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"Official" Islam in the Soviet Union ALEXANDRE BENNIGSEN

and CHANTAL LEMERCIER-QUELQUEJAY

In a former article* we analysed the development of conservative, under- ground trends in Soviet Islam. The present article is devoted to the official Muslim establishment in the Soviet Union.

The official Muslim administration was created during the war on the initiative of the Mufti of Ufa, Abdurrahman Rasulaev, who approached Stalin at the end of 1942 with a project for "normalizing" relations be- tween Islam and the Soviet government. Rasulaev was one of the few Muslim clerics who had survived the fearful persecution in the Muslim territories during the period 1932-1938, when Muslim clerics were hunted down as "counter-revolutionaries", "saboteurs", and "agents" of German, Japanese or British intelligence. His aim was a relatively modest one: to stop pressure against Islam, to obtain legal recognition for it as well as some limited advantages- a situation comparable, on a more modest scale, to the "concordat" which Metropolitan Sergi managed to obtain for the Russian Orthodox Church ..

Stalin accepted Rasulaev's proposal for different reasons. There waS the obvious incentive of propaganda: such a move would win approval from the Allies and from the Muslim world abroad; ·but above all, it would be of advantage at ·home. In 1942, trouble broke out in the Cau~asus and a million Muslim mountain-dwellers as well as the entire Crimean Tatar community were deported and subjected to reprisals which amounted to genocide. Therefore, a "concordat" with the MUfti Rasulaev was needed to help counterbalance the disastrous impression made by the deportations. But more important was the need to establish a central Muslim organization which would be loyal and submissive, and through which the Soviet government could e~ercise complete control over its Muslim subjects.

The Muslim administration created under the above circumstances has no parallel in any other Muslim country. Sunni Islam is a decentralized religion which has no "clergy" and therefore does not need an "ecclesi-

* "Muslim Religious Conservatism and Dissent in the USSR", NeL Vo!. 6, No. 3, I978, pp. 153-61. Bd.

"Official" Islam in the Soviet Union 149

astical establishment". Nevertheless, the administration in question fol- lowed closely the tradition of Imperial Russia: in 1783, Catherine II organized a similar control system - the Central Spiritual Muslim Directorate (Upravlenie) for European Russia and Siberia in Orenburg (later in Ufa).

This official Islamic establishment has no central organization, apart from a coordinating centre in Moscow with limited competence: the Department of Foreign Relations, created in 1962, is in charge of relations between the four Spiritual Directorates and Muslim countries abroad. The establishment is divided geographically between four Spiritual Directorates (Dukhovnye Upravleniya). Three of them are Sunni, the fourth is mixed - Sunni-Shia.

I. Spiritual Directorate of Central Asia and Kazakhstan

Sunni of Hanafi rite. Founded at the first congress of the Muslims of Central Asia and Kazakhstan which was convened in Tashkent on 20 October 1943. Seat: Tashkent, Uzbekistan. Chairman: Mufti Zia ud-Din Babakhanov. Vice-Chairman: Sheik Yusufkhan Shakhirov (1979). Language: Uzbek. The Directorate is represented in each of the five Turkestani republics by a Kaziyat (delegation).

2. Spiritual Directorate of the Muslims of European Russia and Siberia

Sunni of Hanafi rite. Seat: Ufa, Bashkir ASSR. Chairman: Mufti Abd al-Bary Issaev (since 1976). Vice-Chairman: Faiz ur-Rahman Sattar. Language: Volga Tatar.

3. Spiritual Directorate of the North Caucasus and Dagestan

~ Sunni of Shafe'i rite. Seat: Makhach-Kala (before 1974, Buinaksk), Dagestan ASSR. Chairman: Mufti al-Haflz Omarov (since 1976). Language: Arabic. .

The authority of this Directorate covers all the autonomous re- publics of the North Caucasus(except Abkhaziya, which belongs to the Directorate of Baku) and the territories (krais) of Stavropol and Krasnodar. :'. ,

4. Spiritual Directorate oUhe TranscaucasiaMuslims

Mixed: Shia (of' Ja'fari rite or Ithna-Asharia: the "Twelvers'V and Sunni ofHanafi rite. Seat: Baku, Azerbaidzhan.

