A SPLIT IN THE LEADERSHIP OF THE MUSLIMS OF RUSSIA: 994-2004

Abstract

In my previous article (Central Asia and the Caucasus, No. 4, 2004), I wrote that in 1992 during the most serious split among the Russian Muslims, Moscow Mufti Ravil Gainutdin sided with Talgat Tadjuddin, who then headed the Spiritual Administration of the Muslims of the CIS European Part and Siberia. At that time, however, Gainutdin maintained contacts with the dissenters who tried to win him over to their cause. According to Nafigullah Ashirov, Ravil-khazrat was prepared to lead the split, yet refused to remain in the dissenters’ crowd. Very soon he betrayed his intentions in concrete actions.
 On 29 January, 1994, a meeting of the Moscow Muslims called by Ravil Gainutdin ruled: “Taking into account that the Islamic Center of Moscow and the Moscow Region enjoys high moral and political authority … and in recognition of the fact that, thanks to the efforts of the Center’s leaders, the capital of Russia has become an important spiritual center of the Muslims of the RF, the Spiritual Administration of the Muslims of the Central European Region of Russia (SAMCER) was set up… The Spiritual Administration will remain an inalienable part of the Islamic umma of Russia and plans to work in strict canonical harmony and together with the Spiritual Administration of the Muslims of the CIS European Part and Siberia (SAMES), other spiritual administrations of Russia, and religious organizations abroad.” (Information of the SAMCER press service.)
 Despite the plans to work “in strict canonical harmony and together with the SAMES” the new organization headed by Gainutdin withdrew from Tadjuddin’s SAMES as soon as it was registered with the RF Ministry of Justice on 23 February 1994. On 22 March Gainutdin gave a presentation of the new organization, the ceremony being attended by Tadjuddin, RF ministers Andrei Kozyrev and Sergei Shakhray, Metropolitan Pitirim and chief rabbi Arnold Shaevich. Ivan Rybkin, as then speaker of the RF State Duma, and the heads of the spiritual administrations of the Muslims of Ukraine, Daghestan, and Ingushetia sent their greetings.1