163082053 knysh on wahhabism
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A Clear and Present Danger: "Wahhabism" as a Rhetorical FoilAuthor(s): Alexander KnyshSource: Die Welt des Islams, New Series, Vol. 44, Issue 1 (2004), pp. 3-26Published by: BRILLStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1571334.
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8/10/2019 163082053 KnySh on Wahhabism
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A CLEAR AND PRESENT
DANGER:
"WAHHABISM"
AS A
RHETORICAL FOIL
BY
ALEXANDER KNYSH
Michigan
"We shall not return to the state anterior to discourse-in
which
nothing
has
yet
been
said,
and
in
which
things
are
only just begin-
ning
to
emerge
out of the
grey light;
and we shall not
pass beyond
discourse
in
order to
rediscover
the
forms that it has created and
left
behind
it;
we shall
remain,
or
try
to
remain,
at the
level of discourse
itself.. .A task consists of not-of no
longer-treating
discourses
as
groups
of
signs
(signifying
elements
referring
to contents or
repre-
sentations)
but
as
practices
that
systematically
form
the
objects
of which
they
speak."
Michel
Foucault,
The
Archeologyof Knowledge,
Pantheon Books, New York, 1972, 48-49.
Prologue
In the
giant body
of
literature on
the
political
developments along
Russia's
southern
border over
the
past
decade,
one
cannot
help
but
be struck
by
the
frequency
with
which
"Wahhabism"
and/or
"Wah-
habi" Islam is invoked
by
Western
and Russian
journalists,
academ-
ics,
and
political
analysts
as the
principal
cause of
troubles and
political
instability
in
these
areas.'
This
is
especially
true of the
Muslim areas of
the Northern
Caucasus and
Central
Asia,
although
l For
some
typical
examples
see:
Muriel
Atkin,
"The Rhetoric
of
Islamophobia,"
Central Asia
and the
Caucasus,
1
(2000), 123-132;
Marat
Murtazin,
"Muslims
and
Russia: war or
peace?"
ibid., 132-141;
Svante
Cornell
and
Regine
Spector,
"Central
Asia:
More than
Islamic
extremists,"
The
Washington
Quarterly,
25/1
(Winter
2002),
193-206;
Olga
Bibikova,
"Fenomen
'vakhkhabizma',"
Aziia i
Afrika
segodnia,
8
(1999),
48-52;
Vakhit
Akaev,
Sufizm
i
vakhkhabizm
na
Severnom
Kavkaze,
Issledovaniia
po
?
Koninklijke
Brill
NV,
Leiden,
2004
Also
available
online
-
www.brill.nl
Die Welt
des Islams
44,
1
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ALEXANDER
KNYSH
some autonomous Russian
republics,
such as Tatarstan
and
Bash-
kortostan,
are also
occasionally
mentioned
in
this context.2
Equally
surprising is the unanimity with which popular Russian and West-
ern
journalism
and
academic studies
depict
the
ongoing
Muslim
resurgence
in
the
former
Soviet Union as a life-and-death
struggle
between the "Sufi" and
"Wahhabi" versions of
the
Islamic
religion.3
These Islamic
movements in the
territory
of
the
former
Soviet
Union
are
frequently
portrayed by
both
laymen
and
experts
as
incompat-
ible and
mutually
hostile
interpretations
of
Islam
adopted
by
their
adherents in an attempt to fill the vacuum left by the implosion of
the
Communist
ideology
and
system
of
values. The
"Wahhabi-Sufi"
confrontation is
frequently
invoked in the
public speeches
of
high
ranking
Russian and
Central Asian
politicians,
such as
presidents
Karimov of
Uzbekistan or
Shaymiev
of
Tatarstan,
who never tire of
invoking
"Wahhabism" as a mortal
threat to the
very
existence of
prikladnoi
i
neotloznoi
etnologii,
Moscow, 1999;
Igor
Dobaev,
"Islamic
Radicalism
in
the Northern
Caucasus,"
Central Asia and the
Caucasus,
6
(2000), 76-86;
"Azer-
baidzan
vydal
Rossii
vakhkhabita,
vzorvavshego
gazoprovod
Urengoi-Pomary-
Uzgorod,"
Lenta.ru,
23.07.2002;
Aleksei
Malashenko,
"Chto khotiat
imenuemye
vakhkhabitami,"
Islamskie
orientirySevernogo
Kavkaza, Moscow, Nauka,
2001,
137-163
et
passim);
Alexei
Savateev,
"'Vakhkhabit' 'vakhkhabitu'
rozn',"
Aziia i
Afrika
segodia,
2
(2002),
5-12,
and 3
(2002),
24-26;
Robert Bruce
Ware,
Enver
Kisriev,
Werner
Patzelt and
Ute
Roericht,
"Political Islam in
Daghestan,"
Europe-Asia
Studies,
55/2
(2003),
287-302;
for further
references
see
subsequent
footnotes to the
present
ar-
ticle. For a recent (hostile) account of "Wahhabi" history and tenets in the West
see: Hamid
Algar,
Wahhabism: A
critical
essay,
Islamic
Publications
International,
Oneonta, NY,
2002.
2
E.g.,
Aidar
Khabutdinov,
"Wahhabism in
Modern
Tatarstan,"
Russia and the
Moslem
World,
Moscow,
10
(100),
2000,
24-26;
for a
recent
"discovery"
of the
so-
called "Wahhabi
cells" in
Moscow see
"FSB
zaiavliaiut,
chto v
Moskve
pri
mechetiakh
sushchestvuiut
shkoly
vakhkhabizma,"
KavkazWeb.com,
6.09.2002
and
"Musul'man-
skie
lidery
otritsaiut
sushchestvovanie shkol
vakhkhabizma
v
Moskve,"
ibid.
3
Akaev,
"Sufizm i
vakhkhabizm";
Uwe
Halbach,
"Islam
in
the Northern
Cau-
casus,"
Archives de sciences
sociales
des
religions,
115
(July-September
2001), 93-110,
see, in particular, 102-104; Dmitri Makarov, Ofitsial'nyi neofitsial'nyi slamv Dagestane,
Moscow,
Tsentr
strategicheskikh
issledovanii,
2000,
passim;
Nadezda
Emelianova
(Emel'ianova),
"Islam in
the
Northern
Caucasus:
The
obvious
and the
concealed,"
Central
Asia and the
Caucasus,
6/12,
2001, 38-47;
Gadzi
Magomedov,
"Chto
strashnee
vakhkhabizma,"
Nezavisimaia
gazeta, Aug.
7, 2001;
Valerii
Tishkov,
Obschestvo
v
vooruzennom
konflikte:
etnografiia
chechenskoi
voiny,
Moscow,
Nauka, 2001,
327-350;
Ware et
al.,
"Political
Islam,"
passim.
4
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"WAHHABISM" S A
RHETORICAL
OIL
their countries.4
Although many
Western
and Russian
observers
agree
that the activism of
these
"mutually
opposed"
movements
is
a
response to the dire economic and social conditions of the post-
Soviet era and
the
ideological
void left
by
the
collapse
of
official
Marxism-Leninism,
they
nevertheless
tend
to
focus their
analysis
on
the
religious
premises
characteristic
of
each
group.5
Let us
review
these
premises,
or
rather,
the
ways
in
which
they
are
construed
and
articulated
by
both Russian and Western
experts
on
Islam
in
the
former
Soviet
Union,
paying
special
attention to the
rhetorical strat-
egies and conventions that inform these discourses.
"Sufism"
and "Wahhabism"
uxtaposed
The
advocates of
"Sufism",according
to
many
Russian
and West-
ern
commentators,
promote
a revival of
"traditional
religiosity,"6
that
is,
one that
organically
integrates
elements of
"pre-Islamic"cultures,
beliefs and social institutions of the area with the Islamic religion
professed by
its
population.