"Official" Islam in the Soviet Union

Chairman: the Shia Sheikh ul-Islam. The former chairman, Sheikh ul-Islam Ali Aga Suleyman, died in 1978 at the age of 93. Vice-Chairman: the Sunni Mufti Ismail Ahmedov (1976). Language: Azeri Turkic.

The authority of this Directorate covers all the Shia (Ja'fari) com- munities of the Soviet Union and extends to the Sunni communities of Transcaucasia, Sunni Azeris (30 per cent of the total population), Abkhaziyans, Kurds, Ajars and Ingilois (Georgian Muslims - 100,000?), Hemshins (Armenian Muslims - 5,000?); Meskhetian Turks (less than 100,000?). Other Muslim religious groups - Ismailis, Bahais, Ali-Illahis - have no officially-recognized spiritual authority.2

Because of the importance of Central Asia, where 75 per cent of the Soviet Union's Muslims live, and because of the personality of its Chair- man, the Mufti Zia ud-D~n Babakhanov, the Directorate of Tashkent is exceptionally important. It is the only one to publish a religious period- ical, and the only two official medressehs are on its territory. Nevertheless, each Directorate is autonomous, not only as regards administration but also as regards canonical matters. There are great differences between the Directorates, especially between the more advanced, modernist Direc- torates of Tashkent and Ufa and the conservative Caucasians.

Until recently the leaders of the Spiritual Directorate of the North Caucasus and Dagestan kept aloof from the Spiritual Directorate of Tashkent, considering that the latter was betraying the spirit of Islam . . . . The Mufti Kurbanov, Chairman of the Buinaksk Directorate, when asked for his opinion on the Tashkent fetwas, said: "I think that Zia ud-Din Babakanov's fetwas do not correspond to Islam .... Close ties between the two Muftiats were only established at the Muslim con- ference of Tashkent in 1970".8 [fetwa = official Muslim pronouncement.]

The four Spiritual Directorates are empowered by the Soviet govern- ment to control the religious life of Muslim believers. All the "working" mosques, medressehs and religious publications are placed under their strict supervision. Any religious activity outside the "working" mosques is forbidden by Soviet Jaw. All Muslim clerics must be "registered" with the Directorates and paid and nominated by them. "Unregistered" clerics who perform various religious rites are branded as "parasites" and hunted down. The Directorates and' their registered "clerics" alone are entitled to represent Islam vis-a.-vis the Soviet authorities, and only members of the Directorates may act abroad on behalf of Soviet Islam.

The small group of "registered" clerics (certainly less than 2,000) is composed of the executives of the four Directorates and their delegates in the republics and regions, and also the staff' of the "working" mosques:

"Official" Islam in the Soviet Union

imam-khatibs and their assistants, mutevvalis, muezzins, kadis, mudarris, designated by the general name of mullahs or akhunds (among the Shias). We may accept the average number of four to five "registered" clerics for every "working" mosque.

This group is heterogeneous. We find a few old survivors of Stalin's purges, trained in the pre-revolutionary Turkestani or Tatar medressehs, and also young ulemas, graduates of the two Central Asian medressehs, who, in some cases, finished their education abroad, in Egypt, Morocco, Syria Or Libya. Members of this last group may be subdivided into two categories: former Soviet intellectuals, who, before joining the Muslim establishment, completed their studies in regular Soviet schools and even in universities, and sons of ulemas for whom clerical careers were heredi- tary (this is especially true of the Caucasus and of Central Asia). The intellectual and cultural level of the young ulemas is excellent, often outstanding. In the case of Central Asia, their "professional standard" is certainly higher than that of their pre-revolutionary predecessors.5

Administrative Activity of the Spiritual Directorates • Only a few of the 25,000 mosques that existed before the Revolution are

still "working". The massive destruction of Muslim prayer-houses in Russia started in 1928 and lasted until the Second World War when some of them were reopened. Soviet War News boasted in 1943 that 1,200 mosques existed in the USSR. This figure is acceptable and, it seems, the number slowly increased until Stalin's death. In 1959 when Khrushchev launched the second campaign against Islam, the number of mosques was estimated at 1,500. This short but violent campaign lasted until 19646 and during this period most of the mosques - in particular almost all village mosques - disappeared. Their number remained stationary until 1978, when a modest revival of official Islam was marked by the opening of a few mosques.

