Between Mecca and Moscow: Islam, politics and political Islam in Chechnya and Daghestan

Middle Eastern Studies

Volumn 41, Issue 6, 2005, Pages 833-848

  Gammer, Moshe ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ISLAMISM; POLITICS; RELIGION;

CHECHNYA; EURASIA; RUSSIAN FEDERATION;

EID: 32244431690     PISSN: 00263206     EISSN: 17437881     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/00263200500261829     Document Type: Article

References (88)

1. Among the few exceptions one must mention Gabriel A. Almond, R. Scott Appleby and Emanuel Sivan, Strong Religion: The Rise of Fundamentalism Around the World (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003)
2. and Martin E. Marty and R. Scot Appleby (eds.), The Fundamentalism Project (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991-1995), 5 Vols.
3. By this they have been trying to fill the void left by the dissolution of the USSR and the collapse of its Marxist-Leninist ideology.
4. The two dominant Sufi brotherhoods in the area are the Khalidi branch of the Naqshbandiyya (called 'Miuridizm' in the Russian and Soviet sources) which arrived there in the 1810s and the Qadiriyya (known as 'Zikrizm' in Russian and Soviet literature), which appeared in the Caucasus in the 1850s. See Moshe Gammer, 'The Beginnings of the Naqshbandiyya in Daghestan and the Russian Conquest of the Caucasus', Die Welt des Islams, Vol.34 (1994), pp.204-17.
5. Moshe Gammer, 'The Qadiriyya in the Northern Caucasus', Journal of the History of Sufism, Vols.1-2 (October, 2000
6. Special Issue: The Qadiriyya Sufi Order), pp.275-94.
7. The fact that the branches of both the Naqshbandiyya and the Qadiriyya that spread in the North-Eastern Caucasus valued Islamic scholarship and combined it with their mystical paths, soon made them into the spiritual and intellectual leaders.
8. See Moshe Gammer, Muslim Resistance to the Tsar. Shamil and the Conquest of Chechnya and Daghestan, (London: Frank Cass, 1994)
9. and Moshe Gammer, The Lone Wolf and the Bear. Three Centuries of Chechen Defiance of Russian Power (London: Christopher Hurst, 2005).
10. This involved inter alia massive arrests and executions of religious leaders and their families and the closing up of mosques. Thus, in the early 1980s only seven 'official' mosques were open in Daghestan, compared to 1,800 in 1914.
11. See Moshe Gammer, 'Between Nationalism(s) and Islam(s): The Case of Daghestan', Central Asian Survey, Vol.21, No.2 (June 2002), pp.133-42.
12. See Gammer, The Lone Wolf..., Part 4.
13. See note 19 below.
14. This followed a hunger strike by women in Makhachkala.
15. Sergei Ivanov and Vakhtang Shelia, 'Talebany idut!' Kommersant, No.31, 1997 as quoted in Zulfiye Kadir, 'The Rise of Political Islam in Russia' (unpublished paper), p.6.
16. See Amri Shikhsaidov, 'Islam in Daghestan', in L. Johnson and M. Esenov (eds.), Political Islam in Russia and Central Asia (Stockholm: Utrikespolitiks Institutet, 1999), pp.59-71.
17. Among these were the Islamic Renaissance Party (partiia islamskogo vozrozhdeniia) and the Islamic Democratic Party (islamskaia demokraticheskaia partiia), both founded in 1990. These became after the dissolution of the USSR all-Russian parties.
18. The shari'a is the only alternative state legal system to the Soviet one, as opposed to the 'ada which is the traditional tribal law. The shari'a was also the legal system of the imama, the state established by Shamil in the 19th century.
19. For more details, see Moshe Gammer, 'Nationalism and History: Rewriting the Chechen National Past', in Bruno Coppieters and Michel Huysseune (eds.), Secession, History and the Social Sciences (Brussels: VUB and Brussels University Press, 2002), pp.117-40.