Known
collectively
as
'addt,
or
"custom-
ary
law,"
these
socio-cultural elements are seen as
harking
back to
the
"pre-Islamic" local
tribal and
clan
structures as well
as ancient
belief
systems
such
as,
for
instance,
the
cult of local
shrines,
departed
saints,
tribal/family ancestors,
and
sacred sites or
objects.7
These
4
Atkin,
"The
Rhetoric,"
126;
Alisher
Ilkhamov,
"Uzbek
Islamism:
Imported
ideology
or
grassroots
movement,"
Middle East
Report,
221
(winter
2001),
40-46;
Gregory
Feifer,
"Uzbekistan's
Eternal
Realities:
A
report
from
Tashkent,"
World
Policy
Journal,
19/1
(spring
2002),
81-89;
for a
dissenting
view see
Ghonchen
Tazmi,
"The
Islamic
Revival in Central
Asia: A
potent
force or a
misconception,"
Central Asian
Survey
20/1
(2001),
63-83.
5
A
typical
example
is
Cornell
and
Spector,
"Central
Asia,"
195.
6
See,
e.g,
Nadezda
Emelianova
(Emel'ianova),
"Sufism and
Politics in
the North-
ern
Caucasus,"
Nationalities
Papers,
29/4
(2001),
661-688 and
idem,
"Islam in
the
Northern
Caucasus." For
me,
the notion
"traditional" is
highly
problematic
insofar
as
it
presupposes
the
existence
of an
unchanged
and
unchangeable
"tradition"which
may
occasionally
fall into
abeyance
only
to
re-emerge again
in its
"pristine"
form
under
favorable
socio-economic and
ideological
conditions. In
this
way,
"tradition"
serves
as a
blanket
explanatory
category
that is
deployed
uncritically
to account for
a wide
variety
of
disparate
social
and
political phenomena.
7
Sanobar
Sharmatova,
"Tak
nazyvaemye
vakhkhabity,"
Dmitri Furman
(ed.),
Chechnia i
Rossiia: obshchestva
gosudarstva,
Moscow,
Fond Andreia
Sakharova,
1999,
399-425;
I.
Savin,
"Religioznyi
ekstremizm
v
Kazakhstane,"
Rossiia i
musul'man-
5
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ALEXANDER KNYSH
structures and
beliefs,
goes
the
argument,
serve local
Muslims
as
powerful
sources of
identity
and
pride
vis-a-vis the Muslim
commu-
nity at large and the rest of the world. Outside observers, as well as
educated
representatives
of local Muslim
communities,
routinely
identify
these structures
and beliefs with one or the other
version of
"Sufism"
without, however,
providing any
solid historical
evidence
to
substantiate
their
claims.8
If
we are to
accept
this line of
argu-
mentation,
we should
then
recognize
that "traditional" or "Sufi"
Islam can
effectively
serve as a
natural
vehicle
of
nationalist ideol-
ogy
in
so
far as
it
helps
to
promote nation-building projects
with
their
emphatic
assertion
of
the
exclusivity
of a
given
ethnic
group.9
While,
according
to most commentators
and
historians,
"Sufism"
may,
on
occasion,
become a
means
of
Muslim
mass
mobilization and
armed
struggle against
internal
or
external
forces,
its
otherworldly,
inward-looking
orientation
usually
outweighs
its
militant
potential.10
The
"Wahhabis",
on the
other
hand,
are
usually
presented by
po-
litical
commentators,
journalists
and
analysts
as
intransigent
sup-
porters of the "pure" and "authentic" Islam of the first Muslim
community
at
Medina,
when it was
led
by
the
Prophet
himself
and
thus
divinely
protected
from
any
error. In line
with this
view,
the
chief
goal
of
"Wahhabi"
ideologues
is
to
restore Islam to
its
prime-
skii
mir,
3
(117),
2002, 63-66;
Sergey Bereznoy,
"The Role of
Islamic Factor in
Crisis
Settlement in
Chechnia,"
CentralAsia
and
the
Caucasus,
1
(19)
(2003),
169-
176.
8
This claim is problematic
historically,
since it
ignores
the fact that, in the
Northern
Caucasus at
least,
such
purportedly
"Sufi"
eaders of the
19"h
century
as
Ghazi
Muhammad and
Shamil
distinguished
themselves as
staunch
enforcers of
the
sharn'a,
who
sought
to
eradicate
any vestiges
of
"pre-Islamic"
ults
and beliefs
in
their
society;
in
particular,
Shamil
discouraged
the use of
'adat in
dealing
with
legal
issues
faced
by
his
community
and
insisted
on a strict
application
of the
prin-
ciples
of
Islamic
law;
yet,
at
the
same
time,
in the
course of his
adjudicating
activity
Shamil
generated
a
body
of
legal
rulings
(Arab.
nizam;
Russ.
kodeks)
hat
combined
elements of
the shaWr'aith
those of
'adat;
see
my
article
"Shamil"n
Encyclopeadia
of
Islam,
2d
edition,
9,
283-287.
9 See, e.g., OlivierRoy, "Islamet
politique
en Asie Central,"Archives esciences
socialesdes
religions,
115
(July-September
001),
56-57.
10
See,
Savateev,
"'Vakhkhabit'
vakhkhabitu',"
-8;
Ware et
al.,
"Political
slam,"
287-288.
For
a
critical
discussion of
Sufism's
role in
Muslim
resistance to 19'h
cen-
tury
Western
colonialism,
see
my
"Sufism
as an
Explanatory
Paradigm:
The issue of
the
motivationsof
Sufi
movements in
Russianand
Western
historiography,"
Die
Welt
des
Islams,42/2
(2002),
139-173.
6
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"WAHHABISM" S A RHETORICAL OIL
val
purity
as
they
understand it. This
means,
first and
foremost,
pu-
rifying
it of
"alien,"
"non-Islamic" beliefs and
practices
that have
crept
into the Muslim tradition in the course of the fourteen centuries of
its existence.
According
to
many experts
on
"post-Soviet"
Islam,
the
"Wahhabis"
identify
the cult of local saints and
sacred
objects,
popu-
lar
superstitions
(such
as beliefs
in
the
infallibility
of
"Sufi" masters
and their
ability
to intercede with
God
on behalf
of
their
followers),
and adherence to the
'addt
customs"1
in
legal
practice
as
gross
vio-
lations of the
"pure"
Islam of the
"pious
ancestors"
(al-salaf).12
These
violations
or,
in
"Wahhabi"
parlance,
"(heretical)
innovations"
(bida'),
must
be eradicated
by
all means
necessary,
including
violence
and
coercion.'3 While the "Sufi"
party
is seen
by
most Western and
Russian
journalists,
political
commentators,
military
analysts
and aca-
demics as more-or-less
politically
"benign"
or even
"pacifist,"'4
the
"Wahhabis" are
routinely portrayed
as
politically
"activist,"
"fanati-
cal" and
prone
to
indiscriminate violence
against
non-Muslims as
well as
any
fellow believers who
disagree
with their
precepts.'5
Their
1
Tishkov,
Obschestvo,
340.
12
Hence their
self-denomination-salafiyya
or
salafiyyun,
which is
usually
trans-
lated
from
Arabic as
"[followers]
of
the
pious
ancestors
[of
Islam]."
In
the North-
ern
Caucasus,
rank-and-file
followers
of
salafz
or
"Wahhabi" Islam
tend to
identify
themselves as members of
either a
regional
or
universal Islamic
religious
commu-
nity
and as
followers
of its
spiritual
leader
(e.g.,
the
"Daghestani,
or
Muslim,
Jama'at"
headed
by
Bagautdin
(Baha'
al-Din)
Muhammad
Kebedov or the
"KadarJama'at"
headed
by Jarullah
Rajabaddinov
and a
Jordanian
cleric Habib
'Abd
al-Rahman;
see Mikhail
Roshchin,
"Dagestan
and the War
Next
Door,"
Perspective,
11/1
(Sept.-
Oct 2000) available at http://www.bu.edu/iscip/volll/Roshchin.html; cf. Sharon
LaFraniere,
"HowJihad Made Its
Way
to
Chechnya,"
Washington
Post,
April
26,
2003).
