Russia and its Conflict with Islam

At Hoover Institution, an excerpt from Robert Service''s upcoming Hoover Press book Russia and its Islamic World:

It is widely assumed that Russian foreign and domestic policies operate quite independently of each other. This is not the way to make sense of Russia and its Islamic world. Not the least of the reasons is that the manner in which the Kremlin treats its Muslim citizens is inextricably linked to the manner in which it deals with the neighboring Muslim states of the former Soviet Union. Thus, when Putin is affirming his benign intentions toward Muslims in those states, the question arises about how he is dealing with discontent in the Muslim-inhabited territories of the Russian Federation itself. Nothing gives greater cause for concern than the scorched-earth offensive in Chechnya that he ordered in 1999 when still only Yeltsin’s prime minister.

Read the rest here.

And Who's the 'Wahhabi' Now?

https://www.kavkazr.com/a/i-kto-teper-vahhabist/28482519.html

[my tr.]

Secretary General of the World Islamic League allows the thing that made Kadyrov terribly unhappy

Remove the hijab or leave the country. That was the difficult choice faced by observant Muslims outside their native regions, Secretary General of the World Islamic League Sheikh Muhammad Al-Issa said in his speech in Brussels.

It's interesting that a sheikh from a Wahhabi state, Saudi Arabia, allows both options. And this at a time when some Russian officials fighting Islamic extremism do not accept rejection of the hijab under the pressure of secular law.

“A Muslim must respect the constitutions and laws and culture of the countries in which they live,” the Sheikh said in his address, and also in a series of tweets on Twitter.

“Should the laws not allow head-covering, a request to wear the hijab must only be made through the proper and legal channels and if such a request is rejected, Muslim residents have the option either to abide by the state’s regulations or leave the country.”

Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov has not yet commented on the appeal of his good friend, who presented him with a gift during his December visit to Grozny.

Onward, Christian Soldiers

Time reports that Metropolitan Hilarion Alfeyev of Moscow, the Orthodox Church's representative abroad, held a private meeting with U.S. Vice President Mike Pence at a 'summit' organised by evangelist Franklin Graham, son of Billy. The theme of the meeting was cooperation with Russia - and Assad - to combat terrorism in the Middle East.

The four-day get-together assembled a notable collection of far-right political and religious figures - but on the Russia issue there were dissenting voices:

Not all evangelical leaders welcome the idea of a partnership with the Russian Orthodox Church—and, by extension, the Russian government. Last summer Russia passed a law that restricted foreign missionary work. In April, the Russian Supreme Court banned Jehovah’s Witnesses. The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom then recommended for the first time that Russia be named in the top tier of the worst international religious-freedom offenders. Even on Thursday , during the Washington summit, a Russian blogger was convicted of religious hatred for playing “Pokemon Go” in a Yekaterinburg church.

“To say these are the defenders of Christianity belies credulity,” says former Republican congresswoman Michele Bachmann. “It’s bizarre.” Putin’s is a “gospel-fighting regime,” says Russell Moore, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s public policy arm.

The Location of Terror

Yulia Latynina (ej.ru), on the Boston bombers: 

Как сказал в одной из своих проповедей Саид Бурятский, который до того как стать исламистом-моджахедом, был простым русским парнем Александром Тихомировым из Улан-Удэ, «прошли те времена, когда мы сражались за свободу Чечни, за это языческое понятие. Теперь мы сражаемся за Аллаха. Прошли те времена, когда каждый чеченец был нам брат. Теперь русский, если он моджахед, нам брат, а чеченец, если он кяфир, наш злейший враг».

То есть то, что Царнаевы чеченцы – это не удивительно, но это совершенно неважно, так же, как неважно, что Троцкий – еврей. В Бостоне они сражались не за свободу Чечни. Они сражались за всемирный Халифат.

Они вели оборонительный джихад.

As Said Buryatsky, who before becoming an Islamist mujahid was an ordinary Russian guy, Alexander Tikhomirov from Ulan-Ude, said in one of his sermons: "Gone are the days when we fought for the freedom of Chechnya, for that pagan  idea. Now we are fighting for Allah. Gone are the days when every Chechen was our brother. Now the Russian, if he's a muhajid, is our brother, and the Chechen, if  he's a kafir, our worst enemy. "

So the fact that the Tsarnaevs are Chechens is not surprising. but it is totally unimportant, just as unimportant as the fact that Trotsky was Jewish. What they were fighting for in Boston was not the freedom of Chechnya. They were fighting for a worldwide Caliphate.