20. Soviet nomenklatura inherited traditional Russian suspicion of, and hostility to Islam. Aparatchiks of Muslim descent have, naturally, had to express more hostility to Islam than their non-Muslim comrades. A great many of them seem to have internalized this attitude and preserved it even after the disintegration of the USSR.
21. One of the titular nationalities: Russians are not Muslim and Azeris and Tats-are Shi'is. All three, however, are marginal to the political structure of Daghestan. Furthermore, their weight-both political and demographic has been diminishing in recent years.
22. Almost all the 15 Sufi virds (mainly Naqshbandi) officially registered in the republic have a monoethnic following, which means that traditional and national frictions have become intertwined and reinforce each other. See Enver Kisriev, 'Societal Conflict-Generating Factors in Daghestan', in Moshe Gammer (ed.), The Caspian Region, Vol.II, The Caucasus (London: Routledge, 2004), p.118.
23. According to another source, about 40 virds are active in Daghestan-quoted by Anna Zelkina, 'The 'Wahabbis' of the Northern Caucasus vis-à-vis State and Society: The Case of Daghestan', in: ibid., p.176 (note 59).
24. The labelling of opponents as 'Wahhabis' is not new. The name 'Wahhabis' itself was from the very beginning used by the movement's opponents. Founded in the 18th century by Muhammad ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab, the Wahhabi movement brought to extremes the principle of tawhid (the oneness of God), and thus its name used by its followers-muwahhidun. It tried by all means, including force, to purify Islam from various practices acquired along the centuries which it regarded as shirk (polytheism). In 1807 the Wahhabis conquered Mecca, and shocked the entire Muslim world by removing the black rock from the Ka'ba and preventing non-Wahhabis from performing the haj. Wahhabism had thus become the equivalent in Islam of iconoclasm in orthodox Christianity and of anarchism in modern Western perception. Already in the 1820s and 1830s the British in India used the negative charge of the term 'Wahhabis' to smear the Tariqa-yi Islami, which tried to overthrow their rule. The present day use of the term in the CIS goes back at least to the 1980s, but its origin has not yet been traced thoroughly. Inter alia it is known that the KGB referred to one of the Qadiri virds in the Checheno-Ingush ASSR as 'Wahhabis'-Zelkina, op.cit., p.149.
25. Ivanov and Shelia, op.cit.
26. This version, the more common, can be found in many sources, for example, Igor' Rotar, Nezavisimaia gazeta, 11 Aug. 1998. According to another version purist individuals and groups had appeared in Daghestan in the early 1980s, before establishing contact with the outside world became possible-Zelkina, op.cit, pp.150-3
27. Anna Matveeva, 'Daghestan: Interethnic Tensions and Cross-Border Implications', in Moshe Gammer (ed.), The Caspian Region, Vol.II, The Caucasus (London: Routledge, 2004), p.127-8.
28. Nabi Abdullaev, 'Daghestan's True Believers. The Wahhabis Pose a Fundamentalist Challenge to the Political and Islamic Establishment', Transitions, March 1999 (http://www.jtz.cz/transitions/mar99/ dagestan.html).
29. Ibid., p.2.
30. Ivanov and Shelia, op.cit.
31. For the growth and development of purists groups and their conflict with the authorities, see Zelkina, op.cit., pp.155-60.
32. Jama'at (jama'a in Arabic) is the traditional polity in Daghestan, comprising usually several villages. The most extensive study of the jama'at is Mamaikhan Aglarov, Sel'skaia obshchina v Nagornom Dagestane v XVII - nachalo XIX v. (Moscow: 'Nauka', 1988).
33. Abdullaev, op.cit., p.2.
34. Zelkina (op.cit., p.159) quotes di.erent data, according to which 71.6% of the Wahhabis are concentrated in the 11 mountain districts (raiiony) of Western and Central Daghestan, in which also 75.8% of the Sufis are concentrated. These seem to be also the data used by Matveeva-note 21 above.
35. Khattab, whose real name was Suweilem, married a woman from that village.
36. Abdullaev, op.cit., p.2.
37. For a more detailed and somewhat different description of the following sequence of events, see Zelkina, op.cit., pp.22-9.
