Russia’s turning Muslim, says mufti

The Australian
06 August 2005

MOSCOW: Russia’s leading Muslim cleric has alarmed Orthodox Church
leaders and nationalists by claiming the country has 23million Muslims,
3 million more than previously believed.

According to the last census, three years ago, about 14.5 million of
Russia’s 144 million people were ethnic Muslims. Religious leaders
have put the number at nearer 20 million.

But the leader of the Council of Muftis of Russia, Ravil Gaynutdin,
said this week the number of ethnic Muslims was 23million and rising.

“They are indigenous residents of our country, not migrants or
immigrants, and have been living here from time immemorial,” the
mufti told a meeting of the European Union of Muslims. “The number
of people professing Islam in Russia is constantly growing.”

Russia is home to an estimated 3 million to 4 million Muslim migrants
from the former Soviet states — about 2 million Azeris, a million
Kazakhs and several hundred thousand Uzbeks, Tajiks and Kyrgyz.

Some Russians are also converting to Islam, according to Sheik Farid
Asadullin, of the Moscow Council of Muftis.

“Russians, Ukrainians and Belarussians, mostly young and intelligent,
see in Islam an answer to their questions,” he said.

Islam was controlled in the Soviet Union, which had only 500 mosques,
but has had a renaissance since 1991, helped by funds from the Middle
East. Russia now has about 5000 mosques.

The rise in the Muslim population has raised fears among Orthodox
Church leaders and nationalists that Russia could eventually become a
Muslim-majority nation. The church claims to have 80million followers,
but religious experts say the number is closer to 40 million and
is falling.

Russia’s population is declining, due in part to high alcohol
consumption, but numbers are rising in Muslim regions, where large
families are common and alcohol consumption is moderate.

Russia’s population dropped by 401,200 in the first half of this year,
but rose in 15 regions, including the Muslim republics of Chechnya,
Dagestan and Ingushetia. The statistics agency said the average
birth rate was 1.8 in Dagestan, compared with 1.3 for Russia overall,
while male life expectancy was 68 in Dagestan, against 58 for Russia.

Aleksei Malashenko, a local expert on Islam, said: “The real problem
is the crisis of the Russian population, not the increase of the
Muslim population. And the church is not as powerful or significant
for Russians as Islam is for Muslims. This doesn’t mean Russia will
be a Muslim society in several years, although maybe in half a century
we’ll see something surprising.”

In the short term, the trend was likely to affect only the North
Caucasus, where the proportion of ethnic Russians was dropping rapidly,
and Moscow, where the proportion of Muslims was rising.

Russian forces have been fighting Chechen rebels for more than a
decade and the bloodshed is now spilling into neighbouring republics
and radicalising many young Muslims.

Moscow, a regular target for Chechen terrorists, has an estimated
1.5 million Muslims, including about 100,000 Chechens.

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