Marlene Laruel

EHESS, Paris. IFEAC, Tashkent

Is belonging to Islam a political criterion? The politicization of spiritual boards and foundations of Muslim Parties in Russia

Relations between Islam and politics often occur in the context of Islamic movements directed as a fundamental and sometimes violent protest against modern society. However, in many cases such groups unite a minority of the population, especially in Russia, and the correlation between Islam and politics in the post-Soviet space should be studied at the level of official organizations rather than small, prohibited groups. Considering that there is no clergy within Islam (in the same sense that a clergy exists in Christianity), spiritual boards have been organized in Russia since the time of Katherine II; the aim of these boards traditionally has been to guide believers. Today these boards are active in the political process – not in the manner that they participate in international movements for the establishment of sharia-based governments, but in the meaning that they more openly include themselves in the public life of the Russian Federation. Indeed, spiritual boards express their disagreement with different religious-based extremist politics; they condemn clericalism; and they want to be faithful civic authorities, hoping to influence the state’s decision-making process.

Remaining subject to political authority, the spiritual boards acknowledge the risk of the appearance and development of more radical and uncontrollable movements, but also allow others to express their faith as a distinct political position. Nonetheless, if we do not consider official speech, we verify the low popularity of the process of politicization: Personal ambitions and continuous schisms, which have shaken the foundation of the spiritual boards for several decades, have alienated a portion of believers; and no political party considering itself Islamic is yet able to attract a sufficient electorate. This situation, weakening the Islamic representation in Russian society, also leads also to a serious mixture of religion and politics. And because the leaders of spiritual boards confirm that they do not take part in political games, they nevertheless participate in the struggle among competing parties and exchange the values of its spiritual support.

Although not very popular, politicization remains an important phenomenon of modern Russian society, and its future meaning is not yet defined. In fact, a Muslim political elite aspiring to revive the activity of Muslim parliamentary faction is taking shape (this kind of fraction existed in the tsarist times). Today this elite is more or less separated from mass; however it operates from the assumption that a growing Russian population that considers itself Muslim eventually will be called upon to play a strategically political role in the country. Two aspects illustrate its successful cultural “russification”: the territorial attachment of the boards mainly classified by principle of correspondence to administrative units of Federation; and the influence of national political concepts on parties, which claim themselves Islamic and often suggest only national and Muslim version of mass debates held throughout modern Russian society.

My report is divided into four parts: The first part deals with numerous schisms that have shaken the spiritual boards since the USSR’s disintegration; part two investigates the political disagreements that divide the two main representative organizations of Russian Muslims; the third part is devoted to the history of Muslim parties, from Party of Islam Renaissance to the Eurasian Party of Russia; and part four addresses of the importance of the main figures in political Islam interacting with Russian nationalistic spheres, which provide an example to be copied.