38. Reuter, 20 Jan. 1997.
39. Ibid.
40. Aslan Maskhadov, the winner in the elections had promised to 'build a Chechen Islamic state, taking into account the national traits and traditions of our people'.
41. In view of strong public criticism and vocal parliamentary resistance, he hastened to establish a Shura (State Council), which discussed 'mechanisms for introducing shari'a rule' and 'mapped out proceedings to yield a new shari'a constitution'-President's spokesman, Mayrbek Vachagayev quoted by ITAR-TASS, 10 Feb. 1999. The draft constitution, produced in May, drew 'on the Qur'an, the shari'a, the sunna of the Prophet, Chechen customs and traditions and the constitutions of several Islamic states, including Pakistan, Egypt, Iran and Syria'. It envisaged 'governance by a mekhda, or 'Father of the Nation', who will concentrate in his hands most of the state's powers and a 'Council of the Nation' which will replace the parliament and ensure that all the republic's laws are in accordance with the Qur'an'.-Dolkhan Khozhayev, secretary of the state committee for drafting the new constitution quoted by Nezavisimaia gazeta, and Izvestiia, 7 May 1999.
42. Since its declaration of independence, in November 1991, Chechnya had been aware that in order to secure its own independence it needed to spread 'decolonization from Russia' to other parts of the Northern Caucasus. The Chechen regime thus followed a policy of favouring (north) Caucasian unity. Daghestan was the most favourite candidate for such a union. It was the largest in territory as well as population among the republics of the northern Caucasus and had the smallest-numerically as well as proportionately-Russian population. In addition it was the historical centre of Islam in the northern Caucasus. It carried, therefore, more weight than any other republic in the region and might sweep others to follow it. Daghestan shared with Chechnya the memories (and perhaps the ethos) of the long joint resistance to Russia and the united Imamate under Shamil. It might, therefore, be easier to convince to separate from Russia. Last but not least, Daghestan was adjacent to Chechnya and bordered on the Caspian Sea. A 'decolonized' Daghestan-whether independent or united with Chechnya-would grant Chechnya an outlet to the sea, enhance its political and economic sovereignty and magnify its chances of getting its independence recognized.
43. The then First Vice-Premier and Foreign Minister of Chechnya.
44. RIA-Novosti, 24 Aug. 1997.
45. The official name of Chechnya is the Chechen Republic of Ichkeriya (in Chechen: Noxçiyin Respublika Noxçiyτçö in Russian: Chechenskaia Respublika Ichkeriia).
46. ITAR-TASS, 26 April;
47. Alla Barakhova, 'Shamil' Basaev ob'edinit Chechniu i Dagestan', Kommersant-Daily, 28 April 1998, p.3. The Congress established a 'Peacekeeping Brigade', which as early as July 'conducted manoeuvres' near the Daghestani border-Interfax, 6 July 1998.
48. Among the groups surfacing in 1997 and 1998 were the 'Insurgent Army of the Imam', the 'Central Front for the Liberation of the Caucasus and Daghestan', the 'Sabotage Group of the Islamic Front', the 'Fighting Squads of the Jama'at of Daghestan', the 'Sword of Islam' and 'Shamil's Descendants'.
49. Soiuz Musul'man Rossii, Kalendar Musul'manskikh prazdnikov ([Moscow: SMR, 1995]), p.2.
50. [Soiuz Musul'man Rossii,] Programma obshcherossiiskogo obshchestvenno-politicheskogo dvizheniya 'soiuz Musul'man Rossii' ([Moscow: SMR, 1995]), pp.1-3.
51. N. Khachilaev, 'Shamil i kavkazskaya voina: Istoriia i sovremennost', Islamskaia natsiia, No.1 (18-25 Nov. 1997).
52. And cf. idem., 'Predislovie k Russkomu izdaniiu', in M. Gammer, Shamil'. Musul'manskoe soprotivlenie tsarizmu. Zavoevanie Chechni i Dagestana, transl. V. Simakov (Moscow: 1998), p.9: 'To us any peace with, any meekness before a regime of despotism is unacceptable. We are endowed by God's grace to follow the path to freedom, because by giving in to such a regime we are turned into petty squabblers and wars will ravage within the Caucasian peoples'.