The terms
salafi
and
salafism
seem
to have been
imposed
upon
Daghestani
and
Chechen
followers of the
"pure
Islam of
the
pious
ancestors"
(as
well as "Wahhabism"
for that
matter)
by
their
learned
opponents,
who are
familiar with the
history
of
Islamic
reformism.
13
The
tensions
created
by
these
incompatible
visions of Islam
are not
unique
to the Muslim
areas
of
the
former
Soviet
Union;
they
can be
observed
throughout
the
contemporary
Muslim
world. See
my
article "The
tariqa
on a
Landcruiser: The
resurgence
of
Sufism in
Yemen,"
Middle
East
Journal,
vol.
3
(summer
2001),
pp.
399-414.
14
This,
of
course,
has not
always
been
the
case, as,
in the
19th
century, many
European
and
Russian scholars and
colonial
administrators considered
Sufism to
be
"enemy
number one"
of their colonial
projects
and
mission
civilisatrice,
see
Knysh,
"Sufism as an
Explanatory
Paradigm," passim.
15
Nadezda
Emelianova
(Emel'ianova),
"Tainoe i iavnoe v
severokavkazskom
islame,"
Rossiia i
musul'manskii
mir,
4
(118),
2002,
43-52,
especially,
48.
7
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ALEXANDER KNYSH
willingness
to declare
jihad
against
their
political opponents
and
eventually
to establish
an
independent
Islamic
state in the Caucasus
and even beyond16 is viewed by some Russian journalists and politi-
cians as a
grave
threat to the
very
existence of the Russian state.17
It
should
be
pointed
out that the wholesale
condemnation
by
"Wah-
habis" of local
religious practices
and beliefs
in favor of a strict
application
of the sharn'a18
is often construed
by
academics as
an
attempt
to transcend
the
parochialism
of local Muslim communi-
ties
and to create a
global
movement as envisioned
by early-twenti-
eth
century proponents
of
pan-Islamism,
such as Muhammad Rashid
Rida and Ibn Badis.19
The terms
chosen
by
commentators
and
politicians
to
designate
each
group
often reflect their own
religio-political
views
and
intel-
lectual
preferences
(pro-
or
anti-Sufi;
pro-
or
anti-Muslim;
pro-
or
anti-"Wahhabi"; anti-clerical;
liberal,
etc.).
In
contemporary
Russian
academic and non-academic literature and media
broadcasts,
the
followers of Sufi
Islam
are
usually
called
"traditionalists,"
"tarikatists"
(from the Arabic tarnqa,a term for a Sufi brotherhood), "muridists"
(from
the
Arabic
murid,
the
adept
of a Sufi
master),
"zikrists,"
(from
the Arabic
dhikr,
"recollection of
God's name"-a common Sufi
practice),
etc.20 The
"Wahhabis",
who are
often
described
as
salafts,
are
also
referred to
by
their
opponents
as
"fundamentalists,"
"Islam-
ists,"
"Islamic
radicals,"
"Islamic
militants,"
"puritans of
Islam,"
or
simply
"Islamic
terrorists."21
I
will now
proceed
to
discuss how
16
See Vladimir
Bobrovnikov,
Musul'mane
Severnogo
Kavkaza:
obychai,
pravo,
nasilie,
Moscow, Nauka,
2002, 92-94,
which
quotes
interviews with the "Wahhabi" field
commander Shamil
Basaev,
who declared
"the liberation of Muslims
[living]
be-
tween the
Volga
and
the Don" to be his
ultimate
goal.
17
Andrei
Klochkov,
"Vakhkhabitskii
polumesiats,"
Kommersant-Vlast',
Aug.
24,
1999;
Aleksandr
Borodai,
"Ichkeriia do
moria?",
Zavtra,
33,
20
Aug.,
1999.
18
On
close
examination,
this
appears
to be
nothing
but a
pious utopia,
for it
is not
the sharna but who
interprets
and
applies
it
that
matters.
For a
critical exami-
nation of the
idea
of
instituting
sharfa
legislation
in
the
present-day
Caucasus see
Bobrovnikov, Musul'mane SevernogoKavkaza, 272-281.
19
See
my
"The
tariqa
on
a
Landcruiser,"
412-414.
20
See,
e.g.,
Vladimir
Bobrovnikov,
"Vakhkhabity
Severnogo
Kavkaza,"
Islam na
territorii
byvshei
Rossiiskoi
imperii,
2, Nauka, Moscow, 1999,
20.
21
See,
e.g.,
Bibikova,
"Fenomen
'vakhkhabizma"' and
Shermatova,
"Tak
nazyvae-
mye";
Aleksei Malashenko and
Dmitri
Trenin,
Vremia
uga:
Rossiia v
Chechne Chechnia
v
Rossii,
Moscow
Carnegie
Center,
Gendalf, Moscow,
2002,
78-79 and
passim;
cf.
8
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8/10/2019 163082053 KnySh on Wahhabism
8/25
"WAHHABISM"
S
A
RHETORICALOIL
"Wahhabism"
has become a "catch-all"
explanatory
model that
is
em-
ployed
in a wide
array
of
political, popular,
and academic discourses
both in Russia and its former Muslim dependencies.
"Wahhabism",a
Rhetoric
of
Fear
Accounts
of
the
ideology
and
practices
of
Islamic
political
activ-
ism in Western and Russian
literature
vary significantly
in
points
of
detail and level
of
sophistication.
The
same is true of
the
descrip-
tions of the nature of the supposed conflict between Sufis and
"Wahhabis",
which
is
presented
from a wide
variety
of
perspectives
ranging
from
(at
least
outwardly)
objective
to
wantonly partisan
and
apologetic/polemical.22
Most of these diverse
analytical
approaches
to
the
"Sufism-versus-Wahhabism"
phenomenon
have one feature
in common: whether academic or
journalistic they
are dictated
by
the
writers'
firm
belief
in the
unproblematic
heuristic value and self-
sufficiency of the categories in question.23 Even when differences
between
regional
manifestations of the "Wahhabi"movement
in
Cen-
tral Asia
and the Caucasus are
duly acknowledged,
their similarities
are nonetheless deemed sufficient to
classify
them as variants of
a
single
universal
phenomenon.24
Malashenko,
Islamskie
orientiry,
104-134.
It
should
be
pointed
out that these are
blanket terms that cover a wide
variety
of
religio-political
movements and beliefs
that are
lumped together indiscriminately
into the same
analytical category.
22
For a
relatively sympathetic
account of
"Wahhabism" that
presents
it as a
grass-
root reaction
against
the
rampant corruption
in
high
places
and
gross
social
ineq-
uities
in
post-Communist
societies
see,
e.g.,
Dmitri
Zantiev,
"'Vakhkhabizm'
v
Rossii:
mif ili
real'nost',"
Rossiia i
musul'manskii
mir,
10
(112),
2001, Moscow,
43-48 and
Magomedov,
"Chto
strashnee vakhkhabizma." For a
thoroughgoing
denunciation
of
"Wahhabism"
by
a
pro-Shi'i/pro-Sufi
author see
Algar,
Wahhabism;
cf.
Khaled
M.
Abou
El
Fadl,
And God Knows the
Soldiers,
University
Press of
America,
Lanham-New
York-London, 2001,
passim.
23
For
a
notable
exception
see
Bobrovnikov,
Musul'mane
Severnogo
Kavkaza,
pp.
90-97;
here the
author describes the
rise of radical Islam in
the Northern
Caucasus
as a revival of the
age-old
Caucasian tradition of "noble"
banditry
(abrechestvo),
whose
representatives
use
religious
rhetoric as an
ideological
cover
and
means of
legiti-
mization.
24
For a
typical example
of this
approach
see:
Shermatova, "Tak
nazyvaemye,"
passim;
cf.
