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ISLAM BETWEEN THE VOLGA RIVER AND THE URAL MOUNTAINS

Aislu Yunosova
Aislu YUNUSOVA is Professor at the Bashkir State University.

The most concentrated Muslim populations are found in the two ethnic republics of Tatarstan and Bashkortostan in interior Russia.

At the time of the latest census (1989), Bashkortostan’s total population was 3 964 000. The indigenous people are the Bashkirs, descended mainly from Turkic pastoral tribes as well as Finno-Ugric ethnic components. The republic is home to more than 100 ethnic groups. Bashkirs and Tatars have been traditionally Muslims and account for 50.3 per cent of Bashkortostan’s population, while Christians, Russians, Ukrainians and other peoples account for 42 per cent. Tatarstan has approximately the same Islamic–Orthodox mix (48.5 and 43.3 per cent, respectively). Bashkortostan’s ethnic and religious composition reflects the stable balance between Islam and Christianity that has been in clear evidence there since the mid-19th century. There have been some changes in the structure of relations between the faiths in recent times, resulting from the spread of ‘non-traditional’ faiths, which represent a marriage of different religions, Orthodox and Protestant. New religious associations, previously unheard of in Bashkortostan, or in Russia for that matter, account for 4.9 per cent of the republic’s total number (719) of religious organizations.

The Process of Islamization

The earliest archaeological evidence of Bashkortostan’s links to the Islamic world – in particular, the finds from the Levashovsky burial site (Ishimbay region) – date from the 8th–9th centuries. The finds included three silver dirhems and a gold dinar from the Umayyad and ’Abbasid caliphates. The most exciting finds were a gold dinar from the year 706 and a silver dinar from 712. These coins were minted under the Umayyad ruler Al-Walid I (86–96 or the 1st century AH). The other coins found there date back to the 2nd century AH. Yet another gold dinar discovered at a site where a couple was buried dates from the ’Abbasid era, and it was minted in c. 892 (279 or the 3rd century AH) in Mawarannahr by the ruler Al-Mahdi Muhammed al-Hasan. The Levashovsky burial site is an early Muslim cemetery in the south of Bashkortostan.

As a religious system, Islam made its way into Bashkiria a little later, in the 10th century. In 922 a Baghdad Caliphate legation led by Ibn Fadlan arrived in the capital of the khanate of the Bulgars. The year is regarded as the one in which the Bulgars adopted Islam. Ibn Fadlan also describes in his travel notes the land of the Bashkirs, where his legation stopped over. According to the account of his mission, Bashkir tribes worshipped idols. As Islam was taking hold in Bulgaria so Western Bashkiria, which was part of the Bulgarian kingdom, began gradually to Islamize. The principle role in the initial Islamization of Bashkir tribes was played by their trade and economic relations with the Islamic world and missionary work. In their legends the Bashkirs themselves attribute the spread of Islam to the Bulgars. The vigorous penetration of Muslim religion among the Bashkirs in the 13th and 14th centuries is indicated by a clear reduction in the number of pagan barrows on Bashkiria’s territory and a greater number of burial sites where the dead were laid down in accordance with the requirements of Islam. Further Islamization of Bashkiria in the 13th and 14th centuries was connected with its becoming part of the khanate of the Golden Horde. The Hungarian monk Julian, who in 1236 went among the Bashkirs subjugated by the Mongols, wrote about a Bashkir khan who was fanatically devoted to Islam. Not only Bashkir khans but also rank-and-file Bashkir soldiers serving with the Golden Horde khans during the Mongol period had long been Muslims, argues A.-Z. Validov. Under Uzbek Khan (who reigned 1312–42), Islam became the official religion of the Golden Horde. During his rule, Muslim preachers educated among the Bulgars were sent on missions to the Bashkirs. Academician R. G. Kuzeyev writes that the graves of more than 20 Muslim missionaries have been found in the valleys of the rivers in western Bashkiria – the Belaya, Urshaka, Dyoma, Chermasana, and Ika. Preachers came not only from the Bulgars but also from Bukhara, Kokand and even Baghdad to convert the Bashkirs to Islam. By the 16th century Islam had become so much a part of the Bashkir way of life that its protection and preservation were included among a set of provisions for accords with Moscow for the voluntary inclusion of Bashkir tribes into Muskovy. Tsar Ivan the Terrible took into account the Bashkirs’ demand for the protection of Islam. The shezher (chronicles) of the Bashkirian tribe called Yurmats at the time when they became subjects of the white tsar state that the tsar circulated messages assuring the people that no one should flee or go into hiding but should instead practice their religion. The chronicles of the Usergan, Tamyan, Kypsak and Burzyan tribes say that Tsar Ivan the Terrible pledged that he would ‘never force into a different religion’ the Bashkirs who profess Islam.

