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Irony and Political Islam: Dagestan's Spiritual Directorate

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Enver Kisriev  and
Robert Bruce Ware
Enver Kisriev
Affiliation:
Dagestan Scientific Center, Russian Academy of Science, Russia
Robert Bruce Ware
Affiliation:
Philosophical Studies at Southern Illinois University, U.S.A.
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Extract

Russians say that there is a defeat in every victory and a victory in every defeat. On 16 September 1999, in the Russian Republic of Dagestan, combined forces of civilian militias, police, and Russian federal troops defeated insurgent militants from Chechnya who intended to establish an independent Islamic state in the Northeast Caucasus which would have united Chechnya with Dagestan and Ingushetia. On that same date the Dagestan People's Assembly enacted legislation intended to thwart future Islamic extremism by awarding official political status to the Spiritual Directorate of the Muslims of Dagestan (DUMD).

Type
Articles
Information
Nationalities Papers , Volume 30 , Issue 4 , December 2002 , pp. 663 - 689
Copyright
Copyright © 2002 Association for the Study of Nationalities 

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References

Notes

1. Pronounced “doomed,” this acronym is commonly used by Dagestanis to designate this organization. See Kisriev, Enver and Ware, Robert Bruce, “Conflict and Catharsis: A Report on Developments in Dagestan Following the Incursion of August and September 1999,” Nationalities Papers, Vol. 28, No. 3, 2000, pp. 479–522.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2. In Sufi Islam, a tariqat is a spiritual brotherhood of murid disciples or students under the spiritual guidance of teacher known as a “sheik.” In Dagestan, terms such as “tariqat Islam” or tariqatists are often used to designate practitioners of traditional North Caucasian Islam and to distinguish them from “Wahhabi” fundamentalists. See Ware, and Kisriev, , “The Islamic Factor in Dagestan,” Central Asian Survey, Vol. 19, No. 2, 2000.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3. For discussions of Islam in the Caucasus see Bennigsen, Alexandre and Wimbush, S. Endres, Muslims of the Soviet Empire (London: Hurst, 1985); Bennigsen and Chantal Lemercier-Quelquejay, Islam in the Soviet Union (London: Pall-Mail, 1967); Igor Rotar, Islam and War (Moscow: AIRO-XX, 1999), p. 69; idem, Under the Green Banner of Islam: Islamic Radicals in Russia and the CIS (Moscow, 2001); Kisriev, “Confrontations in the Settlement of Chabanmakhi,” Bulletin of The Network of the Ethnologic Monitoring and Early Warning of Conflicts, May 1997; idem, “Islam on Dagestan's Political Scene”, the Informational Volume “The Parliament of the Republics of Northern Osetiya-Alania, 10–11, 1999; idem, “Islam as Political Factor in Dagestan,” Central Asia and the Caucasus, Vol. 5, 2000; idem, “Factors of Stability in Dagestan: Russia and Islamic World,” Bulletin of Referential and Analytical Information, Vol. 7, No. 109, 2001.Google Scholar

4. See Broxup, Marie Bennigsen, “The Last Ghazawat: The 1920–1921 Uprising,” in Broxup et al. eds, The North Caucasus Barrier: The Russian Advance towards the Muslim World (London: Hurst, 1992).Google Scholar

5. Ibid.Google Scholar

6. Ironically, the Congress failed to attract attention from the local press.Google Scholar

7. Dagestanskaya Pravda, 14 May 1989.Google Scholar

8. See R. Preston, “Islam in Russia under the Federal Law on Freedom of Conscience and on Religious Associations: Official Tolerance in an Intolerant Society,” Brigham Young University Law Review, No. 2. 2001, pp.773–815.Google Scholar

9. Kisriev, “Factors of Stability in Dagestan: Russia and Islamic World.”Google Scholar

10. Ibid.Google Scholar

11. From a report on statistics released by the Republic of Dagestan's Committee on Religion in Novoye Delo, 32, 11 August 2000.Google Scholar

12. See Kisriev, and Ware, , “Political Stability and Ethnic Parity: Why Is There Peace in Dagestan,” in Alexseev, M., ed., Ethnopolitical Identity, Economic Incentives and Regional Separatism in Post-Soviet Russia (New York: St Martin's Press, 1999).Google Scholar

13. “Socio-economic Situation in the Republic of Dagestan: 1999,” Dagestan State Committee on Statistics, Mahachkala, 1999. See Kisriev and Ware, “Conflict and Catharsis.”Google Scholar

14. Z. Zalimkhanov and K. Khanbabayev, Politicization of Islam in the North Caucasus: Based on the Example of Dagestan and Chechnya (Machakala, 2000), p. 51.Google Scholar

15. See Kisriev, E., Patzelt, Werner J., Roericht, Ute and Ware, R. B., “Political Islam in Dagestan,” Europe–Asia Studies, Vol. 55, No. 2, March 2003.Google Scholar

16. Ibid.Google Scholar

17. The monitoring surveys were conducted under the auspices of the Dagestan Bureau of Statistics and with partial funding from Southern Illinois University—Edwardsville.Google Scholar

