Russia's Tatars Turning to Islamic Roots

"Russia's Tatars Turning to Islamic Roots"
by Mike Eckel (AP, August 26, 2005)

Kazan, Russia - The clothing store across from the mosque features torn bluejeans, feather boas and brightly colored button-down shirts. But for customers who want the latest look, it also offers headscarves, veils and ankle-length tunics.

In Russia's Tatarstan region more and more young people are switching from Western-style dress to Muslim attire. More than just a fashion, the trend reflects a surging interest in Islam among the youth of this largely Muslim region on the Volga River, some 450 miles east of Moscow. "Young people are looking for something more, something deeper than just discotheques, alcohol and sex," said the shop's 22-year-old clerk Elizha, who was dressed in a tightly wrapped blue headscarf and a black jacket and skirt.

She said many young Tatars — who trace their lineage to the feared Mongol hordes that raced across Russia in the 12th and 13th centuries — wear headscarves or some sort of Muslim clothing. The growing demand for Muslim clothing has enabled store owner Ildar Gubaydullin to open two shops in Tatarstan's capital in the past two months. But on the streets of Kazan, whose skyline is a mix of new Russian architecture, Soviet-era apartment blocks, Russian Orthodox church cupolas and mosque minarets, the trend is not immediately apparent.

Orthodox Christian Russians are the second largest ethnic group in Tatarstan, and very few people on a Thursday afternoon were dressed in anything resembling Islamic clothing. Still, two teenagers in headscarves, long shirts and ankle-length dresses strolling near one of Kazan's numerous universities, say many young Tatars are turning to Islam. Many still wear bluejeans — and sometimes more unusual items like boas — but headscarves are commonplace.

"It's everywhere now in universities, in schools," said 18-year-old Dzhamila, who like Elizha did not want to give her last name. Many Russians are reluctant to divulge personal information to strangers. Pavel Chikov, a 27-year-old rights activist, said the interest in Islam is a new phenomenon — within the past four years — that is reflected not only in clothing, but also in demand for food prepared according to Islamic dietary rules, called halal. Salami is a ubiquitous form of meat throughout Russia, but halal-style salami has appeared in Kazan markets only in the past year.

"It's a natural process. No one is forcing this on us," Chikov said. Tatars tend to be moderate Muslims, and the region has had little of the religious tensions or extremist tendencies that has plagued other Muslim regions in Russia.

Raphael Khakimov, a political adviser to President Mintimer Shaimiyev, noted that just a handful of Tatars traveled to Chechnya to fight with Islamic separatists during the first war there. That was an anomaly for Tatarstan, he said, along with the arrest of several alleged members of the extremist Islamic group, Hizb-ut-Tahrir.

There are no hard numbers how fast Tatars are turning to Islam but the religion has clearly become more visible in public life. The towering Qol Sharif mosque was rededicated in June. Russian Islamic University — the country's first — was opened five years ago. Three years ago, three Muslim women demanded they be allowed to wear headscarves for official identification photographs, and Russia's Supreme Court allowed it. Khakimov said that since the Soviet collapse 14 years ago, nearly three dozen Islamic religious schools — called madrassahs — have been built in Tatarstan, and many are tied to Russian Islamic University and its mainstream pedagogy.

Tatars practice a particularly liberal form of Islam — "Euro Islam" he calls it — which views the religion as a personal, individual belief where men and women are considered equal. Islam here also draws on its own specific Tatar traditions that sets it apart from stricter versions, such as Saudi Arabia's dominant austere Wahabbism, Khakimov said.

"For us, Saudi Arabia is very, very far away. What can we take from them?" he said. Ilgiz Shigoballin, a 22-year-old assistant imam at the Nurallah mosque across the street from Gubaydullin's store, said Friday services are now overflowing, with most of the interest coming from college-age and younger men and women. "Young people are sick of having empty lives," he said.