It is impossible to ascertain the number of "working" mosques today. The executives of the Directorates are very cautious in answering in- discreet questions, and the data published by Soviet sources is incomplete and unreliable. However, the figure of 450 "working" mosques seems plausible.

In 1976 executives of the Spiritual Directorate of Tashkent acknowl- edged the existence of 143 "working" mosques in Central Asia and Kazakhstan. All major cities have one or sever~l mosques. Tashkent has 12 "cathedrals" (Juma mo'sques) and several smaller ones (mahalla mosques);7 in Bukhara there are at least four'; and Namangan, Dushanbe, Ashkhabad are said to have "several".

It is harder to establish the number of "working" mosques in the European part of the USSR. We know that they exist in every important town of the Tatar and Bashkir republics, as well as in all the major cities

"Official" Islam in the Soviet Union

of Russia and Siberia with a Tatar colony - Leningrad, Astrakhan, Mos~ cow, Gorki, l>enza, Irkutsk, Omsk, Saratov. We may estimate their total number at 200 at the most.9

We have more precise information about the North Caucasus. Ac- cording to recent Soviet data, there are 27 "working" mosques in the Dagestan ASSR10 and only two in the Chechen-Ingush ASSR (both opened in 1978).11 There are no "working" mosques in the Karachai-Cherkess autonomous region since the deportation of the Karachais in 1943.12 In the cities of central and western North Caucasus, Nalchik, Ordzhonikidze, Maikop, the number of mosques may be estimated at ten. Thus the total number of "working" mosques controlled by the Makhach-Kala Direc- torate is probably no more than 45. Except in Dagestan, almost all the mosques are in cities.

In Transcaucasia the situation is even worse. In 1976 only 16 "working" mosques remained in Azerbaidzhan: two in Baku and one in each im- portant city such as Nukha, Zakataly, Sheki, Kuba, Khachmas, Gokchay, Nakhichevan, Lenkoran. Mosques are in general mixed (Shia-Sunni) and the same ceremony is often conducted by two imams, and attended by believers of both rites.12 Some mosques exist in Georgia and Armenia in the cities of Yerevan, Tbilisi, and Batumi.

This article was finished when new figures for "working" mosques were provided by the Mufti Zia ud-Din Babakhanov in a Moscow Radio broadcast in Arabic (I April 1979, 15.30 hrs. GMT). The figures given by the Mufti for Central Asia seem reasonable, at least as regards what he calls "the grand mosques": 12 in Tashkent, three in Sama'rkand, four in Bukhara, and a total of 200 for the five republics of Central Asia. To these figures he adds a certain number of "small mosques" (?): 100 in Tashkent, 15 in Samarkand, and "more than ten" in Bukhara. Zia ud-Din Babakhanov's information on other Muslim territories is vague and less reliable. For Siberia and the European part of the USSR he relies on figures given by the Mufti Abdul-Bari Isaev of Ufa who claims that there are "over'l,ooo grand and small mosques" - a highly exaggerated figure, which is difficult to accept since the Muslim population under the juris- diction of the UfaDirectorate does not exceed eight million (as compared with some 30 million in Central Asia). The figures for Azerbaidzhan ("200 grand and small mosques") and for Dagestan ("approximately 300 grand and small mosques") contradict the figures given recently by Soviet sources, which limit the number of mosques in these two areas to 16 and 27 "working" mosques respectively. .

. The general distribution of mosques is an indication of the way in which official Islam in the USSR has evolved since the Second World War. The overwhelming majority of "working" mosques are to be found In the cities. Whereas before the Revolution the strength of Russian Islam re- sided in' the countryside; now Soviet "offidal" Isl::im is moving back to

The leaders of the Spiritual Directorate of the North Caucasus and Dagestan. The official Islamic establishment has no central organization and consists of four Spiritual Directorates. See "Official Islam in the Soviet Union" pp. 148-59. (© Novosti Press Agency)

A conference on the defence of world peace held in Tash- kent by Soviet Muslim lead- ers in 1962. (© Novosti Press Agency)

Mufti Zia ud-Din Baba- khanov, Chairman of the Spiritual Directorate of Cen- tral Asia and Kazakhstan, preaching to the faithful. This Spiritual Directorate is the most important in the USSR: 75 per cent of Soviet Mus- lims live in Central Asia. (© Novosti Press Agency)

Fr Gheorghe Calciu, a Romanian Orthodox priest, arrested on IQ March 1979. See "Dis- mantling a Human Rights Movement" pp. 166-70.

