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Irony and Political Islam: Dagestan's Spiritual Directorate
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 November 2018
Extract
Russians say that there is a defeat in every victory and a victory in every defeat. On 16 September 1999, in the Russian Republic of Dagestan, combined forces of civilian militias, police, and Russian federal troops defeated insurgent militants from Chechnya who intended to establish an independent Islamic state in the Northeast Caucasus which would have united Chechnya with Dagestan and Ingushetia. On that same date the Dagestan People's Assembly enacted legislation intended to thwart future Islamic extremism by awarding official political status to the Spiritual Directorate of the Muslims of Dagestan (DUMD).
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References
Notes
1. Pronounced “doomed,” this acronym is commonly used by Dagestanis to designate this organization. See Kisriev, Enver and Ware, Robert Bruce, “Conflict and Catharsis: A Report on Developments in Dagestan Following the Incursion of August and September 1999,” Nationalities Papers, Vol. 28, No. 3, 2000, pp. 479–522.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
2. In Sufi Islam, a tariqat is a spiritual brotherhood of murid disciples or students under the spiritual guidance of teacher known as a “sheik.” In Dagestan, terms such as “tariqat Islam” or tariqatists are often used to designate practitioners of traditional North Caucasian Islam and to distinguish them from “Wahhabi” fundamentalists. See Ware, and Kisriev, , “The Islamic Factor in Dagestan,” Central Asian Survey, Vol. 19, No. 2, 2000.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
3. For discussions of Islam in the Caucasus see Bennigsen, Alexandre and Wimbush, S. Endres, Muslims of the Soviet Empire (London: Hurst, 1985); Bennigsen and Chantal Lemercier-Quelquejay, Islam in the Soviet Union (London: Pall-Mail, 1967); Igor Rotar, Islam and War (Moscow: AIRO-XX, 1999), p. 69; idem, Under the Green Banner of Islam: Islamic Radicals in Russia and the CIS (Moscow, 2001); Kisriev, “Confrontations in the Settlement of Chabanmakhi,” Bulletin of The Network of the Ethnologic Monitoring and Early Warning of Conflicts, May 1997; idem, “Islam on Dagestan's Political Scene”, the Informational Volume “The Parliament of the Republics of Northern Osetiya-Alania, 10–11, 1999; idem, “Islam as Political Factor in Dagestan,” Central Asia and the Caucasus, Vol. 5, 2000; idem, “Factors of Stability in Dagestan: Russia and Islamic World,” Bulletin of Referential and Analytical Information, Vol. 7, No. 109, 2001.Google Scholar
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5. Ibid.Google Scholar
6. Ironically, the Congress failed to attract attention from the local press.Google Scholar
7. Dagestanskaya Pravda, 14 May 1989.Google Scholar
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10. Ibid.Google Scholar
11. From a report on statistics released by the Republic of Dagestan's Committee on Religion in Novoye Delo, 32, 11 August 2000.Google Scholar
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13. “Socio-economic Situation in the Republic of Dagestan: 1999,” Dagestan State Committee on Statistics, Mahachkala, 1999. See Kisriev and Ware, “Conflict and Catharsis.”Google Scholar
14. Z. Zalimkhanov and K. Khanbabayev, Politicization of Islam in the North Caucasus: Based on the Example of Dagestan and Chechnya (Machakala, 2000), p. 51.Google Scholar
15. See Kisriev, E., Patzelt, Werner J., Roericht, Ute and Ware, R. B., “Political Islam in Dagestan,” Europe–Asia Studies, Vol. 55, No. 2, March 2003.Google Scholar
16. Ibid.Google Scholar
17. The monitoring surveys were conducted under the auspices of the Dagestan Bureau of Statistics and with partial funding from Southern Illinois University—Edwardsville.Google Scholar
18. See Kisriev, Patzelt, Roericht and Ware, “Political Islam in Dagestan.”Google Scholar
19. Molodezh Dagestana, 10, 14 March 1997.Google Scholar
20. Molodezh Dagestana, 4, 13 April 1997.Google Scholar
21. Matveeva, Anna, “The Impact of Instability in Chechnya on Dagestan,” Caspian Crossroads, Vol. 3, No. 3.Google Scholar
22. Ibid.Google Scholar
23. As observed by Kisriev.Google Scholar
24. Dagestanskaya Pravda, 16 May 1997; Molodezh Dagestana, 16, 19 May 1997; Novoe Delo, 16, 20 May 1997.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
25. Novoe Delo, 51, 26 December 1997.Google Scholar
26. Dagestanskaya Pravda, 26 May 1998.Google Scholar