Khasan
Dzutsev and Abram
Pershits,
"Vakhkhabity
na Severnom
Kav-
kaze-religiia,
politika
i
sotsial'naia
praktika,"
VestnikRossiskoiAkademii
Nauk, 68/
12, 1113-1116;
here the authors
seek to
demonstrate the historical
continuity
be-
9
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8/10/2019 163082053 KnySh on Wahhabism
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ALEXANDER
KNYSH
Over the
past
ten
years,
accounts
in
contemporary
Russian
press
and media broadcasts of Muslim movements in the territories of
the
former Soviet Union have grown increasingly negative.25One should,
however,
point
out that such
negative
attitudes
predated
the
col-
lapse
of
the Soviet Union.
They
were
in
evidence
already
in
the
early
1980s and
were
determined,
in
part, by
the
fear of
a
global
Islamic
"explosion"
in the
aftermath of the
Iranian Revolution
and the Soviet
Army's
debacle
in
Afghanistan.
On a more
popular
level these
nega-
tive
perceptions
were fed
by
the
fear that Muslim
ethnic
groups
would soon
"outbreed" the
Russians to become
the
majority popu-
lation
of
the
Soviet Union.26
The
negative
tendency
in
Russian
public
discussions of
Islam and
Muslims
gained
further
momentum after
the dissolution of
the Soviet
Union and the
discrediting
of the
official
Communist
notions
of
"internationalism"
and the
"friendship
of all
nations." The
dramatic
change
in
Russia's
geo-political position
and its
withdrawal from
its
former allies in
the
Middle East over
the
past
decade have
absolved
Russian politicians, journalists and academics from paying lip ser-
vice to
such
"discredited" and
"ideologically-driven"
conceptions.27
tween Arabian
"Wahhabism"
and its
"reincarnation" in the
Northern
Caucasus in
the
1990s;
cf. Leonid
Alaev and Yuri
Tikhonov,
"Vakhkhabity
v
Britanskoi
Indii,"
Aziia i
Afrika
segodnia,
3
(524),
2001,
42-45;
in
this
study,
the
authors draw
a
par-
allel
(far-fetched
it
seems to
me)
between
the Barelvi
movement in the
Indian Sub-
continent and
the situation in
the
Northern
Caucasus in the
1990s.
25
Vladimir
(Archbishop
of
Tashkent
and Central
Asia),
"Is
there
'Islamic
threat'
[sic ]?" Russia and theMoslemWorld,10
(100),
Moscow,
2000,
16-20; Murtazin,
"Mus-
lims and
Russia,"
"Byt'
musul'maninom v
Rossii
(interv'iu
predsedatelia
Soveta
muftiev
Rossii
Ravilia
Gainutdina),
Literaturnaia
gazeta,
17-20
October,
2001;
for a
fine
analysis
of
popular
Russian
attitudes
toward the
idea
of the
introduction of
sharT'anorms
into the lives of
Russian
Muslims
see
Bobrovnikov,
Musul'mane Sever-
nogo
Kavkaza,
264-272.
26
This
view was
particularly
widespread
among
the
Soviet
military,
who
were
concerned
by
the
steep
increase
of
Central
Asian
ethnicities
among
the new
draft-
ees and
their
tendency
to
seclude
themselves from
the rest of the
corps;
the
author's
personal
impressions
during
his
service
in
the
Soviet
Army
in the
late
1970s
and
in
the Soviet Navy, as a reserve officer, in the mid-1980s.
27
See,
e.g.,
Georgii
Mirskiy,
"Islamic
Fundamentalism and
International Ter-
rorism,"
CentralAsia
and
the
Caucasus,
6
(12), 2001,
28-37.
Cf.
"Imidz
sovremennykh
musul'man na
territorii
Rossiskoi
Federatsii"
(a
round-table
discussion
organized
by
the
periodical
Nezavisimaia
gazeta),
Rossiia i
musul'manskii
mir,
1
(115), 2002,
23-
34,
especially,
27-29;
Iurii
Kagramanov,
"Islam:
Rossiia i
Zapad,"
in
Novyi
Mir,
7
(July
2001),
137-157.
10
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8/10/2019 163082053 KnySh on Wahhabism
10/25
"WAHHABISM"
S A RHETORICAL
OIL
It is now an
"us-versus-them"
situation,
in
which Russia's
new
iden-
tity
is
routinely
seen as determined
first
and
foremost
from
its alle-
giance to Orthodox Christianity.28The violent conflicts on the fringes
of the former Soviet
Empire, especially
in
Nagornyi
Karabagh
and
Tajikistan,
and
later also in
Chechnya
and
Daghestan,
have contrib-
uted to the
already strong
anti-Muslim bias of Russian
media outlets
and,
to a lesser
extent,
academic
publications.
This
process
reached
its
peak following
the
string
of
apartment-complex
bombings
in
Moscow and South Russia in
September
1999,
and
more
recently,
the events
of
September
11
2001
in
the U.S.29
While the
alleged
perpetrators
of
the former remain at
large,
the
overwhelming
ma-
jority
of
Russians are convinced that
these
tragic
events
were orches-
trated
by
the
Chechen and
Daghestani
separatists
led
by
their
field
commanders
Shamil
Basaev and Khattab. The duo are
usually por-
trayed by
the Russian
media as
rabid
"Wahhabis".30
In
light
of the
protracted
military
conflicts
in
Chechnya,
Afghani-
stan
and
Tajikistan,
the
actual or
imaginary
Muslim
resurgence
in
Russia and its former satellites has come to be seen by many Rus-
sians as a
grave
threat to
Russia's
stability,
if
not to its
very
existence
as a
sovereign
"Christian"
state.
Occasional calls
from
some Russian
political analysts
and commentators not
to
exaggerate
the "Islamic
threat" and
not to
paint
all
Muslims
with
the
same brush3' have
not
changed
the overall
negative
view
of
Islam
and its
followers
among
the Russian
public
at
large.
The
war
in
the
Balkans,
in
which NATO
forces supported the Muslim Kosovars and Bosnians against the
28
Valerii
Dzalagoniia,
"Islam
na
pereput'e,"
Rossiia i
musul'manskii
mir,
5
(119),
2002, 45-52,
which
quotes
a
contemporary
Tatar
scholar as
saying
that "Russian
civilization as such
does not
exist;
there is
only
Russian
Orthodox
civilization,"
51.
29
"Imidz
sovremennykh
musul'man,"
25;
cf.
V.
Shevelev and A.
Kaid
Musaed,
"'Islamskaia
ugroza'
kak
teoreticheskaia
problema
sovremennoi
sotsiogumanitarnoi
mysli,"
Izvestiia
vuzov.
Severokavkazskii
egion,
Rostov-on-Don,
3
(2001),
25-42;
Mikhail
Epshtein,
"Zametki
o
chetvertoi
mirovoi,"
Zvezda,
5
(May
2002),
203-214.
30
Shermatova,
"Tak
nazyvaemye,"
408-416 and Vladimir
Pavlov,
"Po sledam
'Chernogo
araba',"
Obozrevatel'-Observer,
(2002),
30-38;
Mariia Beloklokova and
Aleksandr
Chuikov,
"Kto
finansiruet
chechenskikh
boevikov?",
Izvestiia,
26
Janu-
ary,
2002.
31
Aleksei
Malashenko,
Islamskie
orientiry,
165-169
et
passim;
Svetlana
Popova
and
Andrei
Petrovskii,
"Konflikt
tsivilizatsii
suschestvuet
v
umakh
politikov,"
Izvestiia,
22
December,
2001.