The Bashkirs became Russia’s subjects voluntarily and thus preserved Islam and avoided forcible conversion to Christianity. At the same time the fact that the Bashkirs and Volga Tatars were included into the Russian state meant there were a number of peculiarities in the way Islam developed in interior Russia. For example Islam was separate from state authority. In both republics Islam functioned and continues to function inside an Orthodox state, which makes Russian Islam substantially different from that in countries of the Muslim world. Another peculiarity is that economic institutes traditional in Islamic societies, such as the waqf, are not sufficiently developed. Conditions prevailing in Russia in the 16th–18th centuries were not conducive to the development of waqfs. After the taking of Kazan and Astrakhan forcible Christianization of Tatars and destruction of mosques in the Volga region began. The struggle against Islam was accompanied by the provision of some privileges to newly Christianized Tatars. The 1649 Sobornoye Ulozheniye (Code of Laws) permitted the seizure of lands from adherents of different faiths, including Muslims, and their transfer to those newly Christianized: ‘. . . and those lands shall be seized from Tatars and Mordvins and handed over to Russians for them to settle upon . . . and those of princes, mirzas, Tatars, Mordvins, Chuvash, Cheremis, Votyaks who become converted to the Orthodox faith, their lands shall not be seized’.¹ Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich conferred, by his Ukase of 1680–81, princely titles for and paid salaries to Tatars who became baptized.² Muslims’ waqf property, especially in the form of lands, was out of the question in the era when peoples of other faiths were being Christianized. Uprisings were also put down with economic sanctions against Islam, prohibiting Muslim institutions from owning property. In the wake of the quashed 1705–11 Bashkir uprising, the state levied taxes on mosques. They had to pay duties to the treasury to be able to perform rituals and services during that period.³ Because of their participation in the uprising the rights of the Bashkir clergy were substantially abridged. In particular, Bashkir mullahs could not own land. Only those mullahs from the Meshcher peoples were entitled to buy land for their cooperation in putting down the uprisings.⁴

When the Muslim Spiritual Assembly was founded in Orenburg in 1789, the functions and rights of the ‘Ukase Mullahs’ (imams who officiated on the basis of the Ukase of His Imperial Highness) were extended. The property status of the official clergy improved during the 19th century, but the low level of production and commodity–money relations in the rural areas of Bashkir make it impossible to conclude that the mullahs’ earnings were very high, especially in terms of money. However, it is clear that the mullahs were the more well-to-do part of Bashkir society. There is no evidence that waqfs – land, shops, workshops owned by Muslim institutions – existed in rural Bashkiria. After the reforms, as capitalism developed, religious institutions in Ufa, Sterlitomak and Chelyabinsk came to own stores, workshops and small plots of land. Many mosques were built with money willed by private individuals. The practice of giving to Muslim institutions in Bashkiria (and in Russia as a whole) was in evidence as late as the latter part of the 19th century, too late to speak of its having become a system, but even during that period there were few major waqfs in Bashkiria. Only the mosques and madrasahs can generally be regarded as waqf property in Bashkiria, but it is rather doubtful whether they were profitable. At the same time, each madrasah in Central Asia was receiving 439 rubles from waqfs.⁵ It is significant that Muslim waqfs in internal Russia did not generally own major agricultural property. Today’s waqfs consist only of the mosque and madrasah buildings. A variety of profitable organizations (a large number of commercial structures have been registered in congregations) are not owned by the congregation. Some religious figures are co-founders of commercial businesses, but this does not include the religious institutes themselves. Thus, today’s congregations own no property that turns in profit. The Central Spiritual Board of Russia’s Muslims only owns a printing shop, the building of the Administration, the mufti mosque and the cathedral mosque Lyalya-Tyulpan, and the R. Fakhretdin Islamic Institute.