They were waging defensive jihad

"A cesspit of Islamists"

England is "a cesspit of Islamists", according to the Nobel prizewinning author Wole Soyinka.

See also: US: Britain is an al-Qaeda hub

Censoring the unsayable

In her Spectator blog, Melanie Phillips takes issue with a new study which claims that negative portrayals of Muslims in the British media are leading to a growth in hate crime:

The view that Islamists who, for tactical reasons alone, oppose al Qaeda are not a threat to Britain -- and should indeed be treated as allies against al Qaeda -- is one of the most lethal mistakes that has been made by the British counter-terror world.  One example of such egregious establishment wrong-headedness that I cite in Londonistan is in fact one of the authors of this report, Robert Lambert. A former officer in the Metropolitan Police Counter-Terror Command, who until 2008 ran the Metropolitan Police Muslim Contact Unit, Lambert told a conference organised by the Danish police that terrorism could not be fought by contact with moderate Muslims but through partnerships with the Salafists (radical Islamists) – two of whom were at one stage at least actually officers in his own police department. I wrote:

Lambert believed that this would enable the police to understand the way extremists thought before they committed any acts of terror. But it surely goes without saying that a Salafist officer, who is committed to the overthrow of the west and its replacement by an Islamic society, poses a security risk of the first order. For a police counter-terrorism specialist to be promoting this situation beggars belief.

Now Lambert has co-authored this study which claims that identifying such Islamists as extremists is to incite attacks upon British Muslims. But just look at the organisation behind this study, the European Muslim Research Centre. On its advisory board sit Anas Altikriti of the Muslim Association of Britain, which supports Hamas, and Mohamed Abdul Bari of the Muslim Council of Britain, which supports the Islamisation of Britain and which has a number of Islamist affiliates.  The study also says it drew its information from, amongst others, the Muslim Safety Forum, Islamic Human Rights Commission, Muslim Public Affairs Committee (MPAC) UK, the Federation of Islamic Student Societies and the Muslim Council of Britain – all of which are Islamist fronts.

Muslim Russia

It turns out that "Ikramuddin Khan" is the pseudonym of Vadim Sidorov, a Muslim convert also known as Kharum ar-Rushi, head of the National Organization of Russian Muslims.

Many commentators in the West tend to forget that Russia has a steadily growing number of ethnic Russian converts to Islam. Specialist observers have documented the trend, however: in 2007, Paul Goble quoted a figure as large as 20,000, and by now the numbers are likely to be even higher. Daniel Pipes has a useful and interesting survey of the subject on his website, where he quotes President Dmitry Medvedev as saying:

"Russia is a multi-national and multi-confessional country. Russian Muslims have enough respect and influence. Muslim foundations are making an important contribution to promoting peace in society, providing spiritual and moral education for many people, as well as fighting extremism and xenophobia. There are 182 ethnic groups living in Russia, and 57 of them claim Islam as their main religion. This figure speaks for itself."

It does indeed.

Dangers of debate

As one of a series of ongoing projects, the Prague Watchdog website, which formerly directed its attention almost exclusively to the subject of human rights abuses in Chechnya, has now under its new chief editor Andrei Babitsky turned its attention to the subject of Islam. Although the new project, titled "Islam Today", has begun with a contribution from a Russian Muslim cleric, it is not focused solely on the North Caucasus but according to its editor, Mr. Ikramuddin Khan (so far of unknown nationality, but see the next post), will open an international debate on contemporary Islam across the globe.