11
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8/10/2019 163082053 KnySh on Wahhabism
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ALEXANDER
KNYSH
Christian
Serbs,
was
seen
by many
Russian
public figures
as an
act
of
betrayal
of the "Christian" cause
by
the
wrong-headed
members
of the Western military coalition. While most ordinary Russians are
not
familiar
with the
Huntingtonian
"clash-of-civilizations"
thesis,32
I
have
little
doubt
that
they
would
eagerly
subscribe to
it,
as
they
tend to see the recent and
ongoing
ethnic conflicts in the
former
Soviet Union as driven
by incompatible
religious
and moral
values.33
Mention should
also
be made
of
the
change
in the Russian
pub-
lic
perception
of the Arab-Israeli
conflict,
as
many
Russians
have
in-
creasingly
come to
see
the conflict
in
Israel-Palestine from the
Israeli
perspective,
that
is,
as Israel's
legitimate
struggle against
Arab/
Muslim
terrorism.34 After the
apartment
bombings
in
Moscow and
South
Russia,
it is
only
natural
that
many
Russians
have
come
to
identify
themselves with Israeli victims of
"Muslim
terrorists,"35
es-
pecially
since
the
latter
can
be
construed
as
analogues
of
the
Chechen
separatists,
who,
like
Palestinians,
are bent
on
destroying
the
territorial
integrity
of their
respective
states.
The Russian Orthodox Church has also contributed to the increas-
ingly
dim view
of Islam
among
the
Russians. It has
historically pos-
ited
itself as the sole
legitimate
guarantor
of
"genuine"
Russian
cultural and
moral
values. No wonder
therefore
that its
present
leadership
is
innately
suspicious
of
any religious
denomination in
its
traditional
spheres
of influence.36 In
this
connection,
one should
point
out that over the
past
decade the
influence of
the
Russian
church has grown dramatically at all levels of Russian society, includ-
ing
policy-making
bodies
and the
media.37
Despite
their
lip
service
32
It is
widely
used as an
explanatory
model
by many
Russian
analysts,
see,
e.g.,
Shevelev and
Kaid
Musaed,
"'Islamskaia
ugroza"'
and
Popova
and
Pertovskii,
"Konflikt
tsivilizatsii."
33
Mirskiy,
"Islamic
Fundamentalism," 33-37;
"Imidz
sovremennykh
musul'man,"
23-34;
cf.
Tariq
Ali,
The Clash
of
Fundamentalisms,
Verso,
London and
New
York,
2002,
273.
34
Mirskiy,
"Islamic
Fundamentalism,"
30-31 and
36.
35"Kak zhit'
dal'she?"
Argumenty
i
fakty,
44
(Oct.
30,
2002).
36
Dmitrii
Furman,
"Zeleznyi
zanaves
pravoslaviia,"
Obschaia
gazeta,
21-27
Feb.,
2002;
Dzalagoniia,
"Islam
na
pereput'e,"
50-51;
for a
rare
attempt
to
counter
nega-
tive
attitudes
toward Islam
among
the
Russian
clergy
and
public
at
large,
see
Vladimir,
"Is
there 'Islamic threat'?"
37Alexander
Agadjanian,
"Revising
Pandora's Gifts:
Religious
and
national
iden-
tity
in
the
post-Soviet
societal
fabric,"
Europe-Asia
Studies,
53/3
(2001),
473488.
12
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"WAHHABISM" S A RHETORICAL OIL
to
religious
tolerance,
the leaders
of
the Russian
Orthodox Church
from the
patriarch
down view Islam
as a
dangerous
and
unwelcome
rival, whose values and practices are at odds with those of the ma-
jority
of Russians.38
"Wahhabism"
s the Answer:
An
intricate
intertwining of
discursive
strands
It
is
against
the
background
of
this
complex
and unstable ideo-
logical landscape
that one should view the discussions
of
the
"Wahhabi" threat in the contemporary Russian media. Many Russian
journalists
and media
personalities, including
those
who,
during
the
Soviet
era,
had demonized
the
Sufi
brotherhoods of
the
Caucasus
and Central Asia
by
comparing
them to
"clandestine Masonic
orga-
nizations,"
now have come to see
them
as
a
"lesser evil"
in
compari-
son to the
"genuine
and
deadly
threat"
posed by
"Wahhabi"
fundamentalism.39
Analogous
to the
principle
"my enemy's enemy
is my friend", former Russian critics of "Sufism" have come to praise
it as a more
tolerant
and
therefore
acceptable
version of
Islam,
whose
emphasis
on
individual
freedom,
spiritual
quest
and
self-perfection
makes
it
compatible
with the construction of a
new civil
society
in
Russia.40
Consequently,
"Sufism",
according
to
many
commentators,
should be
encouraged
and
supported by
the secular
authorities of
the
Muslim
republics
in order to forestall
the
impending
onslaught
of
the "militant" and
"retrograde"
ideology
of "Wahhabism".41
38
The
negative
views of Islam
among many
members of
the Russian
clergy
are
fed,
in
part, by
the
growing
numbers
of
purported
converts to Islam
among
ethnic
Russians
(anecdotal
evidence collected
by
the
author
during
his
visits to
Moscow
and St.
Petersburg
in
2000-2002;
there is no
statistical
evidence to substantiate such
claims).
It should
be
pointed
out,
however,
that
similar fears are
expressed by
the
Russian
Church
authorities
about the
proselytizing
activities in Russia of
various
Christian
denominations
and
"Oriental" sects.
39
Mirskiy,
"Islamic
Fundamentalism,"
34-37;
Anatolii
Savateev,
"Dagestan:
istoki
fundamentalizma v
bednosti,"
Rossiia
i
musul'manskii
mir,
10
(112),
2001, 63-68;
according
to the
author,
whereas "Islamic
extremism" is
characterized
by
"rigidity"
and "lack
of
tolerance"
vis-a-vis all other secular
and
religious
systems
of
thought,
"the
tariqas
demonstrate the
ability
to
integrate
into
contemporary
civil
society,"
67;
since no
compelling
evidence is
provided
to
substantiate this
claim,
one is
expected
to take it
for
granted.
40
Savateev,
"'Vakhkhabit'
'vakhkhabitu"',
2
(535),
2002,
6-8.
41
Roy,
"Islam et
politique,"
56-57;
Shermatova,
"Tak
nazyvaemye,"
413-418;
13
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ALEXANDER KNYSH
The media
campaign
in
Russia aimed at
demonizing
the
"Wah-
habi" sect
gained
momentum
in
1998,
when several
"Wahhabi"42
communities in the Buinaksk district of Daghestan declared their
independence
of the central
authority
in the
republic's capital
Ma-
khachkala.43
Muslim leaders of four local
villages
proclaimed
them
to be "enclaves"
of
sharna
legislation,
which were
not
subject
to
the
"infidel" rule
of the secular
government
of
Daghestan.
Armed mi-
litias were created to enforce the
precepts
of
the sharfa
among
the
locals and state
police
units
were
expelled
from the
"Wahhabi"
con-
trolled areas. These
declarations
nearly
coincided
with
several
armed
attacks on
a Russian
military
base
in
nearby
Buinaksk. The reasons
for
the
Daghestani
uprising
are
complex
and need not
be
detailed
here.44
What matters is that it was
presented
by many analysts
and
politicians
as
the
beginning
of a "Wahhabi"
revolution that threat-
ened to
engulf
the
entire Northern Caucasus
and,
potentially,
Cen-
tral Asia as
well.
The
anti-"Wahhabi"
rhetoric
in
the
Russian media
and
analytical
literature became particularly pervasive in August-September 1999,
when a
Chechen-Daghestani
force led
by
the
popular
Chechen field
commanders,
Shamil
Basaev and
Khattab,
invaded
north-western
Daghestan
(the
Botlikh
region)
allegedly
under the
pretext
of
help-
ing
their
fellow "Wahhabis" n
their
unequal
struggle against
the cor-
Bibikova,
"Fenomen
'vakhkhabizma'," 49-51;
for a
dissenting
view
that
presents
"Sufi
Islam" as
equally
intolerant
and totalitarian see
Makarov,
Ofitsial'nyi
i
neofitsial'nyi
islam, 3-7; cf. Magomedov, "Chto strashnee vakhkhabizma," passim; Mikhail
Roshchin,
"Who Holds the
Key
to the Chechen
Problem:
Summary
of a seminar
held at the
Moscow
Carnegie
Center,
19January,
2000,"
available
at
http://www.ca-
c.org/journal/engOl1_2000/02.roshchin.shtml.