Islamic Traditions Today

The ideological weakness of Islam inside Russia is also evident. Islam in Russia today is special in that most believers do not know enough about Islam, its dogmas, rituals and traditions owing to the excessively tough secularization and alienation of believers from Islam over previous years. It is clear to visiting religious figures, researchers and scholars from Muslim countries that most Muslims in Russia do not know about the history, norms, procedures and rites of Islam. At best the believers know one or two prayers. Taking advantage of this fact, Muslim preachers, tutors, teachers, or simply adventurers are flocking in from Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Pakistan. Some Russian Muslim leaders prefer Turkey as a model for developing a secular state, others prefer Saudi Arabia, a bulwark of orthodox Islam.

Hence the question: Was Islam a dominant ideology among Muslims before the era of militant atheism? Practically all researchers agree that even if the Turkic peoples of Russia adopted Muslim moral and legal norms and cultural traditions, they did not quite abandon the pre-Islamic customs and beliefs. As regards Bashkiria, 19thcentury ethnographers stress that the Bashkirs retained pagan elements in their beliefs, and point out that alongside the mullahs a great role was played by fortune-tellers, witch doctors and sorcerers, while the mullahs themselves not infrequently acted as shamans.⁶ Studies by modern-day ethnographers also indicate the presence in everyday life of some elements of pagan cults. Linguists speak of a considerable magic-related vocabulary in the everyday language of contemporary Bashkirs.⁷ Traces of the Bashkirs’ ancient beliefs have been preserved in Bashkortostan’s place names and there are any number of ancient clan, totemic, demonological and theonymic ethnonyms on its territory. According to M. Usmanova, demonological terms are especially plentiful in the basin of the Sakmar River – translated variously as the Dragon’s Dale, Dragon’s Ravine, Devil’s Mountain, Devil’s Well, Ogre’s Lake, Evil Spirit’s Mountain – alongside many places named after sorcerers, the evil spirit and the Shaitan. As in other areas around Bashkortostan, there are also hills, groves, rocks and creeks whose names contain the word ‘saint’.⁸ The names of some places have a link to sacrifice rites. Several hills are called ‘Kurbantau’ and ‘Kurmantau’ (Bashkortostan’s Gafuriyskiy rayon and Orenburg oblast’s Kuvandykskiy rayon).

Today’s most graphic indicator that elements of the ancient cults are alive in the minds and practices of the Bashkirs are pilgrimages (zayarat) to the so-called holy places. We know of several dozen pilgrimage destinations on Bashkortostan’s territory. They are especially numerous in Davlekanovskiy and Al’sheyevskiy rayons. During Muslim festivals people from surrounding villages still come to visit the grave of ishan Yagafar laid to rest near the village of Timash in the Davlekanovskiy rayon in 1819. The grave is well cared for, people regularly repair and repaint the fence, and care for the trees – which are also considered holy (secret).⁹ The grave of yet another saint is also in Davlekanovskiy rayon near the village of Karanay on the southeastern slope of Mt Yerektau. No one knows when he was buried, but the grave is constantly tended, and people visit it on Muslim festivals.¹⁰ It is interesting that when visiting the holy graves of their ancestors Bashkirs zealously pray for Allah’s intercession and help. It should be noted that when appealing to their lord, Bashkirs often called him, and indeed still do call him, ‘khudai’ (‘spirit of the heaven’, among Turkish peoples). Mentioned alongside the name of Allah for a long time was Tengri, the principal deity of the ancient Bashkirs. Such a myth-and-religion eclecticism is also characteristic of many other peoples who adopted Islam, and this is described by Russian scholars.¹¹ Some researchers think there is a process of restoring paganism under way among peoples in the Volga–Ural region with the ancient Mari and Udmurt pagan shrines being rebuilt and communities being registered. What do we see happening in Bashkiria? An unusually great interest in the old, pre-Islamic periods of Bashkir history is shown by the following:

1. The early 1990s saw congresses up and down the republic of the tribes of Tamyans, Yurmats, Tabyns, and so on, which usually elected their tribal chiefs from among Bashkir intellectuals, poets and authors (Al-Fatikh, Rashid Shakur). Their functions today are not quite as clear as the goals of the congresses themselves. They were usually devoted to cultural programmes and symbols (tamga, clan totem, slogan, tree and so on) of Bashkir families and clans.