53. Ivanov and Shelia, op.cit.
54. In a public debate held in Makhachkala in June 1997, for example, such a recounting of a list of Qur'anic laws allegedly broken by the traditional religious leaders, caused Daghestan's Head of the Committee for Religious Affairs, Surakat Asiyatilov, to forcibly demand they 'shave their dirty beards.'-Abdullayev., pp.1-2.
55. Rotar, Nezavisimaia gazeta, 11 Aug., 1998.
56. In several instances Sufi Sheikhs intervened in stand-offs between armed groups belonging to rival nationalities and averted bloodbaths.
57. Abdullaev, op.cit., p.1. Abubakarov was, in fact, repeating the words of some Sufi Sheikhs.
58. Ibid, p.2.
59. ITAR-TASS., 22 May 1998. In fact this incident had nothing to do with the 'Wahhabis'. The people involved in it were members of Khachilayev's AMR. While the information available is too scarce to even try to fully reconstruct the events, it nevertheless points to Khachilayev's entrapment by his opponents. According to the most reliable version, the police tried to disarm Khachilayev's men, when he was on his way back to Makhachkala from a meeting with Aki (Daghestani) Chechen leaders. Khachilayev went into the government building to protest to the Minister of the Interior. The Minister as well as a great many other officials escaped, leaving the building in possession of Khachilayev. Returning to Makhachkala, Mahomedali Mahomedov entered single-handedly the government building and convinced Khachilayev to leave. The fact that Mahomedov was absent from Makhachkala during these events, gave rise to speculations that Khachilayev's entrapment was intended to supply an excuse for a coup d'état against Mahomedov.
60. Because of the complex national composition of Daghestan the idea of presidential rule in the republic was rejected several times in referenda during the 1990s. According to Daghestan's then constitution the supreme authority in the republic was invested in the State Council composed of 15 members, each belonging to a different nationality. In reality the council's Chairman held supreme power in Daghestan and was equal in all purposes to presidents of the other autonomous republics in the Russian Federation. In 2003 a referendum finally approved a presidential regime for Daghestan.
61. Abdullaev, op.cit., p.3.
62. AFP, 21 Aug. 1998, quoting ITAR-TASS. According to the report Basayev publicly expressed his support for the three villages and offered help.
63. Abdullaev, op.cit., p.4.
64. Ibid., loc. cit.
65. Nevertheless, the authorities found other ways to harass the 'Wahhabis'. For example, on 29 Dec. 1998 an act on the 'Defence of Private and Public Morality' passed its first vote in the People's Assembly. The act provided state funding only for religious schools run by the Committee for Religious Affairs, which meant the exclusion of 'Wahhabi' schools. Ibid., loc. cit.
66. For example, ITAR-TASS, 10 July 1999.
67. According to a Chechen Scholar, 'many Zikrists supported Johar Dudayev', while the opposition 'was overwhelmingly composed of representatives of the Naqshbandi tariqa and of an insignificant number of Zikrists' [emphasis added-MG].-Vahit Akaev, Sheikh Kunta Khadzhi: Zhizn' i uchenie (Groznyi: Nauchno-Issledovatelskii Institut Gumanitarnykh Nauk Chechnskoi Respubliki, 1994), p.109.
68. Such massive demonstrations and dhikrs performed by large congregations turned the scale in favour of the national movement in Sept. 1991 and checked Moscow's attempt to get rid of the new regime in Groznyi by force two months later. The Western public was exposed to such massive demonstrations and dhikrs (described by a bemused Western television reporter as 'war dance') in December 1994, on the eve and at the beginning of the Russian military invasion of Chechnya. For an analysis of these dhikrs, see Ian V. Chesnov, 'Zikr na ploshchadi svobody', in K novym podkhodam v otechestvennoi etnologii. Reziume dokladov i vystuplenii (Groznyi: Nauchno-Issledovatelski Institut Gumanitarnykh Nauk Chechnskoi Respubliki, 1992), p.54.