42
It should be
pointed
out that the
leaders of
these
communities
considered
the term
"Wahhabism" and
"Wahhabis" to be
derogatory
and
demanded
that the
Daghestani
authorities
not
apply
them to their
movement,
Savateev,
"'Vakhkhabit'
'vakhkhabitu',"
3
(536),
2002,
25.
43
For
detailed accounts of
these
developments
see
Makarov,
Ofitsial'nyi
i
neofitsial'nyi,
passim,
Savateev,
"Dagestan"
and
idem.,
"'Vakhkhabit'
'vakhkhabitu',"
passim.
44
Most
observers
attribute this
popular
action
to
the
rampant
corruption
of
the
republican
authorities,
political persecutions
against perceived
or
real
"Wahhabi"
groups
by
local
religious
and
political
authorities,
ethnic divisions
(e.g.,
Avars ver-
sus
Dargins),
as well as the turf
wars of
local
mafias,
which
represent
different ethnic
groups
and
economic
interests,
see
Makarov,
Ofitsal'nyi
i
neofitsal'nyi
islam,
16-28;
Savateev,
"'Vakhkhabit'
'vakhkhabitu',"
2
(535), 2002, 6-12; Roshchin,
"Dagestan
and
the War
Next
Door";
Ware et
al.,
"Political
Islam,"
passim.
14
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"WAHHABISM" S
A
RHETORICAL OIL
rupt government
of the
Republic
of
Daghestan
and its
Russian
backers.45After the
invading
force was
repelled by
the Russian
troops
and the Daghestani militia loyal to the Daghestani government in
Makhachkala,
the rebellious
Daghestani
villages
that had
proclaimed
the rule
of
the sharna were declared
by
the
Daghestani
authorities
"nests of terrorism" and
were
attacked
by
Russian
troops
and
Daghestani
militia. After
almost
two weeks of bombardment and air
attacks
they
were reduced to
rubble
and
eventually
forced to sur-
render.46
The
fierce resistance
put
up by
their
defenders,
who
were
identified as Daghestani and Chechen "Wahhabis", was attributed
to their
support by
militant Islamic
organizations
based in Saudi
Arabia,
Kuwait, UAE, Yemen,
Sudan,
and
Afghanistan.47
"Wahhabi"
ideas and
practices
disseminated
among
the
rebels
by
these
organi-
zations
along
with the financial and
logistical
aid were cited
by
the
Russian media as the
primary
motivation
and
driving
force behind
the
hostilities
in
Daghestan
and
Chechnya.
After
the destruction of
the
villages,
Daghestani
authorities launched an
all-out
campaign
against
"Wahhabis"
and their
"sympathizers,"
during
which
security
agents
would "seize
any
young
man
suspected
of
being
Wahhabi".48
Following
the
"liberation"
of
Daghestan
from the
Basaev-Khattab
rebel
army,
hostilities were transferred to
Chechnya.
"The
Republic
of Ichkeria" was
declared a hotbed of
international
Islamic terror-
ism,
which had to be
extinguished by
all
means
necessary.
The al-
leged
"meddling"
of
foreign powers
and
organizations
sympathetic
to militant "Wahhabism" offered the Russian military a handy ex-
planation
of its
humiliating
defeat
at the
hands
of
Chechen
separat-
ists
in
the 1994-1996
war. This
early
failure and
the current
stalemate
in
the
Russo-Chechen
hostilities,
despite
the
initial
victories
of
the
45
See
an
interview with Shamil
Basaev
in
Bobrovnikov,
Musul'mane
Severnogo
Kavkaza,
92-95.
46
Roshchin,
"Dagestan
and the
War Next
Door,"
6-7.
47
Konstantin
Poliakov,
"Vliianie
vneshnego faktora na radikalizatsiiu islama v
Rossii v 90-e
gody
XX
veka,"
Rossiia
i
musul'manskii
mir,
11
(113),
2001,
32-49;
Beloklokova and
Chuikov,
"Kto
finansiruet."
48
Roshchin,
"Dagestan
and
the War Next
Door,"
8;
cf.
Milrad
Fatullaev,
"Na
vtorom
etape operatsii
v
Dagestane
stali razoruzhat'
boevikov v Karamakhi i
Chabanmakhi,"
Nezavisimaia
gazeta, Aug.
31,
1999;
tellingly,
the author
warns au-
thorities
that "Wahhabism"
is "a
political
rather than
religious
phenomenon"
and
that "one
should not
paint
all
'Islamists'
(islamisty)
with
the same
brush."
15
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ALEXANDER
KNYSH
Russian
army
in late
1999-early
2000,
were
conveniently
attributed
by
its
commanders and
press
services to
the
generous
ideological,
financial and logistical support from "Muslim terrorist organizations"
based
in
Taliban-controlled
Afghanistan.49Vague
and
usually
unveri-
fiable
references
to
elusive
"foreign
detachments" led
by
"Wahhabi"
commanders from Saudi
Arabia,
the Gulf and
Yemen abound
in
the
reportage
of the
second
Russo-Chechen
war,50
which is
closely
cen-
sored
by
the Russian
military
command
in
the Northern Caucasus.51
Following
the
August
1998 attacks
against
American
embassies
in
Africa,
the
Russian press and political commentators routinely linked
the
presence
of
foreign
Islamic militants
in
Chechnya
and
Central
Asia
to
the
international terrorist
networks headed
by
Usama bin
Ladin and his
lieutenants. While
evidence
of
al-Qa'ida's
support
for
the
Chechen resistance has been
rather
scarce,52
the
events of
Sep-
tember
11,
2001
have
gone
a
long
way
in
lending
credibility
to such
assertions,
at
least
in
the
eyes
of the
Bush
administration.53
The
49Savateev, "'Vakhkhabit' 'vakhkhabitu'," Aziia i Afrika segodnia, 2 (535), 2002,
10;
Gennadii
Troshev,
Moia
voina, Moscow,
Vargius,
2002, 36-37,
84-85, 168-177,
348-355,
etc.
50
See,
e.g.,
Pavlov,
"Po
sledam
'chernogo
araba',"
passim;
Savateev,
"'Vakhkhabit'
'vakhkhabitu',"
9-10; Shermatova,
"Tak
nazyvaemye,"
408-425;
Bibikova,
"Fenomen
'vakhkhabizma'," 49-57;
similar
opinions
are
expressed by
authors
of most of the
publications
cited in the
present
study;
for a more
balanced
assessment of the role
of
"foreign fighters"
in Russia's
war with
Chechnya,
see New York
Times,
Dec.
9,
2001
and
Washington
Post,
April
26,
2003;
realistic
estimates
suggest
the
presence
of some
200-300
foreign fighters
in
Chechnya
in
1999-2000.
Some
analysts
argue
that
this
number includes both Middle Easterners (mostly Pakistanis and Arabs) and Mus-
lims from the
republics
of
the
former Soviet
Union,
see Malashenko
and
Trenin,
Vremiai
iuga,
102-103.
51
For
evidence
of
"foreign
involvement"
in
the Russo-Chechen
conflict
see
"Armeiskii
spetsnaz
dobyl fotografii
Maskhadova s
mezhdunarodnymi
terroristami,"
Lenta.ru,
Jan.
20,
2003;
"V
Shalinskom raione
unichtozheny
arabskie
naemniki,"
ibid.,
Jan.
27, 2003;
"Chechneskie
boeviki ne
smogli
dovezti
'Iglu'
do mesta
terakta,"
ibid.,
March
3,
2003;
"Federaly razgromili
bandu
alzirtsa
Mohammeda
Kaddura,"
ibid.,
March
10,
2003.
52
Malashenko and
Trenin,
Vremia
iuga,
99-105;
"Al-Qaeda
Suspect
Tells of
Chechnya Link," BBC News, WorldEdition (available online at BBC.com), 29 Oct.,
2002;
"Ispanskaia
iacheika
'al-Kaedy' gotovilas'
k
teraktam v
Chechne,"
Letna.ru,
Jan.