As PW's English-language editor I've expressed some doubts about this plan. It seems to me that if Prague Watchdog loses its Russia-North Caucasus focus it is likely to find itself to some extent adrift, especially on a highly inflammable subject like the nature of Islam. The comments section in the Russian-language version of PW's site has already on occasion been taken over by vocal and militant Islamists of the Kavkaz Center and Kavkazan Haamash (Caucasus Emirate) variety, and I wouldn't like to see this tendency spread to PW's English-language comments. There are already enough discussion forums on the Web that deal with Muslim politics, Jihad, Islam, Islamic terrorism and related subjects. Some of those forums are dominated by extremist Muslim opinion, while others, like Robert Spencer's Jihad Watch, present an alternative and opposing view from a Western, non-Muslim perspective. They all, in my experience, tend to attract posters who seem anxious to engage in debates that are often bitter and recriminatory, and sometimes downright scurrilous.

My own view is that PW would do better to concentrate on what it has done so well in the past, namely the analysis and reporting of current events in Chechnya and the North Caucasus, in which religion is only one feature of a constantly changing ethnic, political and ideological landscape. While some of the material PW now publishes fits this description, there has been a marked increase in the number of polemical and op-ed articles which are subjective in the extreme. The addition of a debate about Islam could worsen that trend quite a bit, in my view. So for the time being the "Islam forum", with its accompanying newsletter-bulletin,  will not be appearing in an English-language version. Though if some of the prospective articles turn out to be of general interest, I will translate them for PW and post links to them here.

US: Britain is an Al Qaeda hub

A recent U.S. intelligence assessment points to the high level of support for Al Qaeda among Britain's Muslims and expresses concern that the U.K. now presents a major security threat to the West. Con Coughlin in the Telegraph has the details.

From today's correspondence

Dear David,

Thank you for your response. I would only add that Zakaev (whom I admire a lot) himself stated that "Chechen Islamism" is Lubyanka plot to destroy the Chechen resistance and to split the Chechen society. Of course the resistance had to turn to some Islamic identity but to call them "Islamofascists" is, on my opinion, a big exaggeration and misunderstanding that even undeliberately plays to benefit the Russian-Kadyrov regime. I wouldn't support such kind of propaganda. Also, Andrei Babitsky himself had been in Afghanistan to investigate "Chechen ghost" stories and did not find a tiny evidence that support such claims.

Sincerely,

Nadezhda

 

Dear Nadezhda,

Well, I for my part would only add that if the [North Caucasus] Islamic resistance wants to avoid the Islamofascist label, its members need to stop writing and behaving like Islamofascists. Many of the statements that are published on their websites are outrageous, and could be classified as hate crime.

On the other hand, I'm sure that very many of the stories about Chechens in Afghanistan, Pakistan and elsewhere are untrue, and are engineered for Moscow's propaganda purposes. My suggestion - and I believe it's a moderate and reasonable one - is simply that these stories need to be looked into and analysed, and the results made publicly available.

Regards,

David

Chechen ghosts

The uneasy relation between the various interest groups among those, both in the North Caucasus and outside it, who have tried to see a way through the problematic political and social landscape of this troubled part of the world, came to the fore again recently on Norbert Strade's long-lived Chechnya Short List. Norbert has once again posted one of his periodic  "Chechen ghosts" items, this time a clipping from the Independent newspaper - an article by a British journalist who quoted a Western bomb disposal expert as saying that a new type of IED being used by the Taleban in Afghanistan was based on expertise "coming from foreign fighters from places such as Chechnya".

According to the received wisdom in a certain section of the Chechnya human rights community, Chechens cannot be found in places such as Afghanistan, Iraq or Pakistan. Even though Chechnya's Islamic fundamentalists - who act separately from the increasingly out-of-favour nationalists - are as opposed to the U.S., Israel and the West as their Taleban counterparts, by a section of the human rights campaigners  they are thought to be exclusively focused on eliminating Russian control of the region. This approach seemingly ignores the fact that on websites such as Kavkaz Center and Kavkazan Haamash,  Chechen, Dagestani and Ingush Islamists routinely issue anti-Western statements. It would surely not be surprising if one or two Chechens ended up on the Afghan front lines, though the numbers can be disputed. There is also the complicating factor that such participation can be used by the Russian government in its ongoing campaign against Chechnya, which seeks to tar all Chechens with the brush of Islamic extremism.