2. There has been a mass media-assisted ‘blow-out’ of works by Salavat Gallyamov. While they do not lend themselves to discussion from the point of view of common sense, they sound extremely impressive. His publications The Ural-Batter Epic is 4,000 Years Old (the Shonkar magazine), The Great Khan Ben (Bashkortostan publishers) are accompanied with introductions written by scholars well-known around Bashkiria who are prepared to turn a blind eye to the unscientific nature of the books in a bid to make Bashkir history appear older than it really is. The works of some professional historians also tend to extend Bashkir history and exaggerate the importance of its pre-Islamic culture.

3. Modern artists also evince interest in pre-Islamic Bashkir history. The idea of reviving the old clan traditions is characteristic of the works by F. Yergaliyev (the Kipchaks cycle), I. Tukmakayev, R. Minnibayev, F. Nuriakhmetov, among others.¹²

These three instances serve as the basis to claims that the Bashkirs’ civilization is well-nigh the oldest one, and make it possible to predict the future of Bashkir Islam which was not, is not and will not dominate Bashkir mass consciousness.

Islam’s role in the political life of today

In studying Islam’s role in Bashkortostan it is clearly necessary to keep in mind that Islam has never dominated there either in political, economic or ideological terms. This suggests the question: What is the place of Islam in the republic’s sociopolitical affairs today?

Analysis of Islam’s record in Bashkortostan and its present state give reasons to speak of its being politically weak; it has no political ambitions to create an Islamic state in the republic. Bashkortostan is practically the only Muslim region in Russia where Islam does not threaten to become a factor of political instability.

Yet ordinary people and social scientists are worried despite the absence of political ambitions, and Islam’s economic and ideological weakness. Islam is extremely personified and this raises fears that it may become politicized. The ordinary people’s ideas of Islam are influenced not so much by their knowledge of the facts on this religion and its position in society as by the activities of some Muslim leaders, by what they say and what they do. There was a strong reaction in society to a row surrounding Mufti Talgat Tajuddin, some of whose weaknesses were used as a pretext to decentralize the Administration of Russian Muslims. The split among the Muslim clergy, the disintegration of DUMES and the formation of national and territorial mufti administrations reflect the struggle, intensified in conditions of post-perestroika freedom, for spheres of influence among some or other Islamic leaders. It was in special evidence at the time of the attempt to remove Talgat Tajuddin in November 1994. The tendency to rivalry among Muslim leaders lends no vigour or political weight to Islam as a whole, while at the same time it puts believers and unbelievers on guard and discredits the idea of going back to Islamic moral and ethical values.

There are also calls upon Islam as a means to stir masses of people into political activity describing Islam generally as a victim of Russification, communist terror and so on. That is to say, Islam is assigned the role of a symbol in either nationalist projects or in order to pander to someone’s political ambitions.¹³ At the same time political and sociopolitical parties and movements of Muslim orientation are being founded. The December 1995 elections for the State Duma graphically demonstrated the tendency to use Islam as a tool of political struggle. Shortly before the elections, two Muslim sociopolitical movements – the Union of Muslims of Russia (UMR) and NUR (which translates as ‘light’) – announced their existence.

The UMR’s First All-Russia Conference in the town of Sibay (Bashkortostan) in August 1995 was to be attended by delegates from Moscow, the Volga Region, Siberia, the Caucasus, the Republic of Bashkortostan (the republic founded an UMR branch, led by former local lore museum director Rim Niyazgulov, which has since been converted into the Union of Bashkortostan Muslims), Dagestan, Ingushetia, Tatarstan and Chechnya. Despite the wide range of regions represented, attendance was poor and many of those invited, including the well-known cultural figures Makhmud Esambayev and Murad Kazhlayev, simply did not come to Sibay.¹⁴ The conference approved the movement’s programme but at the top of the agenda was a discussion of the federal list of candidates for Russia’s State Duma deputies. Despite the success by Muslims in the elections predicted by UMR General Secretary Akhmet Khalitov (‘Our victory will be as unexpected as the LDPR’s 1993 success’), the Union was even unable to scrape up enough supporters to get registered for the elections.