24,
2003;
Andrei
Riskin,
"Shahidy vzryvaiut
federal'nye
tyly,"
Nezavisimaia
gazeta,
112,
(June
6,
2003).
53
Mikhail
Roshchin,
"Rhetoric
Clouds of 'War
On
Terrorism'",
Perspective,12/
2
(November-December
2001)
available at
http://www.bu.edu/isip/voll2/roshchin.
html;
Vasilii
Bubnov,
"Ben
Laden
pomirit
Rossiiu i
S. Sh.
A.",
Pravda.ru,
Apr.
27,
2003.
16
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"WAHHABISM"
S A RHETORICAL OIL
recent
hostage-taking
tragedy
in
a
Moscow theater54 and
suicide
attacks on
the
Russian
troops
stationed
in
Chechnya
and
Chechen
troops loyal to Moscow were also attributed to Basaev and his
"Wahhabi"
terrorists.55
From
the
outset,
the
secular
post-Communist
(some
would
say
"neo-Communist"56)
regimes
of
Central Asia and of some North Cau-
casian
republics
of Russia have viewed Islamic
political
activism
as
the
greatest
challenge
and
the
gravest
of threats to
their,
for
the
most
part,
authoritarian and
oppressive
rule. This
perception
on
the
part
of the new leaders of some Central Asian
and Caucasian re-
publics springs
from their
lack of
Islamic
legitimacy,
which
they
try
to
overcome
by
paying lip
service to the
(first
and
foremost)
cul-
tural and scientific achievements of Islamic
civilization and
by
very
cautious
attempts
to
sponsor
a
moderate revival
of Islamic
symbol-
ism and educational
institutions.57
Usually
these
half-hearted gestures
fail
to
placate
their Islamic
critics both inside
and outside their
countries,
as such critics view them as
insincere,
cynical
and
oppor-
tunistic. Faced with the criticisms of their domestic policies by per-
ceived or real "Islamist"
groups,
the
"neo-Communist" rulers
routinely
couch their
rejoinders
in an
anti-"Wahhabi" idiom.58 The
54
For an
eyewitnessreport
of
one
of the
hostages,
see
Tatiana
Popova,
Nord-Ost
glazami
zaloznitsy,
Vagrius,
Moscow,
2002.
55
Artem
Vernidub,
"Baraev
deistvoval
vslepuiu,"
Gazeta.ru,
Oct.
31,
2002
avail-
able
at
wysiwyg://http://www.gazeta.ru/firstplace.shtml;
Sergei Iugov,
"Dom
pravitel'stvavzorval odnonogii," Pravda.ru,March 19, 2003 available at http://
politics.pravda.ru/politics/2003/1/1/5/8606_Basaev.html.
For
a
Western
perspec-
tive see Andrew
McGregor,
"AmirAbu
al-Walidand
the
Islamic
Component
of
the
Chechen
War,"
Central
Asia-Caucasus
Analyst,
Johns
Hopkins
University,
http://
www.cacianalyst.org/view_article.php?articleid=1000.
ccording
to
unverified
re-
ports,
Shamil
Basaevhas
recentlyacknowledged
his
role
in
orchestrating
he
Moscow
attack.
56
See,
e.g,
Roy,
"Islamet
politique,"
58.
57
Shermatova,
"Tak
nazyvaemye,"
04-408;
Cornell and
Spector,
"Central
Asia,"
194-196.
58
Ivan Aleksandrov, "Real'na li islamskaia ugroza Uzbekistanu," Rossiia i
musul'manskii
mir,
12
(114),
2001,
64-69;
typical
of this
rhetorical
exercise is the
statement of
the
minister of
internal affairs
of the
Karachai-Circassian
epublic,
who
described
"Wahhabism" s a
"time-bomb"
hat must
be
defused at all
costs,
see
Ruslan
Levshukov,
"Religioznyi
ekstremizm
v
Karachaevo-Cherkesii,"
Rossiia
i
musul'manskii
mir,
1
(115),
2002,
42-46;
see
also
Savin,
"Religiozny
ekstremizm,"
passim;
Emelianova
(Emel'ianova),
"Tainoe
iavnoe,"47;
for a
helpful
summary
of
17
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ALEXANDER
KNYSH
critics
are
summarily
condemned
as
"radicals,"
"extremists" and "ter-
rorists"
on the
payroll
of
foreign
powers.
The term
"Wahhabism"
is
deployed by the "neo-Communist" rulers consistently and indiscri-
minately
against anyone
who
dares to raise his voice
against
the in-
equities
of their
rule.59 These verbal invectives are often
followed
by
ruthless
suppression
of
anything
that can
be
interpreted
as "Islam-
ist"
opposition.60
One
might
venture a
guess
that
if
"Wahhabism"
had
never
existed,
presidents
Karimov of
Uzbekistan,
Shaymiev
of
Tatarstan
and
their
colleagues
in the
Northern
Caucasus would
have
invented it.
Or,
perhaps,
invent it
they
did?
Interestingly,
the anti-
"Wahhabi"
invectives
in
the Russian secu-
lar
media and in the
public
pronouncements
of the
"neo-Commu-
nist" leaders
are
often
reiterated
by
the
official Muslim
clergy
of the
Russian Federation
affiliated
with
the so-called
"spiritual
director-
ates"
of
various ethnic
groups
and
regions
of the Russian
Federa-
tion.
Many
of
its
representatives,
from the
supreme
mufti
down to
the
imam-khatib f a
local
mosque,
have
gone
on
record
as vocal critics
of "Wahhabi" tenets, which they dismiss as contrary to the "tradi-
tional"
Islam
of the Muslim
communities
in
Russia.61
The
rhetoric
the debates over
"Islamic radicalism" in
the
Russian
media,
see
Malashenko,
Islamskie
orientiry,
118-120.
59
Ilkhamov,
"Uzbek
Islamism," 44-46;
Vitali
Ponomariov,
"The
Cause of
Insta-
bility
in
Uzbekistan-Political
Reprisals Against
Muslims,"
Russia
and the Moslem
World,
12
(102),
2000, 35-37;
cf.
Malashenko,
Islamskie
orientiry,
119,
which cites an
episode
in
which accusations of "Wahhabism"
was
used
by
a
criminal
group
to elimi-
nate its
business
rival in
Kabardino-Balkariia;
see also
Malashenko
and
Trenin,
Vremia
iuga,
96,
which
mentions the
closure,
in
1999,
of
some
200
religious
organizations
in the
Northern
Caucasus on
charges
of
supporting
"Wahhabism"
and
"religious
extremism,"
cf. Ware
et
al.,
"Political
Islam,"
297-298.
60
Ibid.,
and Ahmed
Rashid,
"Fires of Faith in
Central
Asia,"
World
Policy
Journal,
18/1
(spring
2001), 45-55; idem,
Jihad:
The rise
of
militant
Islam in Central
Asia,
Yale
University
Press,
New Haven and
London,
2002;
"Uzbek
Rights
Defender Sentenced
to
Imprisonment,"
Human
Rights
Watch
(HRW)
(http://www.hrw.org/press/2002/
09/uzbek0918.htm);
cf.
ibid.,
"Class
Dismissed:
Discriminatory expulsions
of Mus-
lim
students"
(11/12 October,
1999)
and
"Religious
Persecution of
Independent
Muslims in Uzbekistan"
(20
August,
2002).
61
See,
e.g.,
"Imidz,"
passim;
Murtazin,
"Muslims and
Russia," 138-141;
Khabut-
dinov,
"Wahhabism;"
Emelianova
(Emel'ianova),
"Tainoe i
iavnoe";
"Byt'
musul'ma-
ninom";
"Dukhovnyi
lider
Azerbaidiana
otvechaet
na
voprosy gazety
'Ekho"',
Rossiia
i
musul'manskii
mir,
3
(117), 2002, 195-200;
for
Chechnya,
see
Bereznoy,
"The Role
of Islamic
Factor,"
171 and
176;
cf.
