The History and Specifics of Contemporary Islamic Revival in the Chechen Republic

Abstract

Islamic revival is reviewed for the war-scarred Chechen Republic, including its historical and post-Soviet contexts. Chechnya's Muslim community is shown to be various, with followers of a customary Islam based on Sunni practice (Shafi'i doctrine) and Sufism vying with followers of more recent, fundamentals-oriented “Wahhabism” or Salafi Islam imported from abroad. Some consider themselves to be believers but do not strictly observe religious rituals, and some ignore them. Data is based on survey research from 2003, augmented by the author's discussion of Chechen wirds, brotherhoods sometimes associated with Muridism, and teips, loosely defined kin-groups broader than a clan, as well as Chechen pilgrimage practices.

This article is the republished version of:

The History and Specifics of Contemporary Islamic Revival in the Chechen Republic

Notes

English translation © 2014, 2015 Taylor & Francis, from the Russian text © 2011 “Tsentralnaia Aziia i Kavkaz.” “Istoriia i spetsifika sovremennogo islamskogo vozrozhedniia v Chechenskoi Respublike,” Tsentral'naia Aziia i Kavkaz, vol. 14, no. 3, 2011, pp. 104–19. Vakhit Akaev, doctor of philosophical sciences, head research fellow at Russian Academy of Sciences Comprehensive Scientific-Research Institute, Groznyi, Chechen Republic, Russia. Translated by Stephan Lang. Translation reprinted from Anthropology and Archeology of Eurasia, vol. 53, no. 2. doi: 10.1080/10611959.2014.1022431.

^a. The term Wahhabi, deriving from strict Saudi Arabian Sunni traditions and fundamentals, has become overused in Russia as a term of condemnation against perceived outside radicals or extremists. Young religious returnees from Saudi Arabia and elsewhere prefer to call themselves “Salafi,” a term also used in this text. Reference to “integrism slogans” is a veiled way of saying that they advocate a fully religiously ordered way of life under a Caliphate.

^1. See Kh.V. Dzutsev, Chechnya v sotsiokul'turnom prostranstve Rossiiskoi Federatsii: Etnosotsiologicheskii analiz. Programma issledovaniia i rezul'taty sotsiologicheskogo oprosa naseleniia ChR, provedennogo v mae–iiune 2003 goda (Moscow: ISPI RAN, 2007), p. 4.

^2. K.M. Khanbabaev, “Sufiiskie sheikhi i ikh posledovateli v sovremennom Dagestane,” in Dagestan i musul'manskii Vostok (Moscow, Izd. dom Mardzhani, 2010), p. 167.

^b. The “Dudaev–Maskhadov period” refers to the period in the 1990s under the first and second presidents of Chechnya, Dzhokhar Dudaev and Aslan Maskhadov, who came to power in 1997 after Dudaev was assassinated. While the legitimacy of their elections is sometimes debated, few debate that they represented secessionist-from-Russia governments. For an excellent understanding of the contexts of their rule, see the memoir of Maskhadov's West-leaning foreign minister Ilyas Akhmadov and Miriam Lanskoy, The Chechen Struggle: Independence Won and Lost (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010).

^c. “Wird” refers to a religious group, basing itself on a particular way of Sufi praying and worshipping. While numerous sources explain the varieties and history of religiosity in the North Caucasus, see especially Alexander Knysh, “Contextualizing the Sufi-Salafi Conflict (From the Northern Caucasus to Hadramawt,” Middle Eastern Studies, vol. 43, no. 4, 2007, pp. 503–30; Domitilla Sagramoso, “The Radicalisation of Islamic Salafi Jaamaats in the North Caucasus,” Europe–Asia Studies, vol. 64, no. 3, 2012, pp. 561–95; Akhmet A. Yarlykapov, “‘Folk Islam’ and Muslim Youth of the Central and Northwest Caucasus,” in Religion and Politics in Russia, ed. M.M. Balzer (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2010), pp. 109–29.

^3. This dhikr [zikr] uprising is described in detail in our work Sheikh Kunta-khadzhi: Zhizn' i uchenie (Groznyi, 1994), as well as in doctor of historical sciences, professor S.-A.A. Isaev's book Narodnye vosstaniia v Chechnie v 60–70-kh gg. XIX veka (Moscow, 1999).