69. Rotar, Nezavisimaia gazeta, 11 Aug. 1998, p.5.
70. An unidentified prominent Qadiri leader stated in a private conversation: 'Up to now the followers of the Naqshbandi tariqa were in power. Now it is our turn'- quoted in Akaev, op. cit., p.110.
71. Consequently, when in 1992 a Naqshbandi was elected as chief mufti, the Qadiris refused to accept his authority and elected in 1993 a rival chief mufti from among their own-Ibid., pp.108-9.
72. Ivanov and Shelia, op.cit.
73. See note 43 above.
74. Chechen attitude to the Arabs is quite ambivalent.
75. Among the attacks attributed to the Wahhabis were two on the office of the Chief Mufti (on 30 March 1998 and 25 May 1999) and on the Supreme Shari'a Court building (on 30 March 1998). On 21 January an armed clash took place in Urus Martan, which the authorities were quick to call an attempted coup d'état by 'field commanders' in the pay of the Russian security services and 'Wahhabis'-RFE/RL, Caucasus Report, Vol.2, No.4, 26 Jan. 1999.
76. Western and Russian news agencies' reports from 2 August 1999 onward. The usual lack of reliable information makes it difficult to reconstruct the events. It seems, however, that unlike in the previous summer, when Basayev's support for the jama'at of Karamakhi, Kadar and Chabanmakhi could not but remain verbal because of geographical realities, this time he and Kattab, had no choice but to act upon their statements and to the help their allies in a jama'at neighbouring on Chechnya and on their areas of control there.
77. The Daghestani authorities distributed, with Moscow's approval, large quantities of weapons to local volunteers ready to enlist in a militia (opolchenie) and fight the invaders.
78. The Russian airforce was reported to have used petrol bombs.
79. The Novolakskii raiion is the ancestral area of the Chechens of Dagestan, from which they were exiled in 1994 and never allowed to return to. They have never given up their demands to return to their home villages there.
80. There were in Russia those who believed that both republics in the Caucasus had been exaggerating the 'Wahhabi' danger. For example, a Russian journalist concluded, that 'one may assume that Maskhadov has decided to apply the experience of his counterparts in other [Muslim] CIS republics, and to use the term Wahhabism not as a scientific term, but rather as a denunciation aimed at labelling his opponents',-Rotar in Nezavisimaia gazeta, 11 Aug., 1998.
81. 'As for Makhachkala', wrote a Daghestani reporter, 'the image of the besieged republic, fighting the enemy within, has been very profitable as a means of obtaining subsidies from Moscow',-Abdullaev, op.cit., p.2.
82. Whilst some Russian journalists believed that Maskhadov was 'the lesser evil' from among Moscow's possible Chechen partners.-see Rotar', ibid.- others emphasized Maskhadov's inability and/or unwillingness to curb the 'Wahhabis'.
83. For example see Nikolai Zhitich, 'Boevik tam pravit bal. Malen'kaia Chechnia mozhet prevratitsia v tsentr podgotovki mezhdunarodnogo terrora', Rossiiskaia gazeta, 14 May 1999.
84. The authorities immediately blamed the explosions on 'Wahhabi' terrorists based in Chechnya. Proof of these accusations has yet to be produced.
85. Rotar, Nezavisimaia gazeta, 11 Aug. 1998.
86. Jeremy Bransten, 'Chechnya: Babitskii Says Rebels Better Armed, Leaning Toward Fundamentalism', RFE/RL, Prague, 14 Aug. 2003.
87. Head of the Dagestani Institute for Religious Studies, Harun Kurbanov, 'Terrorizm: Utopia i real'naia opasnost', Novoe Delo (Makhachkala), 31 May 2002.
88. Shamil Basayev, for example, when asked directly whether he was a 'Wahhabist', replied: 'I am a "Khattabist"' in a conversation with Sebastian Smith. I am grateful to Mr Smith for the quote.