First, why to talk about it? Why to consider and listen to something as (deceptively) esoteric as a Friday sermon to Muslims in Moscow? Well, the historical conflict that is coming to a crescendo as I am keypunching, is between Israel and some surrounding Arab populations but it echoes across the world. Islamic communities across the globe, albeit many not all, seem to align with or at least produces voices of support for Palestinians. Muslims in Russia are a genuine ‘black whole’. If Russia is not well understood and known to the average and above-average Westerner, then Russian Muslims ten times so. Yet, it is an important community. It is big, as I am going to show in a minute. It is also situated in the midst of the country that is itself at war. And it lives and thinks and operates from the larger Russian society, with its peculiar collectivism, a degree of reverence towards leadership figures and a particular historical role in the context of the Middle East, inherited from the days of the USSR.
Muslim population constitutes about 11% of the total population of Russia. That is a highly significant, and also largely unknown in Western academic circles, fact. Pew Research Center , as part of the project monitoring religious composition of the world, holds these data. This proportion is higher than in France (!), which is a Western European vanguard when it comes to Muslim share of the population. Russian Muslims, in broad strokes, consist of Tatars and Bashkirs situated mainly in the Central Russia, both in possession of the autonomous political entities, and Muslims from the Caucus region (e.g Chechens and multiple nations of Dagestan). Russian Muslims are well integrated into the broader society, culturally and economically. Elvira Nabiullina, head of the Russian Central Bank, Zemphira, a popular rock singer, and Ramzan Kadyrov, Putin’s ally and himself a Head of the Chechen Republic, are perhaps the most known Muslim faces of Russia but there are many many others in eminent positions. In a recent speech, President Putin related to Islam as part of the ‘cultural code of Russia’, and interesting and incomprehensible statement for those insufficiently schooled in Russian history and society. Perhaps for this reason, and may be some others that I will leave to your imagination, this speech and statement remain unknown outside of Russia.
Second thing to know: what is a Friday sermon (Khutba)? It is a sermon given by a local religious leader in a mosque, on Friday (Yaum al Djum’a, Day of the Gathering). Friday is Islamic day of rest and enhanced religious observance. Many Muslims who would not attend a mosque during the week, will make it to Friday prayers and listen to the Khutba. A khutba is delivered by an Imam, and often touches on recent events, or issues of morality. In style and focus it is not vastly different from rabbinic sermons. Some imams are more popular and others and their khutbas may be in demand, they attract high attendance and eager distribution through the Internet. In many places of Islamic world, the content of the sermon is aligned with the secular leadership wishes, but it would be a fundamental error to think that imams simply follow orders. That is not so. Khutba is an art and can be done artistically, in a way that contains different messages and gives space for personality and views of imams to shine.
And the third, why Imam Shamil Alyautdinov? Imam Shamil is a very popular Imam, as simple as that. His YouTube channel, TVUmma, has about 650,000 subscribers, that alone is 4% of the adult Muslim population of Russia. This count excludes viewers of his website ‘umma.ru’ which are estimated at 1 million per month. You have an idea. Jordan Peterson’s scale of appeal. His intellectual journey is most interesting. Being born in 1974 means only one thing: intellectual growth at a cusp of communism and post-communism. In the late 1980s and early 1990s Islamic observance, law and Arabic became his passions. His mother was among the not very numerous Moscow Muslims who attended a mosque, she brought her son there and the rest is history. Imam Shamil graduated from Al Azhar University, a unique and prestigious center of Islamic knowledge in Cairo. Its intellectual equivalents are not many , perhaps Islamic University of Madina in Saudi Arabia, but not much beyond. The final thing, Imam Shamil developed his own approach to Islamic knowledge linking its contents to coaching and personal development techniques. Imam Shamil conducted hundreds of sought-after seminars elaborating his approach, and authored several books on this topic.
The last thing about the sermon. Do not approach it as a voice of the Russian Muslims. That voice will have to be registered separately, a voice of the 16 million people cannot be conveyed by a single imam, no matter how popular. Do not approach it as a voice of Putin either. It is reasonably aligned with Putin’s vision but has not been formulated under his watchful eye in fear of consequences. Do not approach it as peculiar approach of Imam Shamil and only him. Imam Shamil represents the Russian Muslim establishment, he is not ‘contrary’.
And now the sermon. (It is accessible online for Russian speakers)
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Today, Islamic theology is far behind where it should be. The dominant force of the world today is hate spread over the Internet, under Islamic dressing. Educated, proper, Islamic imams, resist that trend but the Muslim crowds crave hate and opportunities to hate Jews and Christians, and others. Recently, we heard news of closing of the gap and cooperation between Israel and Arab countries. That is logical, we are all Abrahamic religions, together we can build and resist destruction.