27. Kisriev and Ware, “The Islamic Factor in Dagestan”; idem, “Conflict and Catharsis;” Kisriev, “Confrontations in the Settlement of Chabanmakhi,” Bulletin of the Network of the Ethnologic Monitoring and Early Warning of Conflicts, May 1997; idem, “Islam on Dagestan's Political Scene;” idem, “Islam as Political Factor in Dagestan;” idem, “Factors of Stability in Dagestan: Russia and Islamic World.”Google Scholar
28. Ibid.Google Scholar
29. Ibid Google Scholar
30. Ibid.Google Scholar
31. Kisriev, “Confrontations in the Settlement of Chabanmakhi,” Bulletin of the Network of the Ethnologic Monitoring and Early Warning of Conflicts, May 1997.Google Scholar
32. The prosperity of the villages was due, in part, to a successful tradition in the trucking and transportation industry. Dargins, whose culture traditionally stresses wealth, are known in Dagestan for their fine metalwork.Google Scholar
33. Kozhayeva, E., “Veynaks [Chechens] and Us.” Molodezh Dagestana, 23 April 1999.Google Scholar
34. Ibid.Google Scholar
35. Ibid.Google Scholar
36. Khattab was reported to have been killed by Russian security services in April 2002. His first names were long a topic of ambiguity, speculation, and controversy. In Dagestan he was commonly referred to as Emir al Khattab, and we have simply followed that convention.Google Scholar
37. Kozhayeva, “Veynaks [Chechens] and Us.”Google Scholar
38. Novoe Delo, 17, 23 April 1999.Google Scholar
39. Ibid.Google Scholar
40. All references and citations regarding the law “On the Prohibition of Wahabite and Other Extremist Activity on the Territory of the Republic of Dagestan” are from a copy of the legislation in Kisriev's possession.Google Scholar
41. Despite its previous veneer of religious neutrality, the Dagestani government has always favored the Islamic traditionalists.Google Scholar
42. See below. In the early 1990s, there were efforts to establish separate ethnic DUMs, though these have not endured and there is presently none in existence.Google Scholar
43. The mufti was an Avar named Abubakarov.Google Scholar
44. Report of Magomed-Salikh Gusaev prepared for the meeting of the State Council of Dagestan on 19 July 2000, in the personal possession of Kisriev, Department of Sociology, Dagestan Scientific Center, Russian Academy of Science. All of the quotes in this discussion stem from this report.Google Scholar
45. Ibid.Google Scholar
46. Ibid.Google Scholar
47. Kisriev, , “Factors of Stability in Dagestan: Russia and Islamic World,” Bulletin of Referential and Analytical Information, Vol. 7, No. 109, 2001.Google Scholar
48. Ibid.Google Scholar
49. Dagestanskaya Pravda, 27 May 2000.Google Scholar
50. Dagestanskaya Pravda, 17 August 2000.Google Scholar
51. Evidently Magdigadzhiev is threatening further violence and suggesting that extralegal measures might be taken.Google Scholar
52. Dagestanskaya Pravda, 17 August 2000.Google Scholar
53. See note 44.Google Scholar
54. Dagestanskaya Pravda, 17 August 2000.Google Scholar
55. The Forum for Early Warning and Early Response (FEWER) is an independent consortium of intergovernmental organizations, non-governmental organizations, and academic institutions that aims to provide decision-making individuals and organizations with analytical information regarding the early prevention of conflict and crisis situations, as well as with political recommendations concerning early response. FEWER was founded in September 1996 and established a permanent Secretariat in London in June 1997. It is financed by the governments of Canada, Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, as well as by independent funding, but it does not accept funding from governments with permanent representation on the Security Council of the United Nations. EAWARN is the Network of Early Warning and Ethnological Monitoring of Conflicts in the Former Soviet Union. This was a joint project of the Cambridge (MA) Conflict Management Group and the Moscow Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology, funded by the Carnegie Corporation for six years. The project connected electronically over 35 experts and scholars in the former Soviet Union for regular monitoring and analysis of ethnopolitical developments. Carnegie terminated the project in 1999. EAWARN was the predecessor and regular affiliate of FEWER.Google Scholar
56. In fact, it was much earlier.Google Scholar
57. Fitna is a revolt, distinct from gazzawat, or holy war against infidels. Fitna is unacceptable for a Muslim, but gazzawat guarantees paradise.Google Scholar
58. The same interview was published in the official newspaper of the DUMD, Assalam: The Newspaper of the Spiritual Directorate of the Muslims of Dagestan, No. 15, 2000.Google Scholar
59. Ibid.Google Scholar
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