U. S. Department of State
18 April 2006
Educators Say Azerbaijan’s Culture Is More Important than Its Oil
Six Muslim women visit U.S. on State Department-sponsored program
By Vince Crawley
Washington File Staff Writer
Washington — Azerbaijani educators told a U.S. audience recently
that their small country on the Caspian Sea can contribute much more
than oil to the rest of the world.
Azerbaijan blends Islamic tradition and religious tolerance at a
geographic and cultural crossroad linking Europe, Asia and the Middle
East. While seeking more contacts with other nations, Azerbaijanis
also want to preserve their country’s unique balance of tradition
and tolerance, the educators said.
“We are all for integration. Not Westernization, but integration,”
said Sevinj Ruintan, a history professor at Baku State University. “We
do not think that we are the only ones who can learn” from cultural
exchanges with other countries, she said. “We think that others can
learn from us as well.”
Ruintan was among six Azerbaijani women scholars and teachers, all
Muslims, who visited the United States March 27-April 14 in a State
Department-sponsored International Visitor Leadership program, where
they looked at religion and education in this country.
During a March 29 roundtable discussion on Islam in Azerbaijan and
Europe, four of the six visitors wore traditional head scarves and
two wore Western-style business clothes. They said the majority
of Azerbaijani women lead a secular lifestyle and do not wear head
scarves in public.
ISLAM IN AZERBAIJAN
Azerbaijanis rediscovered their Islamic heritage after the fall
of the Soviet Union in 1991, yet the resurgence of religion has
not undermined the country’s acceptance of other faiths nor its
fair-minded treatment of women, members of the group said, speaking
through an interpreter. For example, they said, Azerbaijanis have
valued the education of women and girls for well over a century,
and many teachers and scholars are women.
“Azerbaijan has always been a very multiethnic nation,” said Naila
Suleymanova, a rare manuscripts researcher at the Azerbaijan Academy
of Sciences. Until the Soviet Union takeover in 1920, Muslims,
Christians and Jews lived together in Baku. “We have never had any
conflicts with non-Muslims,” Suleymanova said. “Everybody in a way
back in Soviet times fought for his or her faith. Communists were
closing mosques and churches and the synagogues.” Beginning in 1990,
“representatives of all the ethnic groups began to return to religion.”
Azerbaijan is bordered by Armenia, Iran, Russia, Turkey and the
Republic of Georgia. The country has an ethnic Turkic heritage that
also blends elements of ancient Persian culture. Despite shortcomings
during a presidential election in November 2005, U.S. officials
support democratic efforts in the former Soviet republic. (See related
article.) “Azerbaijan has a chance to emerge as a secular democracy
that has a predominantly Shiia population,” Assistant Secretary of
State Daniel Fried testified before the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee on April 5.
Thomas Goltz, a professor at the University of Montana who was a
journalist in Azerbaijan during the early 1990s, said the country’s
rediscovery of Shiite Islam once created the potential for an
Islamist revolution. “The most interesting thing to me is that it
didn’t happen,” Goltz said during a lecture in January at the Johns
Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington.
During the lecture, Goltz showed a film he made in 1994 documenting
the rise of Shiite Islam as Azerbaijanis cast aside 70 years of
Soviet dominance. “We preserved our religion like a precious flower,”
one Azerbaijani said in the film, which showed fervent gatherings
of worshippers. Goltz, who was an observer during the November 2005
elections, said the country has political flaws but appears to have
struck a balance between modernity and its cultural identity.
Although the government of neighboring Iran is dominated by theocrats,
even religious-minded Azerbaijanis say they are not interested in
Iran’s approach to Islam. “We are not on the level of Islam seen in
Iran,” Sevda Hasanova, editor of Hesabat, a social-political magazine,
said during the State Department roundtable. “Our people would never
want to live the kind of Islam as practiced in Iran.”
“The overall mentality of the Azeri people is clearly intertwined
with Islam,” said Ulduza Fataliyeva, an observant Muslim who teaches
ethics for the nonprofit Center for Religious Studies in Sumgayit,
north of Baku.
“That applies to all people, whether they adhere to the rules of
Islamic law or not,” said Fataliyeva. “As an ethnic Azeri, everyone
knows the rules of Islamic conduct. Whether we worship according to
the Islamic ritual or not, that doesn’t change our Islamic identity.”
Zakiyya Abilova, a rare manuscripts researcher for the Azerbaijani
Academy of Sciences, said she chooses to wear a head scarf as an
outward sign of her faith. “We can’t say people do not have any
religion if they do not pray,” Abilova said. “We all have God in
our heart.”
Abilova learned Arabic as part of her university studies, and she said
her doctoral dissertation was related to sharia, Islamic law. “Islam
is a true light that enriches the human spirit, and I am really proud
to be an Islamic scholar,” said Abilova.
The decision whether to wear a head scarf does not influence the way
women are treated in public, the educators said. “In our country,
whether or not you’re covered or uncovered, the attitude men have
toward women is good,” said Suleymanova, who is also a manuscripts
researcher at the Academy of Sciences.
NATION OFFERS “RICH CULTURAL HERITAGE”
In discussing what Azerbaijan has to offer the world, the women
were concerned that outsiders tend to view their country only in
light of its petroleum reserves. Azerbaijan became an important
oil-producing region more than 100 years ago and was a major oil
and gas supplier to the Soviet Union. In the 1990s, Azerbaijan
signed multibillion-dollar agreements with Western companies. The
1,610-kilometer $4 billion Baku-Tblisi-Ceyhan pipeline — built with
U.S. backing — is scheduled to begin regularly pumping oil from
Azerbaijan to Turkey’s Mediterranean coast later this year.
“Unfortunately, the integration of Azerbaijan has started with
the oil agreements and it has ended with them,” said Hasanova, the
magazine editor.
She said she hopes the government of Azerbaijan will put its oil wealth
to work for the people. And she noted that some experts predict the
oil boom will last no more than 45 years before petroleum reserves
begin to run dry.
Azerbaijan lies on the traditional Silk Road and is a crossroad
between Asia, the Middle East and Europe. The Azerbaijan Academy of
Sciences includes unique volumes of Muslim medical texts, including 363
manuscripts that have been entered in the UNESCO “Memory of the World”
register, which preserves world heritage documents. (See related news
release on the Web site of the United Nations Educational, Scientific
and Cultural Organization.)
“Much of the world could benefit from these global treasures,” said
Abilova, one of the Academy researchers.
Also, many well-known carpet styles from modern-day Iran use
Azerbaijani patterns, Ruintan said. In 1828, Azerbaijan was divided
between the Russian and Persian empires. The portion north of the Aras
River, which was ceded to Russia, eventually became today’s Republic
of Azerbaijan. A larger portion south of the Aras, to include the
city of Tabriz, remains an ethnic Azerbaijani region of Iran. Hence,
ethnic Azerbaijanis weave many Iranian carpets.
“So what we could give to the world,” said Ruintan, “is our rich
cultural heritage. We could try to present our culture on a global
basis.”
President Bush is scheduled to meet with Azerbaijani President
Ilham Aliyev on April 28. (See related article.) For information on
U.S. policy in the region, see Caucasus.
Additional information on the International Visitor Leadership Program
is available on the State Department Web site.
(The Washington File is a product of the Bureau of International
Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site:
)
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress