreements with the leaders of new Russian Muslim organizations on financing them, sending them teachers, and receiving their students at the Islamic universities abroad. On the same forum, the Saudi representatives gave away fifteen libraries of (mostly) Salafite (known as Wahhabite in Russia) literature. According to Valliulla Yakupov, the Saudi delegations coming to Tatarstan hinted at generous assistance should an organization alternative to the Ufa Muslim headquarters emerge. Disagreement among the Tatar clerics as to how the spoils should be divided greatly contributed to the heat surrounding the debate on establishment of a Tatarstani Muslim Spiritual Board and to the ensuing schism. Another factor in that schism was the position of President Shaimiev of Tatarstan.

By that time the Tatarstani leadership no longer saw the feeble federal center as a major threat to its power. Even though Shaimiev supported the August 1991 coup, Yeltsin proved unable to remove him in the wake of his victory in Moscow. The strong support rendered to Shaimiev by the Tatar nationalist movement made him invulnerable against the ire of the federal president. Rather, Shaimiev saw the major threat to his grip on power in the popular nationalist leaders who he deemed too popular. Consequently, as soon as he had secured a number of privileges for his republic by concluding a very favorable treaty with Moscow in 1994, his policies with respect to the nationalist movement changed. He continued co-optation into his government of those nationalists who he deemed less dangerous and sought to marginalize those he felt he could not trust. Among the latter happened to be the most popular nationalist leader Fauziya Bairamova (elected the Tatar Woman of 1990), the chairman of the Ittifak party. Soft repression against her and her associates included the closure of her party office in Kazan in 1995 and of the Altyn Urda newspaper in 1996.

Likewise, Shaimiev wanted to ensure political control over the continuing religious renaissance. Once a local Muslim governing body had been established, Shaimiev chose to support it to the detriment of the Ufa mufti Talgat Tadjutdin. Shaimiev could not fully control him, as he was based outside of his republic. At the same time Tadjutdin used to be very popular within Tatarstan (elected the Tatar man of 1989) and thus potentially dangerous. Consequently, the 1992 schism among the Muslims of Tatarstan had been overcome by 1995 by soft repression of those who chose to stay loyal to Tadjutdin. The process was accompanied by a campaign against Tadjutdin in the local press, including the government newspaper Watanym Tatarstan. Seizure of mosques and other premises by the supporters of the new Tatarstani mufti followed. In January 1995 a Congress of Tatarstani Muslims recognized the new status quo. However, the head of the newly established religious body, ‘Abdulla ‘Aliulla, very soon found that the republic’s leadership would not tolerate independent political actors in Tatarstan. His attempt to seize another mosque and a Muslim school in the city of Kazan in the fall of 1995 suddenly resulted in a criminal case opened against him. His position of leadership was shaken and in February 1998 another cleric, ‘Usman Iskhakov, with support from Shaimiev was elected the republic’s mufti. ‘Aliulla condemned the government interference and got support from the opposition nationalist parties including Ittifak and Milli Mejlis. According to him, the county-level government leaders handpicked delegates to the Congress and instructed them on who they should support in the elections.

Even before he was ousted, ‘Aliulla initiated a rapprochement with the opposition nationalist forces to strengthen his position within the republic: in 1996 he became the head of the “Tatarstan Muslims” movement and later, in 1998, attempted to participate in the local elections as the leader of the Omet movement and a member of the Popular Patriotic Union of Russia. However, the authoritarian nature of the local government left no chance to any opposition leader to win elections in the republic. At that time all heads of the county-level government had become members of the local legislature. Tatarstan had turned into one of the least democratic regions of Russia. In 1999, ‘Aliulla initiated a hunger strike to demand a change of the electoral law of the republic. Representatives of fifteen opposition parties and movements, including Ittifak, Milli Mejlis, and Omet, organized a demonstration in his support and against the authoritarian rule of Shaimiev.

Meanwhile, ‘Usman Iskhakov quickly consolidated his position of leadership, thanks to strong backing from the local government. And he knew well that his leadership depended on Shaimiev’s support. As the Chairman of the Milli Mejlis party writes: “[‘Usman Iskhakov] was and still is an obedient tool of the authorities.” The domination of Shaimiev, a secular leader, in religious matters is exemplified by his personal choice of an imam for the newly opened Kul Sharif grand mosque in Kazan in 2005. Political loyalty of the current mufti has won him a second re-election in February 2006, in spite of the rule that no more than two consecutive elections are possible and even though local nationalists, including those co-opted in the government, unleashed a vicious campaign against him on the eve of the elections. It also allowed him to make a personal fortune of the money gotten from various foreign charities and remain unaccountable.

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©2006   Eduard Ponarin