Below left Dimitrie Ianculovici, a Romanian Baptist, who as a human rights activist in Romania helped form in April 1978 the Christian Committee for the Defence of Religious Free- dom and Freedom of Comcience (ALRC).

Below right Pavel Nicolescu, a Romanian Baptist who founded ALRC with Dimitrie Ianculovici. This Committee has called for a "free Church in a free State". See document pp. 170-3.

(All photographs, courtesy Keston College)

"Official" Islam in the Soviet Union 153

the cities because there are not enough "registered" clerics to run the rural mosques. This trend corresponds to the traditional character of Islam. The countryside remains the realm of an "unofficial" or "parallel" Islam,· represented by the Sufi brotherhoods or, simply, by the numerous "unregistered" mullahs.

The religious level of the population is in no way dependent upon the number of "working" mosques. The Chechen-Ingush ASSR - a real bastion of Muslim faith - did not possess t single mosque between 1943 and 1978.

There is not a single registered cleric who ~ould propagate his religious ideology among the believers; but propaganda of Islam is being con- ducted secretly by the miirid (Sufi) societies ... u

In recent years - particularly in 1978 - some new mosques have been opened: in Gorki (1978), Saratov (1978), Tashkent (1975), Zhizak (1977), Ak-kurgan (1977) and two in the Chechen-Ingush ASSR (in Prigorodny, in the neighbourhood of Grozny and in· the aul of Surkhohi - the centre of Sufi activity in the Ingush territory).15 It is not impossible that these new favours granted to "official" Islam stem from the authorities' wish to reinforce the liberal moderate and loyal establishment, and to check the expansion of the radical-conservative and anti-Soviet "parallel" Islam. .

According to foreign visitors and various Soviet sources, the number of believers atteI).ding prayers at the mosques is significant. Because of the "national" aspect of some religious ceremonies, thousands of believers (and also non-believers) fill the mosques during the great Muslim festivals (e.g. Aid al-Fitr, Aid al-Kebir).16 During recent years, Soviet sources have reluctantly acknowledged that the number of believers attending religious ceremonies is increasing:

Based on some external facts, such as the number of people who attend mosques or perform religious rites, an erroneous opinion may arise as tothe general increase of religious feelings among the masses. We cer- t\linly must not exclude the possibility of active religious agitation which might lead to an increase in the active participation of believers in Muslim ceremonies and rites. But such a phenomenon can neither be long-lasting nor deeply-rooted.17

The Tashkent Directorate controls the only two Muslim religious edu~ cational institutions. All mektebs (lower level' schools) and medressehs (medium level) were closed in 1928. In 1945, however, the m~dresseh Mir-i Arab of Bukhara was opened: this is a medium level establishment, with students from all over the Soviet Union who enter the medresseh

• See "Muslim Religious COl)servatism and Dissent in the USSR" by Alexa~dre Bennigsen and Chantal Lemercier-Quelquejay, ReL Vol. 6, No. 3, pp. I53-6i. Ed •.

"Official" Islam in the Soviet Union

as a rule after graduating from a Soviet school or even from a university. Graduates from Mir-i Arab - some 20 every year - either become imam- khatibs of the "working" mosques, or complete their education at the higher level medresseh, Imam Ismail al-Bukhari of Tashkent. (This was founded in 1971 and named medresseh Ismail al-Bukhari in 1974, pro- ducing its first graduates in 1975.) Some students of this institution com- plete their education in various Muslim universities abroad, such as AI-Azhar of Cairo, Qarawyin of Fez, al-B'aidha of Libya and the University of Damascus.18 Graduates from the Tashkent medresseh become execu- tives of the four Spiritual Directorates. According to our information, the education offered in both medressehs is remarkable, and Soviet Islam possesses today a small but efficient body of Muslim clerics (ruhani) whose learning and competence can compete with that of clerics in any other Muslim country.