Among the 43 parties and movements competing in the 17 December 1995 elections there was the sociopolitical Muslim movement NUR, but it won less than 1 per cent of the votes. Curiously Bashkortostan, included by the mass media among the Muslim regions, accounts for the lowest number of votes cast for NUR – 35 317, or 1.25 per cent.¹⁵

Union of Bashkortostan Muslim leader Rim Niyazgulov made more than one attempt to win a seat in the power structures. In June 1998, he planned to run for the Bashkortostan presidency but failed to garner enough votes to be registered as a candidate. In March 1999, Niyazgulov tried to make it to Baskortostan’s Legislative Assembly as a Union of Bashkortostan Muslims candidate in the Zelenoroshchinsky constituency, but won as little as 4.9 per cent of the vote. His movement has several dozen members. Thus, both the election results and small membership of the movement indicate that he has no political prospects at all.

The founding of the republican branches of the movements – Union of Bashkortostan Muslims, NUR Bashkortostan, Union of Muslim Youth – finds no support among the republic’s religious leaders. Muftis issue statements calling upon Muslims not to join such organizations, stressing that Muslims are in the ‘party of Allah’ by birth. Ordinary clerics are rather indifferent to this matter, owing apparently to the fact that political and public activities of these movements are in evidence primarily in Ufa whereas Muslims in the rural areas do not even suspect that such movements exist. The poll of Bashkiria’s imams conducted by the present author in March 1997 indicates that most of them are indifferent to politics. They either answer ‘no’ to the question on whether there should be a political Muslim party or a Muslim faction in the state Duma, or they do not understand the point at all. Many say ‘yes’ but then it becomes apparent that they have in mind not just any party but the CPSU.

Political orientations of modern-day Muslims are curious indeed. Supporters of Islam in internal Russia do not choose between religious and secular parties but rather between ‘communism’ and ‘market economy.’ A paradoxical situation took shape in Bashkortostan and Tatarstan during the presidential elections in June and July 1996. Most of the rural areas in these republics that suffered the most at the hands of communist atheism during the years of Soviet rule voted for the Communists in the person of Zyuganov in the first round. It was only in the second round that Bashkortostan’s authorities managed to tip the balance in Yeltsin’s favour and thus save their face in his estimation.

Thus, most of the adherents of Islam in Bashkortostan are far from being supporters of the idea of establishing an ‘Islamic order’. They prefer those politicians who promise stability and strong government. Things are somewhat different in Tatarstan whose inhabitants’ history dates back to the Tatar state of the Golden Horde and Kazan Khanate period. For example, the 4th congress of the Ittifaq party in December 1997 heard these words: ‘We declare the national liberation struggle we are waging against the Russian empire to be henceforth known as jihad aimed at liberation from the infidels’ slavery. We, Muslim nationalists, are launching a struggle for the creation of an Islamic state in Tatarstan.’¹⁶

The Clergy

There is no unity inside Islam in modern-day Bashkortostan. In August 1998 a Bashkir Spiritual Board became separated from the Central Spiritual Board and appointed Nurmuhamet Nigmatullin as its head mufti. This reinstated the spiritual autonomy of Bashkir Muslims – the independent Bashkir spiritual administration founded in December 1917 was destroyed during the mass repressions in October 1936. At the time of the foundation of the Bashkir spiritual administration in 1917, the principal motive was to get rid of the ‘domination of Tatar mullahs’. As many people know, relations between the imams of Bashkortostan and the Volga Region and Mufti Talgat Tajuddin worsened severely in 1992; hence the setting up of the national spiritual administration in Bashkortostan. But Mufti Nigmatullin is currently stressing in every way that his administration is not out to bring together exclusively Bashkir Muslims but that it is republican, which corresponds with reality. As of January 1999, it took 276 Muslim congregations under its wing, or 40 per cent of their total number. The Central Board is headquartered in Ufa as before and is headed by Talgat Tajuddin. It brings together 40 per cent of the congregations and those remaining are under dual subordination. All in all there are 518 registered Muslim congregations in Bashkortostan.

