Caucaz.com 04/07/2005

Post-Soviet Azeri Islam: under Turkish, Arabic and Iranian influence
By Bayram Balci

head of the Turkey-Caucasus programme at the Baku campus of the French
Institute for Anatolian Studies (IFEA)

As with everywhere else within the Soviet region, Azeri Islam has
seen a veritable resurgence since the first signs of the collapse
of the Soviet Union at the end of the 1980s. At that time, religion
emerged from the private, or even underground, domain, to claim a
place of its own in public life. However, its arrival in this space
had not been previously discussed with the ruling political power,
which was intrinsically very attached to the secularism passed down
from the Soviet period.

Whereas Azeri Islam had existed without any contact with the
outside world until then, relations between Soviet Islam and that
of the Arabo-Iranian-Turko world being very limited, the advent of
independence allowed it to establish contact with these three regions
and become open to all the different Islamic influences.

Shiitism in Iran, an historical influence

The way in which most of Azeri Islam belongs to duodecimal Shiitism,
predominate in Iran since the 16th century, can be explained by the
fact that Iranian influences were the first to arrive in Azerbaijan
at the start of the 1990s.

Before even establishing diplomatic relations between Azerbaijan and
Iran, whose diplomats have openly worked on developing religious
exchanges between the two countries, private Iranian initiatives
had opened madrasas (schools) and sent missionaries to the main
Azeri towns, particularly in the south, to Lenkeran, Massalli and
Nakhichevan.

But above all else, since the border between the two countries was
opened, hundreds of Azeri students have headed for Iran to carry out
religious studies, especially in the holy towns of Machhad and Qom,
where hozes (Islamic campuses) welcome students from across the world.

Thanks to the efforts from both the diplomatic services and private
Iranian organisations, as well as from initiatives taken by young
Azeris, there exists today a close Islamic cooperation between the two
countries. This cooperation has meant that while Azeri Shiitism plays
a role in debating ideas that are being discussed within the Shiite
world, their integration into worldwide Shiitism has not alienated
the integration of Azeri Shiites in their own country.

Sunnism, Turkey enters the playing field

The second, and no less important Islamic influence to arrive in
Azerbaijan at the start of the 1990s came from Turkey. This influence
had a dual nature, public and private, led respectively by the State
and a succession of bodies, often linked to the brotherhood, which
went to Azerbaijan and the whole of the former USSR when the Soviet
Union began to collapse.

In Azerbaijan, it is necessary to mention three Turkish religious
tendencies, whose influences played a real role in shaping post-Soviet
Azeri Islam. In the first instance, this concerned Nakshibendis,
the representatives of the most widespread brotherhood in the Muslim
world. Two Nakshibendi leaders that were influential in Turkey,
Osman Nui Topbas and Mahmut Ustaosmanoglu, sent vekils (emissaries)
and disciples to spread ideas and the movement throughout the country.

More active than the Nakshibendis, the Nurcu are the representatives
of a movement founded by Said Nursi (1876-1960). This movement is
made up of many different forms, but just two have successfully taken
root in Azerbaijan – that of Mustafa Sungur and the more influential
form of Fethullah Gülen, a very popular religious leader in Turkey
who took voluntary exile to the United States.

The disciples of the latter have set up a vast network of private
schools in Azerbaijan allowing the movement to mobilise a modern
proselytism which many have compared to that developed by Christian
Anglo-Saxon movements.

Other Turkish Islamic tendencies have managed to take root in
Azerbaijan, but their influence is limited. All of these Turkish
Islamic currents, including that represented by the State, spread
a Sunnite form of Islam that is moderate and close, or at least
respectful of, to other mystical brotherhood traditions that are
established in the Caucasus.

Arab countries and fundamentalist Islam

The third and final Islamic influence that has touched Azeri Islam
since the start of independence is that from the Arab world. Often
called Wahhabite because of the symbiosis between this type of Islam
and the religious philosophy of Abdul Wahhab (1703-1792), this trend
considers itself as Salafist, a follower of the teachings of the
ancestors and thereby the tradition of the prophet.

This is a rigorous, puritan and fundamentalist form of Islam
that wants to establish Islam as it was during the time of the
prophet. This Islam, virtually absent during the Soviet period,
has become established in the country thanks to preachers coming
from the Arab world. These preachers came at the end of perestroika,
but mainly during the war in Nagorno-Karabakh.

Its development was helped to such an extent by local initiatives
that it very quickly became almost indigenous to the country.

Very widespread among North Caucasian Sunnite populations, the State
does not approve of this form of Islam and has tried to stamp it out,
albeit it without much success. This Islam is today well established
in Baku and in regions with a high proportion of Sunnite, notably
Guba and Zakatala.

The changes in the relations between these three ‘Islams’ has led to a
new situation for Azeri Islam in that it is becoming more diversified
and fragmented. The State tries to monitor this evolution by managing
spiritual affairs. The State is doing neither a bad job nor a good job
of this, which is mainly controlled by a new body for the regulation
of Islam that was set up in 2001. This body, the State committee for
religious affairs, seeks to encourage a synthetic form of Islam, that
is not too Shiite, nor too Sunnite and that is an official Islam in
the service of the State. This is an ambitious aim and difficult to
achieve as, although they want to create a national form of Islam to
serve the state, the political authorities still refuse to provide
any religious education in state schools.

(Translated by Victoria Bryan)

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