* * * The Tashkent Directorate is also the only one of the four Spiritual

Directorates which is producing a number of publications. In 1946 it published a quarterly review in Uzbek (in Arabic script), Urta Asia ve Kazakhstan Musulmanlarining Dini Nazariia Zhurnali (Journal of the Spiritual Directorate of the Muslims of Central Asia and Kazakhstan), which was replaced in 1969 by Muslims of the Soviet East, a quarterly journal in two editions - an Arabic edition (Musulmanan.n a/~Sharq al- Sufiyatl) and an Uzbek edition in Arabic script (Sovet Sharkining Musul- manlan). In 1974 an English and a French edition were added. The journal is the Muslim equivalent of the Zhurnal Moskovskoi Patriarkhii (Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate) but it surpasses its Christian equivalent both in presentation and contents. It is a beautifully illustrated publication and gives an excellent idea of the political and spiritual life of the Direc- torates. It contains the texts of the most important fetwas, editorials on purely religious themes, detailed studies of the foreign relations of the Directorates, and sometimes excellent historical articles, often signed by sch~iars from the Academies of Sciences and by members of universities.

The Directorate has also published a limited number of books and pamphlets: a collection of fetwas by the former Mufti Ishan Babakhan (1945), a remarkably beautiful album of Islamic monuments in the USSR (1956) and four or five editions of the Koran.19 In 1970 it brought out a collection of hadith of Imam al-Bukhari, Al-Adab al-Mufrad, and in 1973 his second big collection of hadith, Jami' al-Sahih. Referring to this last

> publication, the Sheikh Abdulgani Abdullah, Vice-President of the Tash- kent Spiritual Directorate, wrote this remarkable but somewhat am- biguous commentary :

The edition of Sahih of al-Bukhari marks the final victory of Islam over superstition and obscurantism. The book is to be found already in

"Oflicial" Islam in the Soviet Union 155

many Muslim families, in the hands of believers in Central Asia, Siberia, the Caucasus and elsewhere. This book will fully satisfy all the spiritual needs of Muslims. We are now well armed to defend ourselves against the temptations of false theologians and false prophets. This edition isa divine gift which will help our advance along the right path.211

* * * The other legal activities of the Directorates are more modest. No

Shariyat courts are left (the last one was closed in 1928).21 There are no waqfs to administer, and all social and economic activity is strictly for- bidden; the collection of the zakat came to an end in 1928. Muslim parishes are wealthy and prosperous,22 but their intellectual and spiritual life is limited to prayers, to the reading of the fetwas2B and to the preach- ing of the imam-khatibs.

Intellectual Activity and Relations with "Unoflicial" Islam

It is obvious that "official" Islam alone could not preserve religious feeling among the mass of believers. Too few mosques are left, too few "regi- stered" clerics remain to satisfy the spiritual needs of the believers and to perform the necessary rites. Without the activity of "unofficial" or "parallel" Islam, religion in Muslim territories would have degenerated long ago into ignorance (iahiliyat) and shamanism.

But the real significance of "official" Islam and its ambitions lie else- where. It represents the last legacy of the brilliant pre-revolutionary jadid reformism. The Soviet ulemas of today are the sole heirs of the prestigious constellation of modernist and liberal theologians and philosophers such as Shihabeddin Marjani, Abdullah Bubi, Musa Jarulla Bigi and Ismail bey Gaspraly. Thus "official" Islam resembles a highly intellectual "General Staff" which guarantees the preservation of the purity and integrity of Islam a.t its peak. The'Soviet Muslim leaders of today are executing the liberal programme of the Islamic renaissance, which was established a cel\tury ago by the greatest of the Tatar reformers, Shih'abeddin Marjani:~ they are advocating the refusal of the taqIid - blind obedience to schol- astic authorities; the restoration of the ijtihad - the right to interpret the meaning of the Koran, and, more broadly, the necessity to replace "blind" faith by a "reasonable" faith, thus reconciling Islam with science and progress and guaranteeing its survival and revival in the modem scientific world. .