18. See Kisriev, Patzelt, Roericht and Ware, “Political Islam in Dagestan.”Google Scholar

19. Molodezh Dagestana, 10, 14 March 1997.Google Scholar

20. Molodezh Dagestana, 4, 13 April 1997.Google Scholar

21. Matveeva, Anna, “The Impact of Instability in Chechnya on Dagestan,” Caspian Crossroads, Vol. 3, No. 3.Google Scholar

22. Ibid.Google Scholar

23. As observed by Kisriev.Google Scholar

24. Dagestanskaya Pravda, 16 May 1997; Molodezh Dagestana, 16, 19 May 1997; Novoe Delo, 16, 20 May 1997.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

25. Novoe Delo, 51, 26 December 1997.Google Scholar

26. Dagestanskaya Pravda, 26 May 1998.Google Scholar

27. Kisriev and Ware, “The Islamic Factor in Dagestan”; idem, “Conflict and Catharsis;” Kisriev, “Confrontations in the Settlement of Chabanmakhi,” Bulletin of the Network of the Ethnologic Monitoring and Early Warning of Conflicts, May 1997; idem, “Islam on Dagestan's Political Scene;” idem, “Islam as Political Factor in Dagestan;” idem, “Factors of Stability in Dagestan: Russia and Islamic World.”Google Scholar

28. Ibid.Google Scholar

29. Ibid Google Scholar

30. Ibid.Google Scholar

31. Kisriev, “Confrontations in the Settlement of Chabanmakhi,” Bulletin of the Network of the Ethnologic Monitoring and Early Warning of Conflicts, May 1997.Google Scholar

32. The prosperity of the villages was due, in part, to a successful tradition in the trucking and transportation industry. Dargins, whose culture traditionally stresses wealth, are known in Dagestan for their fine metalwork.Google Scholar

33. Kozhayeva, E., “Veynaks [Chechens] and Us.” Molodezh Dagestana, 23 April 1999.Google Scholar

34. Ibid.Google Scholar

35. Ibid.Google Scholar

36. Khattab was reported to have been killed by Russian security services in April 2002. His first names were long a topic of ambiguity, speculation, and controversy. In Dagestan he was commonly referred to as Emir al Khattab, and we have simply followed that convention.Google Scholar

37. Kozhayeva, “Veynaks [Chechens] and Us.”Google Scholar

38. Novoe Delo, 17, 23 April 1999.Google Scholar

39. Ibid.Google Scholar

40. All references and citations regarding the law “On the Prohibition of Wahabite and Other Extremist Activity on the Territory of the Republic of Dagestan” are from a copy of the legislation in Kisriev's possession.Google Scholar

41. Despite its previous veneer of religious neutrality, the Dagestani government has always favored the Islamic traditionalists.Google Scholar

42. See below. In the early 1990s, there were efforts to establish separate ethnic DUMs, though these have not endured and there is presently none in existence.Google Scholar

43. The mufti was an Avar named Abubakarov.Google Scholar

44. Report of Magomed-Salikh Gusaev prepared for the meeting of the State Council of Dagestan on 19 July 2000, in the personal possession of Kisriev, Department of Sociology, Dagestan Scientific Center, Russian Academy of Science. All of the quotes in this discussion stem from this report.Google Scholar

45. Ibid.Google Scholar

46. Ibid.Google Scholar

47. Kisriev, , “Factors of Stability in Dagestan: Russia and Islamic World,” Bulletin of Referential and Analytical Information, Vol. 7, No. 109, 2001.Google Scholar

48. Ibid.Google Scholar

49. Dagestanskaya Pravda, 27 May 2000.Google Scholar

50. Dagestanskaya Pravda, 17 August 2000.Google Scholar

51. Evidently Magdigadzhiev is threatening further violence and suggesting that extralegal measures might be taken.Google Scholar

52. Dagestanskaya Pravda, 17 August 2000.Google Scholar

53. See note 44.Google Scholar

54. Dagestanskaya Pravda, 17 August 2000.Google Scholar

55. The Forum for Early Warning and Early Response (FEWER) is an independent consortium of intergovernmental organizations, non-governmental organizations, and academic institutions that aims to provide decision-making individuals and organizations with analytical information regarding the early prevention of conflict and crisis situations, as well as with political recommendations concerning early response. FEWER was founded in September 1996 and established a permanent Secretariat in London in June 1997. It is financed by the governments of Canada, Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, as well as by independent funding, but it does not accept funding from governments with permanent representation on the Security Council of the United Nations. EAWARN is the Network of Early Warning and Ethnological Monitoring of Conflicts in the Former Soviet Union. This was a joint project of the Cambridge (MA) Conflict Management Group and the Moscow Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology, funded by the Carnegie Corporation for six years. The project connected electronically over 35 experts and scholars in the former Soviet Union for regular monitoring and analysis of ethnopolitical developments. Carnegie terminated the project in 1999. EAWARN was the predecessor and regular affiliate of FEWER.Google Scholar

56. In fact, it was much earlier.Google Scholar

57. Fitna is a revolt, distinct from gazzawat, or holy war against infidels. Fitna is unacceptable for a Muslim, but gazzawat guarantees paradise.Google Scholar

58. The same interview was published in the official newspaper of the DUMD, Assalam: The Newspaper of the Spiritual Directorate of the Muslims of Dagestan, No. 15, 2000.Google Scholar

59. Ibid.Google Scholar