Years of terror are responsible for the fact that Israel now has the most advanced military arsenal and secret services. This cannot be doubted. Now.. 1,000-2,000 people attacked Israel and breached its border. Can you tell me: whoever organised this attack, have they imagined what kind of response they will get? The organisers must be under the influence of drugs, or hypnosis, they smoked too much hashish…. They have no brains at all. Otherwise, they would have understood that by attacking, they unleash against the Palestinians and Al Aqsa and whatever the war of total destruction. There is no choice. Think about Russia and Ukraine. We, Russia, opened a war in response to the lack of written guarantees from the West, about safety of our border. We have a neighbouring country with the highly uncertain leadership, who knows who even holds power there…. Lavrov repeatedly asked for guarantees from the West, and remember the President said-rockets launched from Ukraine will hit Moscow in minutes. What could we do?
I will quote something you may have heard before: “ We support implementation of the decision of the United Nations to establish the Palestinian state”. This was said by President Putin. Further, our foreign minister Lavrov, who is an eminent intellectual and a first-rate politician, he is aging but he is a stellar figure,…..called for cessation of militant activities and aggression. (Quotes extensively from Lavrov pointing out that the establishment of the Palestinian state is sabotaged by the USA). (Quotes extensively from Mufti Ravil Gainutdin, Mufti of Russia, calling both sides to stop and submit to international arbitration).
We are witnessing a political not a religious conflict. All attempts to make a religious conflict out of it amount for manipulation. Muslims should open their eyes. It is forbidden to support anyone who spreads hate. The real reasons behind supportive calls of this kind are personal problems, mid-life crisis and youthful maximalism, and religious ignorance. There are just 3 sacred places: Mecca, Madina and Al-Aqsa. It is unfortunate that one of these places is a focus of such animosity from both sides. The solutions here are: prayer and implementation of the long-term solution where Palestinian state is created, as President Putin stressed in his recent speech. Judaism, Islam and Christianity have Abrahamic roots. We have no conflict with anyone with Abrahamic roots. Doing anything different from this line is deviation from God’s ways.
Internet, and in that sense English speaking, Russian speaking and Arabic speaking internet spaces are no different, is full of radicalism, provocations and calls for violence. It is a virus of radicalism and destroys everything around it. I know people who went to Syria…remember the times when the US decided to behead Syria and Russia did not allow it? Well… (Muslim) radicals from Russia went to Syria and then I diagnosed them as affected by this virus. These people have personal problems, perhaps a good degree of self-hate. Beware of them! Linking this to Islam misses the problem. If you identify with these radicals who join Arab radicals-you are affected by this virus too.
Internet works in seemingly harmless way at first: Internet-based ‘scholars’ pose with Koran quotations and sayings of the Prophet, initially. Some impressive in-depth studies of scholars and schools of thoughts. And then -what? All that, mixed with hateful tendencies, produces war and decades of mutual killing-of Muslims by Muslims! Real Muslim scholars and intellectuals have enormous responsibility-to prevent and suppress radicalism and transform the Muslim civilisation, to re-orientate it toward construction and not destruction (as it is today). Regretfully, the forces of radicalism prevail now.
I will cite a few sayings of the prophet (hadiths, from the compendium of Imam Al-Buhari). There is a whole chapter on the topic of war and disagreement. The first: “The Prophet said: ‘After my times, you will see things that will displease you…In response, give them (your dissidents) what you own them, and ask God to make sure that they give you what they owe you’”. That is our guidance. We, Muslims, should fulfil our duties towards people instead of reproaching them. We should avoid conflict at all costs. Second: “The Prophet said: ‘ Close to the End of Times, time will fly faster and ignorance will spread, and there will be a lot of deaths’”. Religious ignorance, mixed with hate, is all over the Internet, this is clear to anyone. It is phenomenal in scope. Look at the proportion of Muslims spreading hate towards Jews on the Internet, it is unhealthy, it is wrong, we need to de-escalate and not the opposite. Truly, ignorance is everywhere and it dominates. It is our, Muslim, task, to convey the constructive spirit of Koran and Sunna to people. We, Muslims, millions of us, are failing with that today. Third: “The Prophet said: ‘There will be a lot of turmoil and conflict. In this situation, those who sit are in a better situation that those who stand, and those who stand are better than those who walk. When you see turmoil, stay away, do not enter , do not join eagerly’”. We are accustomed, trained, to hate in the name of Allah! They propagate hate, and under Islamic dressing, which cannot be justified.
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