A less than simple situation has taken shape in Tatarstan. As of early 1998 there were 686 communities registered under the jurisdiction of the Republic of Tatarstan Spiritual Board, and nearly 150 ‘unregistered’ ones. According to Tatar researchers, they come under Tajuddin’s Central Spiritual Board of Muslims. The so-called ‘unifying’ congress was held in Kazan on 14 February 1998 at the initiative of the Council for Religious Affairs of the Republic of Tatarstan’s cabinet of ministers, which elected Gusman Iskhakov mufti of Tatarstan’s Muslims to replace Gabdulla Galiulla. The present number of Muslim congregations in Tatarstan is over 1000 with about 870 of them having been registered and nearly 200 still remaining unregistered. It is quite probable that precisely the latter are the ‘splitters’. In the wake of the unifying congress, there are now two Muslim administrations instead of the one republican administration, and both are claiming for themselves the status of a ‘central republican’ administration. They are the staff of the Zelenodolskaya mosque whose imam Gabdulkhamit-khazrat calls himself mufti, and the staff of the Sauban mosque in Naberezhnyye Chelny headed by People’s Deputy Fanavil’ Shaimardanov who calls himself the supreme mufti of Hanafite Muslims of the Republic of Tatarstan.

It should be pointed out that the official authorities of Bashkortostan did not yield to the temptation to hold a unifying congress even though the presence of two Muslim centres is causing certain tensions in the republic. President Murtaza Rakhimov instead adopted an expressly loyal and balanced stance on both centres and the two muftis. They enjoy equal favours and financial and moral support from government structures. Each mufti had the 50th anniversary of his birth marked in government ceremonies, received decorations and praises, thanks and recognition suitable to the occasion both from the republican authorities and masses of the people. President Rakhmonov is aware of the situation in the Muslim milieu, but he firmly adheres to the principle of non-interference in the affairs of any religion. His statement ‘Bashkortostan has never been, and we hope, will never be a scene of religious stand-off’ is often quoted by the media. At the same time he recognizes the status of Talgat Tajuddin as ‘spiritual leader of the Muslim community of Russia’, and he described his 50th birthday party, which he attended and where he presented the mufti with the Order of Friendship, as ‘an event significant for all Muslims of Russia’.

Such an attitude towards the disgraced mufti is quite explicable. Ufa has been the spiritual centre of all the Muslims of the Russian Empire and the RSFSR for many decades. Allowing this role to continue is of no small importance for the republic and can add to Bashkortostan’s prestige and ability to serve as a tool of the republic’s dialogue with the centre. Ufa can speak with Moscow not only as the capital of a federation component but also as the centre of Russia’s Muslims. This aspect was unfortunately not taken into account in 1992, when the republic’s authorities preferred the Republic of Bashkortostan Spiritual Administration of Muslims over the Central Spiritual Administration of Muslims. The Republic of Bashkortostan Spiritual Administration of Muslims is of course necessary, but it was not considered worth replacing one with the other because the republic has a need of both spiritual administrations. Today, for example, Ufa is not represented in the Muslim clergy’s dialogue with Zyuganov, Primakov and other political figures of Russia, or with representatives of Muslim countries. Moscow’s Muslim elite ignores Talgat Tajuddin, whereas Nurmuhamet Nigmatullin is too weak and inexperienced as a politician. Thus those who speak on behalf of Russia’s Muslims inside and outside the country are often Ravil Gainutdin and Nafiulla Ashirov, far from indisputable leaders. Furthermore, the president and his entourage take account of the prestige enjoyed by Talgat Tajuddin. The fact that Muslims in the republic give him preference is seen from the polls conducted by the BAGSiU analytical group in the summer of 1997. The answers to the question ‘Who do you think is the spiritual leader?’ were as follows, in percentage points:¹⁷ Supreme Mufti Talgat Tajuddin, 18.5; Mufti Nurmuhamet Nigmatullin, 1.9; Bishop Nikon, 5.3; Head of another faith, 2.3; None of the clerics, 23.7; Hard to say, 48.4.