The official Muslim leaders have adopted a cautious attitude towards the conservative "parallel" Islam, whose roots are spreading deep within the popular masses. So far they have refused to follow the advice of the Soviet authorities and to denounce Sufism as heretical or unorthodox. The few fetwas published by muftis against various Sufi practices (pilgrimages to holy shrines, the collection of the zakat by the Sufi brotherhoods, the

"Official" Islam in the Soviet Union

performance of the zikr) remain moderate and vague, and reveal the Directorates' unwillingness to sever relations with a trend that personi- fies the second, popular aspect of Islam. Some of the better-informed Soviet observers even doubt whether the official clerics are at variance with the adepts of the Sufi orders:

We must not exaggerate the difference between the modernists and the conservatives. These differences exist only within the limits of Islam and have a purely scholastic character.25

Other specialists even hint at a secret alliance between the two :

Official representatives of the Muslim clergy often spread their propa- ganda indirectly, through the channel of non-official fanatics .••• Thus, nobody can accuse them of violating Soviet legislation (on the separa- tion of Church and State).21

The Soviet Government and "Official" Islam

Vis-a-vis the Soviet regime, the religious leadership appears totally loyal and recommends such loyalty to Muslim believers. Official clerics have at no time protested against the anti-religious propaganda, much less against the atheistic character of Soviet society; at no time have they criticized the policy of the Communist Party or denounced Marxism because of its opposition to Islam. They even accept that believers can become members of the Komsomol or the Communist Party, on one condition only, that in the secret of their heart they remain loyal to the dogmas of Islam.27 It thus seems that all Soviet Muslims, Sunnis included, have adopted the traditional Shia practice of taqiya.

Official religious leaders act as valuable allies of Soviet agitprop when, on the pages of Muslims of the Soviet East, they counter-attack foreign ob- servers - Muslims or non-Muslims - who express· doubts about the exis- tence of religious freedom in the Soviet eastern republics.28 During their frequent visits abroad, Soviet religious dignitaries maintain the same line of absolute loyalty towards the Soviet regime, proclaiming on every possible occasion, and whatever evidence there is to the contrary, that in the USSR Islam is free, happy and prosperous.29 The same intense, though rather crude, pro-Soviet and anti-imperialist propaganda is propa- gated by Muslim leaders when foreign delegations visit Central Asian republics, and is particularly stressed at the .international congresses organized in Central Asia by the Spiritual Directorate of Tashkent. For example, a Congress of Muslims of the USSR, held in Tashkent in August 1970, adopted a strong anti-imperialist and anti-American stance. The Congress of November 1973, also held in Tashkent, was even more vio- lently anti-Israeli in character.

The danger and the limits of cooperation between the Soviet authorities

"Official" Islam in the Soviet Union 157

and official Islam have been stressed many times by Soviet leaders. Sharaf Rashidov, first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Uzbekistan, approached this problem in his report at the VIIIth Plenum of the Central Committee:

The clerics are cleverly adapting to the new conditions; they don various masks, they are fighting for each soul ... they are especially interested in the young .... It would be a great mistake to imagine that they are fighting a losing battle. Their power and their influence are proved by the number of people at prayers in the mosques, and by the number who observe religious festivals and religious rites.so

And a central Asian specialist of anti-Islamic propaganda went so far as to proclaim that:

Because of their ability to adjust themselves to the Soviet regime, Muslim modernists (Le. the "official" Muslim leaders) are as dangerous as the conservatives.31

At all events, so long as the cooperation between "official" Islam and the Soviet authorities persists - and it seems to be destined to persist for some time to come - it is certainly more profitable to the Muslims than to the Soviet regime. Moscow might certainly obtain some limited advan- tages by using Muslim officials as propagandists abroad and "moderators" at home, but Islam, thanks to the combined action of its two faces - the official and the non-official - has succeeded in surviving half a century of oppression and persecution, and its leaders may justifiably view the future with optimism.B2

1 The "Twelvers" Shiites, who recognize 12 visible Imams, are represented in the USSR by 70 per cent of the Azeris and by small communities in Central Asian and Lower Volga cities: Bukhara, Samarkand, Krasnovodsk, Mary, Ashkhabad, Astrakhan. Their total number probably does not exceed 2,700,000.

2 Other Muslim religious groups are: -:1 the Ismailis of Nizari rite ("Followers of the Aga Khan") numbering probably

less than 100,000 in the Pamirs. The majority of the Pamirian or "Galcha" peoples: Vanchis, Vakhis, Yazgulams, Ishkashims, Bartangs, Shugnis •.. belong to this sect.