^4.Islaman z1a'narsh (Zori islama), July 10, 2008.

^d. Also called Said afandi Chirkeiski, he was blown up by a female suicide bomber in 2012, after this article was in print mentioning his health.

^5.Gorskaia respublika, March 1, 1918.

^6. See I.Kh. Sulaev, Gosudarstvo i musul'manskoe dukhovenstvo v Dagestane: Istoriia vzaimootnoshenii (1917–1991 gg.) (Makhachkala, 2009), p. 29.

^7. See M.D. Zaurbekov, Sheikh Ali Mitaev: patriot, mirotvorets, politik… (Moscow, 2005).

^8. Ibid., p. 159.

^9. See A. Uralov (A. Avtorkhanov), Ubiistvo checheno-ingushskogo naroda: narodoubiistvo v SSSR (Moscow: SP “Vsia Moskva,” 1991), pp. 46–47.

^10. Ibid., p. 47.

^e. There is no reference for this quote in the original Russian text. However, it may be from I.Kh. Sulaev, Gosudarstvo i musul'manskoe dukhovenstvo v Dagestane: Istoriia vzaimootnoshenii (1917–1991 gg.) (Makhachkala, 2009), p. 29, cited in note 6. The name of the North Caucasus Emirate resonates widely today, for it is the same as that declared in the post-Soviet period by the Chechen Muslim fighter Doku Umarov, killed by Russian troops in 2013, and succeeded by Dagestani Sheikh Abu Muhammad (Aliaskhab Kebekov). See Mairbek Vatchagaev, “The Epicenter of the Insurgency—A Net Assessment of the Situation in the Northeast Caucasus Since the Start of 2014,” North Caucasus Weekly, vol. 15, no. 19, October 17, 2014. For context, see also Magomet-Rasul Ibragimov and Kimitaka Matsuzato, “Contextualized Violence: Politics and Terror in Dagestan,” Nationalities Papers, vol. 42, no. 2, 2014, pp. 286–306.

^11.Groznenskii rabochii, September 15, 1987.

^12. Kh.Kh. Bokov, Internatsionalizm na dele (Moscow: Sov. Rossiia, 1984), p. 193.

^13. See M. Vakhidova, “Komu meshaet muftiiat?” Golos Checheno-Ingushetii, April 24, 1992.

^14. See V.Kh. Akaev, Islam: Sotsiokul'turnaia real'nost' na Severnom Kavkaze (Rostov-on-Don: Izd-vo SKNTs VSh, 2004), p. 159.

^15. U. Laudaev, “Chechenskoe plemia (s primechaniiami),” in Sbornik svedenii o kavkazskikh gortsakh, issue VI (Tiflis, 1782), p. 15.

^16. See M. Mamakaev, Chechenskii teip v period ego razlozheniia (Groznyi: Checheno-Ingushskoe knizhnoe izdatel'stvo, 1973).

^17. Laudaev, p. 15.

^18. Ibid.

^19. See Ia. Chesnov, “Byt' chechentsem: lickhnost' i etnicheskie identifikatsii naroda,” in Chechnya i Rossiia: obshchestva i gosudarstva (Moscow: Poliinform-Talburi, 1999), pp. 69–70.

^20. Ibid.

^21. See S.A. Nataev, “Chechensii taip: Sushchnost', struktura i sotsial'naia dinamika.” Dissertation abstract … cand. hist. sci., Makhachkala, 2010.

^22. See Mamakaev [note 16], Chechenskii teip v period ego razlozheniia. In his candidate's dissertation, S.A. Nataev established the existence in Chechen society of 282 teips, which he divides according to the professional-estate and nationality attributes. He linked this to acceptance by the Chechens of representatives of other peoples. This meant the existence in Chechen society of about twenty other-nationality teips, ones such as the abzoi (Abaza), g1azgliumki (Lak), g1ezaloi (Tatars), gu'rzhi (Georgians, zhu'gti (Jews), g1alg1azki (Cossacks), and others. In his opinion, Chechen society was not a closed social system, as some researchers consider; it was open and always integrated people of non-Chechen origin into its composition.

^23. A.A. Suvorova, Musul'manskie sviatye Iuzhnoi Azii XI–XV vekov (Moscow, 1999), p. 12.