Prospects for the Future

A few words are needed about the problems arising from the above-mentioned ideological weakness of Bashkir Islam. As noted above, the early perestroika years brought streams of foreign Muslim enlighteners of various types into Russia and Bashkortostan owing to which varying ‘foreign-policy’ orientations emerged among Muslim leaders. Furthermore, owing to the absence of trained Muslim clergy and teachers for the new Muslim educational institutions, it became necessary to send young people abroad for training. Many of them have returned not only equipped with professional knowledge in the field of Muslim theology but also with ideas of Islamic exclusiveness and extremism which are alien to Muslims inside Russia. These ideas have come to be successfully exploited in practical teaching in a number of Bashkir madrasahs. Even more alarming are the attempts by foreign Muslim missionaries to disseminate the ideas of Wahhabism, to stoke ethnic and religious enmity among Muslims in the republic. As an example, eight missionaries representing Jama’at-i-Islamiyyah (Lahore, Pakistan) arrived in Bashkortostan on 12 October 1998 by invitation of the Moscow Association of Mosques. They went to Neftekamsk and Dyurtyulyakh and held services in the mosques. During one of these meetings, the Pakistanis explained that the world had long become split into the ‘faithful’ and the ‘infidels’, and regretted to say that ‘there are many Russians living among you . . . there should be no Russians among you’. The visitors also engaged in gathering political and socioeconomic intelligence and even tried to recruit personnel for armed units and men to be trained in military camps in Pakistan in the tactics of dissemination of the ideas of ‘true Islam’ in trouble spots. Bashkortostan’s passport and visa office denounced these offences in the presence of members of the press, and expelled the missionaries from Russia. In this instance the contacts did not lead to much harm. Other contacts might not be so harmless, for example economic ties in which foreign Muslim organizations, individual sponsors and even states help to fund joint economic projects where religious organizations play the role of intermediaries between the foreign providers of loans and the regions.

In conclusion it should be re-emphasized that Islam in Bashkortostan is not a factor of social tensions and political destabilization of society. It took root in the 10th century as a way of life and as an instrument regulating relations between individuals in Muslim communities. That it did not become a sociopolitical force can be attributed to such factors as: (a) flexibility and tolerance of Muslim dogmas; (b) the high degree of tolerance of the Bashkir people; (c) the peculiarities of Islam’s functioning in the Russian environment, which include the fact that Muslims live in a state of Christian Orthodox orientation, the abridged political and economical functions of Islam, and the lingering pre-Islamic cult ideas in the social environment of the Muslims; and (d) the well-reasoned ethnical and religious programme of today’s leadership of the Republic of Bashkortostan, aimed at guaranteeing public and political stability in the region.

¹ Polnyy svod zakonov Rossiyskoy imperii (PSZ RI), Vyp. 1. Spb., 1830. t. 1. no. 1.

² PSZ RI, Vyp. 1. T.2, nos 823, 867, 870

³ Materialy po istorii Bashkirskoy ASSR (MIB), ch. 1, pp. 110–11; Akmanov, I. G., Bashkirskiye vosstaniya, Ufa, 1993, p. 55.

⁴ Asfandiyarov, A. Z., Religioznaya politika tsarisma v Bashkirii v period feodalizma, Bashkirskiy kray., Vyp. 1, Ufa, 1991, p. 4; Kulbakhtin, N., Sergeyev, Y., Religioznaya politika tsarizma v Bashkirii v XVII v., Sotsial'no-ekonomicheskoye razvitiye i klassovaya bor'ba na Yuzhnom Urale i v Srednem Povolzh'e (Dorevolyutsionnyy period), Ufa, 1988, pp. 37–38.

⁵ Klimovich, L. I., Islam v tsarskoy Rossii, Moscow, 1936, pp. 97–109; Sbornik materialov po musul'manstvu (Spb., 1899), pp. 46–47.