- some small Bahais colonies in Astrakhan, Ashkhabad, Mary •.. - a group of Extreme Shiites: the Ali Illahis ("Those who divinize Ali") among

the Karapapakhs of Armenia, probably less than IQ,ooo. - the Yezidis or "Devil worshippers" - Kurds of Armenia (15,000 in 1926), are

sometimes counted with the Muslims, but they really do not belong to Islam. Their religion has its roots in Manicheism. .

3 M. A. Abdulaev and M. V. Vagabov, Aktualnye problemy kritiki i preodoleniya Islama, Makhach-Kala, 1975, p. 13.

4 Islam has no professional "clergy". Any believer knowing Arabic and the necessary prayers can perform a religious rite.

S Nugman Ashirov, Evolyutsiya Islama v SSSR, Moscow, 1973, p. 12. I Between 1948 and 1975, 923 anti-religious books and pamphlets were pub-

lished in 21 "Muslim" languages, in addition to anti-Islamic books in Russian. The Uzbek language comes first, with 177 titles, then, in the following order: Dagestani

"Official" Islam in the Soviet Union

languages - 140, Kazakh - 126, Azeri - 96, Tadzhik - 70, Kirgiz - 69, Tatar - 65, Chechen-Ingush - 50, Turkrnen - 44, Bashkir - 24, Kabard - 13, Adyge-Cherkess - 12, Karakalpak - II, Abkhaz - 6, Uigur - 5, Georgian (for the Ajars) - 4, Karachai- Balkar - 3, Nogai - 3, Dungan - 2, Ossetian - 2, Abaza - 1_ The great majority of these publications appeared between 1960 and 1964-

7 Muslims of the Soviet East (hereafter MSE), I97B - II, p_ 10. Among them: "Sheikh Zainuddin", "Hoja Alambardor", "Tilla Sheikh", "Yokha Saray", "Mirza Yusuf", "Allau", "Chupan Ata .. _"

B MSE, I97B - II, p. 17, including "Hoja Zaineddin" restored in 1974, "Tagban- Barta", "Shah-i Zanda", "Hoja Tabbat".

9 As against 2,200 in 1925 in the Tatar ASSR alone (L; Klimovich, "Borba Orto- doksov i Modernistov v Islame" in Voprosy nauchnogo ateizma, II, 1955, p. 7B).

10 According to A. Makatov, Islam, Veruyushchii, Sovremennost - opyt konkretno- sotsialnogo issledovaniya Musulmanstva, Makhach-Kala, 1974, p. 7; and the same figures in M. A. Abdulaev and M. V. Vagabov, Aktualnye problemy, op. cit., p. 179. In 1917, on the territory of the present-day Dagestan ASSR, there were 1,700 small mosques and 360 "cathedral mosques". Also, M. Z. Magomedov, "Iz istorii reshenii natsionalnogo i religioznogo voprosov na Severnom Kavkaze", Voprosy nauchnogo ateizma, XIV; 1973, p. 45.

11 All Chechen and Ingush mosques were destroyed in 1943 when the native population of this republic was deported. Cf. Yu. A. Aidaev and V. G. Pivovarov, "Problemy konkretnykh issledovanii religii" in Sotsiologiya, Ateizm, ReIigiya, Grozny, 1972, p. 12, write: "There is not· a single working mosque left in the Republic". Two mosques were opened in I97B. In 1917, there were on the territory of the present-day Chechen-Ingush ASSR 2,675 mosques (cf. Revolutsiya i Goretz, 1933, Nos. 1-2, p. B3).

12 A. V. Avksentev, Islam na Severn om Kavkaze, Stavropol, 1973, p. 143. IS Nugman Ashirov, Islam i Natsii, Moscow, 1975, pp. B2-3. 14 Yu A. Aidev and V. G. Pivovarov, "Problemy konkretnykh issledovanii ... ",

op. cit., pp. 12-13. 15 MSE, 197B - II, p. 19. 16N. Ashirov, Islam i Natsii, Moscow, 1975, p. 64·: "Muslim festivals have a

special attraction in the areas where Muslims live in non-Muslim territory. Even non-believers attend the ceremonies which are considered national tradition. In the Orenburg mosque, at the time of the Uraza Bairam, even school-boys attend the 'Tatar festival'. The same is true in Penza, Omsk, Leningrad, Astrakhan ... "

17 A. Makatov, Islam, Veruyushchii .... , op. cit., p. 100. 1B Shamsuddin Babakhanov, Director of the medresseh "Imam al-Bukhari", MSE,

1977 - II, p. 6. 19 Official sources are not clear on this point: MSE, 1976 - IV, pp. IB-I9, men-

tions, two editions in 1963 (?) and 1970. But the same journal, 1976 - IV, p. 4, speaks or six editions; the issue 1977 - I, p. 9, -mentions three editions with the fourth at the printers, and the issue I97B - I, p. 6 mentions five editions.

