Since 1989, Russia’s Muslim population has increased by 40 per cent to about 25 million. By 2015, Muslims could make up a majority of Russia’s conscript army and they could account for one-fifth of the country’s population by 2020.
If trends continue for the next 30 years, people of Muslim descent will outnumber ethnic Russians, says Paul Goble, an expert on Islam in Russia and research associate at the University of Tartu in Estonia.
“Russia is going through a religious transformation that will be of even greater consequence for the international community than the collapse of the Soviet Union.”
The country’s Muslim leaders look on the population spurt, and media coverage, with apprehension.
“The image of Muslims presented in the media is very distorted,” says Rusham Abbyasov, a spokesman for the Council of Muftis. “When people hear the phrase Allahu akbar (“God is great” in Arabic) they immediately think of people shooting at them or blowing themselves up.”
Sensing the nationalist mood, Russian authorities have begun to crack down.
Four Russian regions recently introduced mandatory classes in Orthodox Christianity in all schools. On Nov. 15, the Russian cabinet announced a new law that will ban foreigners from working in retails stalls and markets next year. The law doesn’t specifically target Muslims, but the vast majority of people working in Russia’s markets are either Muslim immigrants or from traditionally Muslim parts of Russia.
Goble says the growing anti-Islamic sentiment threatens to push Russian Muslims further outside the mainstream and into the arms of radicals.
Because of the Soviet legacy of religious repression, the majority of people living in Russia with Muslim backgrounds are secular, attached to Islam mostly as part of their ethnic identity. But with interest in Islam surging, Goble says, these people are open to being influenced by extremist idea.
“People who know they are Muslims but don’t know exactly what that means could be radicalized, especially if they feel excluded from Russian society. It’s a real threat.”
At the Sobornaya Mosque, there are already some signs of the dangers ahead. One bearded young man, who refuses to give even his first name, anticipates a day when large chunks of Russia can be broken off into Islamic states. “It’s only a matter of time,” he says.
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