⁶ Saidbaev, T. S., Ukaz. soch, p. 124; Khrestomatiya po istorii Bashkortostana, ch. 1, Ufa, 1996. pp.160–61; Rudenko, S. I., Bashkiry. Opyt etnologicheskoy monografii, ch. II.-L, 1925. p. 314; Georgi, G., Opisaniye vsekh obitayushchikh v Rossiyskom gosudarstve narodov, Spb, 1799, ch. 2, p. 107; Inan Abdulkadir. Baskurt Turklerinde Samanizm kalintilari, Turk Folklor Arastirmalari, 1965, IX, no. 191.

⁷ Khisametdinova, F. and Zaripova, Z., ‘Terminy bashkirskoy demonologii’, Sovetskaya tyurkologiya, no. 4, 1987, pp. 46–51.

⁸ Usmanova, M. G., Imya Chyey zemli. Istoriko-lingvisticheskoye issledovaniye toponimii basseyna reki Sakmar, Ufa, 1994, pp. 95–97; Akhmerov, R. B., Naskal'nyye znaki i etnonimy bashkir, Ufa., 1994, pp. 31–33.

⁹ Absalyamov, Y. and Yunosova, A., Urshak. Novaya i staraya istoriya urshkamintsev, p. 32; Tekushchiy arkhiv Soveta po delam religiy pri KM RB, Informatsionnyye otchety, 1960–63.

¹⁰ Akhmerov, R. B., Ukaz soch, p. 37.

¹¹ Basilov, N. V., Kul’t svyatykh v islame, Moscow, 1970; by the same author, Dva varianta sredneaziatskogo shamanstva: (Etnog. materialy kak istochnik dlya izuch. etnich. istorii regiona), Problemy etnogeneza i etnicheskoy istorii narodov Sredney Azii i Kazakhstana, Moscow, 1988, pp. 34–36; Bulatova, A. G., Traditsionnyye prazdniki i obryady narodov Dagestana (XIX-nach. XX v.) (avtoreferat dissertatsii): Moscow, 1989; Dorzhenov, S. V., Rasprostraneniye islama v Kirgizii i ego sovremennoye sostoyaniye (avtoreferat dissertatsii), Moscow, 1964; Karmysheva, B. Kh., Ocherki etnicheskoy istorii yuzhnykh rayonov Tadzhikistana i Uzbekistana, Moscow, 1976; Mukhiddinov, I., Relikty doislamskikh obychayev i obryadov u zemledel’tsev Zapadnogo Pamira (XIX-nachalo XX v.), – Kn. 1. Dushanbe: Donish, 1989; Stebleva, I. V., ‘Sinkretizm religiozno-mifologocheskikh predstavleniy domusul'manskikh tyurkov’, Narody Azii i Afriki, Moscow, 1989, no. 4, pp. 51–56.

¹² Yanbukhtina, A. G., Narodnye traditsii v ubranstve bashkirskogo doma, Ufa, 1993, pp. 53, 81; By the same author, ‘Rodovoy znak kak geneticheskaya pamyat' v tvorchestve sovremennykh khudozhnikov Bashkortostana’, Rampa, 1996, nos 10/11, pp. 22–23.

¹³ Malashenko, A. V., Religiyu prevrashchayut v orudiye etnopoliticheskikh konfliktov, Rossiya i musul'manskiy mir, 1995, no. 6, pp. 30–34; Massanov, N., Kazakhstan: etnicheskiy aparteid i novaya gosudarstvennost, Rossiya i musul'manskiy mir, 1995, no. 3, pp. 38–49.

¹⁴ Materialy I Vserossiyskogo soveshchaniya Obshchestvenno-politichaskogo dvizheniya ‘Soyuz musul'man Rossii’, Unpublished, personal archives of the author.

¹⁵ Izvestiya Bashkortostana (Ufa), 1 Mar. 1996.

¹⁶ Mukhametshin, R., Islam v obshchestvenno-politicheskoy zhizni Tatarstana, Etnichnost' i konfessional'naya traditsiya v Volgo-Ural’skom regione, Moscow, 1998, p. 26.

¹⁷ Yunusov, A. B., Islam v Bashkortostane, Ufa, 1999, p. 256.