20 MSE, 1976 - IV, p. 19- 21 The Shariyat courts were abolished between 1922 and I92B. Cf. N. Ashirov,

Islam i Natsii, op. cit., p. HO. 22 The sadaqa, voluntary contribution of the believers to the mosque, has been

increasingly practised during recent years. Cf. A. Makatov, Islam, Veruyushchii ... op. cit., p. 9B.

23 M A. Abdulaev and M. V. Vagabov, Aktualnye problemy ... , op. cit., pp. 179- Bo. The fetwas are solemnly re.id at the Friday prayers in Arabic, "which gives them a striking, emotional, artistic quality". They are then commented upon in the local language. They may deal with any problem: social, political, moral, religious, but "the necessary element in all fetwas is their absolute loyalty to the Soviet State and their modernistic character".

24 Shihabeddin Marjani (IBIB-IB99), Tatar religious reformer, historian and peda- gogue, educated in a Bukharian medresseh, considered to be the father of Tatar jadidism.

"Official" Islam in the Soviet Union 159

25 M. A. Abdulaev, "Za glubokoe kriticheskoe izuchenie ideologii Islama", Sotsio- I08iya, Ateizm, Reli8iya, Grozny, 1972, p. 30-

26 M. A. Abdulaev and M. V. Vagabov, Aktualnye problemy . _ ., op. cit., p. 17. '13 Yu. A. Aidaev and V. G. Pivovarov, "Problemy konkretnykh ..• ", op. cit., p. 13. 28 For instance, MSE, 1975 - I, pp. 8-13, a long article signed by the Mufti Zia

ud-Din Babakhanov. It attacks a certain Abd al-Hafiz Abdurrabbuh who published an article on "the communist terror against Islam" in the journal Akhbar aI-Alam aI-Islam; or MSE, 1977 - Ill, pp. 18-20, or an article by the sheikh Abdulgani Abdullah, Vice-Chairman of the Tashkent Directorate, who criticizes a Karl Lav- renevich for his anti-Soviet article in a Pakistani journal.

29 Thus, in November 1977, the Mufti Haji Ismail Ahmedov, Vice-Chairman of the Baku Directorate, told the Associated Press News correspondent that in the USSR believers worship freely and observe Muslim holidays. He also emphasized the "unfailing humaneness of the Soviet State towards its believing sons".

so Pravda Vostoka, 13 July 1963. 31 T. Izimbetov, Islam i sovremennost, Nukhus, 1963, p. 78. Sll Recently and for the first time in Soviet history, the Mufti Zia ud-Din Baba-

,khanov gave the number of Muslims in the Soviet Union. Speaking in a Radio Moscow broadcast in Turkish (5 April 1979, 1400 GMl), he said: "I would like to tell you that there are over 40 million Muslims in the Soviet Union." Given' the personality of the Mufti of Tashkent, these figures must be considered as official. They correspond more or less to the total number of people of ;various nationali- ties, which before the Revolution belonged to Islam. It is significant that some days before this broadcast, a certain Vladimir Pozner spoke in a Radio Moscow broad- cast to North America (Radio Moscow, in English, 30 March 1979, 0030 GMl) and declared: "It would be hard to imagine more than ten per cent of the once Muslim population actually being religious today. So ten per cent means a bit over three million, and that is anything but a conservative figure."

Index on Censorship No. 5-1979 A Time and a Place (Anti-Semitism in the USSR today) Mikhail

Kheifets

CZECHOSLOVAKIA

The Questionnaire (Extract from a novel) ]iri Grusa

Why Grusa's novel should not be published in Czechoslovakia (official censors' report) Expert Testimony

Poem ]aroslav Seifert

Jaroslav Seifert Sir Cecil Parrott

Heroes new and old]. Skvorecky

An exchange Ludwik Vaculik and Vaclac Havel

CHINA

Manifesto of Human Rights

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