Roshchin,
"Who
Holds the
Key,"
citing
the
former
mufti
of the
Chechen
Republic
and its
present de-facto
ruler
Ahmad-Hajji
Kadyrov.
18
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"WAHHABISM" S A RHETORICAL
OIL
of the
Muslim officials is aimed
at
proving
that
"traditional,"
"Sufi"-
based
Islam is much better suited than "Wahhabism" to the
diverse
and multi-ethnic society of the Russian Federation, in which Mus-
lims will remain a
minority
for
the
foreseeable future.
By invoking
the
democratic values that have been embraced
by
Russian
society
since
the
early
1990s,
Muslim
critics of "Wahhabism"
argue
that
the
Muslim
community
of Russia can
ill
afford to treat its
non-Muslim
neighbors
as
unbelievers, who,
according
to
the
"Wahhabi"
tenets,
should
be
confronted with the choice to embrace
Islam or to face
death. Nor would it be reasonable, as required by the "Wahhabi"
doctrine,
to declare the
"Wahhabi"
understanding
of
Islam
to
be
the
only
authentic one
and
then
proceed
to
excommunicate or
forcefully
convert those who
disagree
with it.62This
demand,
argue
the
opponents
of
"Wahhabism"
among
Russian-Muslim
religious
leaders,
flies in
the face of the
hard-won
ideological
and
religious
pluralism
of
contemporary
Russia. Even
more
vocally
than
Russian
journalists,
representatives
of the
Muslim
religious
officialdom of the
Russian Federation
emphasize
the
"imported,"
"foreign"
character
of "Wahhabi" Islam.63This
type
of Islamic
piety, goes
the
argument,
may
have
been indeed
highly appropriate
for
the
uncouth
Bedouins
of
Saudi
Arabia,
who at the time of
Muhammad b. 'Abd
al-Wahhab
(d.
1792)64
were notorious for
their
religious laxity.
However,
the
strictures of
"Wahhabism"
are
totally
alien to
the
Muslims of
Daghestan,
Tatarstan,
Kabardino-Balkariia
and other
Muslim
regions
in Russia, who are committed to religious and cultural pluralism and
tolerance.65 In this
view,
the
incompatibility
of
"Wahhabi"
radical-
62
Emelianova
(Emel'ianova),
"Tainoe i
iavnoe,"
51;
"Dukhovnyi
lider,"
200.
63
Thus,
according
the
chairman of the
Spiritual Directory
of
the
Muslims of
Kabardino-Balkariia, Pshikhachev,
"Wahhabism is a
military-political
formation
that
is
funded
from
outside
[the
republic]";
as
such,
concludes
Pshikhachev,
it has to
be
crushed
by
law
enforcement
agencies,
Emelianova
(Emel'ianova),
"Tainoe
i
iavnoe,"
47
and 51.
64
For a
splendid
account of
the
intellectual roots of
the
Wahhabi
movement
see Michael
Cook,
"On the
Origins
of
Wahhabism,"
Journal
of
the
Royal
Asiatic So-
ciety,
Series
3,
2
(1992),
191-202.
65
Thus,
according
to "the
official Muslim
clergy
[of
the
Russian
Federation],
sympathy
for
Salafism and
'Wahhabism'
in Russia can
only
be
bought" by
"forces
interested in
the
spread
of Islamic
extremism,"
Emelianova
(Emel'ianova),
"Tainoe
i iavnoe"
(okonchanie),
Rossiia i
musul'manskii
mir,
5
(119),
2002,
66.
19
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ALEXANDER KNYSH
ism with the
spirit
of "Russian Islam" is demonstrated
by
the fact
that
the
dress code for men and women
and the
comportment
of
the purported "Wahhabis" of Russia are often described as "Arab."66
What
can
be better evidence of
their
foreign
roots?
While
many
Muslim clerics of
Russia
agree
in
principle
with the
negative
view of "Wahhabism"
espoused by
secular
authorities,
they,
nevertheless,
have so far refused to
approve
the
proposed
ban
on
"Wahhabi" Islam
in the
Russian Federation.
The
refusal to do so
was
justified by
Ravil
Gainutdin(ov),
chairman of the Council
of
Rus-
sian
muftis, by
the
vagueness
of this
category, which,
in
his
opinion,
made
it
impossible
to differentiate between "Wahhabis" and non-
"Wahhabis" and thus to
implement
the ban
in
real life.67
Although
never
openly
stated,
the reluctance to endorse such a ban reflected
the
apprehension
on the
part
of the
religious
leaders of the Russian
Muslim
community
that it could be used as a
pretext
for
a
state crack-
down
on all
"suspicious"
Islamic
groups,
"Wahhabi"
or
not.68
As
already
mentioned,
in Russian
academic
and
analytical
litera-
ture, assessments of "Wahhabism" vary considerably. In many ways,
they
reflect
the
media and
popularjournalistic
portrayals
of this
phe-
nomenon outlined
above,
although
Russian
academics
tend to
pro-
vide far more
details
pertaining
to
the
history
of the movement and
its
position
vis-a-vis other trends and schools
of
thought
in
Islam. In
dealing
with the historical
roots
of
"Wahhabism",
Russian
academic
scholars and
political analysts
often
question
the
usefulness
of
this
term when applied to actual Islamic political movements (commonly
called
"Islamist")
on the
ground.69 Many
insist on
the use of the term
Salafism,
which,
in
their
view,
carries fewer
negative
connotations70
66
Tishkov,
Obschestvo,
340-342;
cf.
"Dukhovnyi
lider,"
196-197.
67
Paul
Gobble,
"Who is a
Wahhabi?",
Radio
Liberty/Radio
Free
Europe, July
7,
2000;
http://www.rferl.org/nca/features/2000/07//F.RU.000707151509.html;
cf.
Levshukov,
"Religioznyi
ekstremizm," 44-45;
Emelianova
(Emel'ianova),
"Tainoe
i
iavnoe,"
47.
68
Radio
Liberty/Radio
Free
Europe, July 7, 2000.
69
For a
rather naive
attempt
to
prove
that
the
Arabic term
"Wahhabiyya"
is
incorrect
grammatically,
since it is
derived
from the name of
the
father
of the
founder of
the
movement
('Abd
al-Wahhab),
rather than from
that of his
son,
Muhammad Ibn 'Abd
al-Wahhab,
see
Zantiev,
"'Vakhkhabizm' v
Rossii,"
44-45.
70
Dmitri
Makarov,
Ofitsial'nyi
i
neofitsial'nyi
islam,
69-70;
Malashenko,
"Grianet
li s
Kavkaza,"
passim;
idem,
Islamskie
orientiry,
passim;
Poliakov,
"Vliianie
vneshnego
faktora,"
Rossiia i
musul'manskii
mir,
10
(112),
2001,
62-63.
20
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"WAHHABISM" S A RHETORICAL
OIL
and
is,
moreover,
often used as a
self-denomination of various
Is-
lamic
political parties
and activist
groups
that outsiders
describe,
mis-
leadingly, as "Wahhabi". In academic and analytical accounts of
political
Islamic
movements
in
present-day
Russia conscientious
at-
tempts
to
gage
"Wahhabism"'s
potential
to launch and
sustain
anti-
government
and secessionist
movements7'
travel
side-by-side
with
Marxist-style
inquiries
into its social
and economic roots.72
Dire
pre-
dictions of
the
alleged potential
of "Islamic terrorism"
to undermine
the
very
foundations of
human civilization73
are offset
by
vigorous
dismissals of the
popular
fear of the
"Islamic
threat," including
that
of
"Wahhabism",
as
unrealistic and
overly
alarmist.74
Finally,
there
are those who
argue
that radical
Islam
in
Russia in
general
and in
the Caucasus in
particular
has
no future in
so far as
it
will
eventu-
ally
be
superceded
by
ethnic and