To point out that it might be kinder and more realistic to treat Chechens as fallible human beings who might fall into political extremism either deliberately or as a result of being duped,   rather than as paragons of national-revolutionary virtue who can do no wrong, is not a popular line to take in Norbert Strade's forum. I have already been attacked by the recently-reappeared Mikael Storsjö (who has done much in word and deed to support the Islamic fighters and their ideologists in Chechnya and elsewhere in the North Caucasus), and other responses have been equally hostile. In the end one is forced to conclude that what really drives the opinions of these avowed pro-Chechens is an antipathy to Western political and military influence per se - as well as to the Kremlin's foreign policy. For if sites like Kavkaz Center are really just projects of the unreformed Russian/Soviet KGB, then why give them any support?

Islam4UK proscribed under terror laws

Government to ban Islam4UK under terror laws (BBC)

Saying no

The Facebook group No to the planned Islam4uk march through Wootton Bassett now has approximately a quarter of a million members.

Conflicting narratives

In the Telegraph, Matthew d'Ancona points out the dangers of playing politics with national security:

More than eight years after the destruction of the World Trade Centre, there are two competing narratives in the West. The first is frightening, difficult and poses a host of deeply unwelcome questions. According to this version of events, we face a global struggle against a new mutation of militant Islamism ready to use all and any means at its disposal, bonded by anti-semitism, hatred of America and a desire to enforce sharia law and to restore the Caliphate. This network plots globally and kills locally. The merit of this is that it happens to be true.

The second narrative dismisses the whole notion of the "war on terror" as an aberration of the Bush-Blair era. According to this version of events, Islamist terror is mostly the consequence of "Western foreign policy" (for example, the Iraq War was directly responsible for 7/7). With Bush and Blair gone, and al-Qaeda supposedly scattered to the winds, it follows that the winding up of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan will bring the whole sorry chapter to an end, and we can all get on with life as normal. The only flaw in this comforting narrative is that it happens to be complete nonsense.

Danish cartoon axe attack

In a second New Year terror-related incident in a Nordic country, the 74-year-old graphic artist Kurt Westergaard, who authored one of the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons in 2005, was attacked in his home on Friday night by a Somali intruder armed with an axe and a knife, but managed to take refuge in a secure room and activate an alarm which summoned police, the AP reports.  According to the BBC, the attacker was shot and wounded by police. 

Links to Danish press sources:

Politiken

Jyllands-Posten

Ekstra Bladet

Berlingske Tidende

Gates of Vienna has posted translated excerpts from Danish press reports.

See also: Espoo mall shootings

Going to perdition

At Prague Watchdog, a Circassian philosopher discusses suicide bombing in the North Caucasus.

Medvedev: Russia is an organic part of the Muslim world

Via Paul Goble's Window on Eurasia blog:

In what many are certain to view as his response to US President Barak Obama’s Cairo address earlier this month, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev told a meeting of the Arab League there yesterday that Russia is “an organic part” of the Muslim world and opposes Western efforts to promote democratic change in the Middle East.

“Islam,” Medvedev told his audience, “is an inalienable part of Russian history and culture, given that more than 20 million Russian citizens are among the faithful. Consequently, he said, “Russia does not need to seek friendship with the Muslim world: Our country is an organic part of this world” (www.i-r-p.ru/page/stream-event/index-23456.html).

Read it all.

Kadyrov and Sadat

At Prague Watchdog, Sergei Davydov writes about the Chechen shadow of Anwar Sadat.

LGF on Wilders

At LGF, Charles Johnson writes that

it’s “inconsistent” for Wilders to claim to be standing up for freedom of expression at the same time as he calls for banning books and taking away basic rights from people; but I’ll go further. It’s deeply hypocritical, and deeply un-American to call for these things. These are fascist opinions. And American citizens who applaud this kind of rabble-rousing populist garbage should be ashamed of themselves.

The True Female Patriot

In his weekly review, Prague Watchdog's Dzhambulat Are writes (in my tr.) about the status of women in Ramzan Kadyrov's brave new Chechnya, and describes a recent public gathering:

The high point of this event was a competition called “The True Female Patriot”. The girls had to describe how happy they were in the new era of national greatness and presidential policies. There were prizes for the best national dress and the best performance of a national dance, a recitation of Chechen poetry about women, a brief presentation on the themes of what it means to be a female patriot and to possess a knowledge of the culture of one’s people, and numerous other items which emphasized the qualities which the new generation of Chechen women must have.