Terra sebv s acta mvsei sabesiensi s

Russia-Middle East: The Influence of the Arab Factor 

 

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yesterday’s communists - believed that religion was for pensioners and 

therefore did not consider this question to be of vital importance. 

The Russian Federation needed loans and investments, and the 

Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation was headed by the 

“liberal” Andrey Kozyrev who turned the vector of the Russian foreign 

policy from East to West. The attitude towards countries which had been in 

the opposing camp to the USSR changed as well. These conditions created 

the prerequisites for the restoration of diplomatic relations with the 

Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) which had been broken off in 1938. In 

December 1991 the KSA Embassy was opened in Moscow, and in May 

1992 a major diplomatic reception took place at the Metropol Hotel, 

gathering together foreign delegates and the Russian establishment.

3

 The 

Saudi party was complimented greatly, and the hopes of Russian Muslims 

for moral and also material support were expressed. In particular, the 

Chairman of the Spiritual Administration of Muslims of the European part 

of the CIS and the Siberia mufti Talgat Tadzhutdin declared: 

“Saudi Arabia is capable of rendering invaluable assistance to believers in 

Russia, as well as in other states of the former USSR, in the revival of 

Islamic spirituality, cultural traditions, restoration of Muslim temples and 

pilgrimage to holy sites.”

4

 

These words were followed by actions, and in the spring of 1992 in 

Tatarstan, one of the country’s first Islamic camps was opened, sponsored 

by the international association “Tayba” and organized by the Youth Centre 

of Islamic Culture “Iman” (headed by Valiulla Yakupov, who would later 

become deputy mufti and the main actor of the anti-wahhabite movement). 

Other events were also held, for example, a Koran-reading competition; and 

editions of Muslim books and newspapers were financed. 

Cooperation was also organized in the field of foreign education. 

Zakabannaya mosque, the headquarters of the Spiritual Administration of 

Muslims of RT at Sennaya (nowadays Nurulla) mosque and other mosques 

became special Kazan centres for selecting and sending students to Arab 

higher education institutions. To become an entrant was considered 

prestigious, therefore the first grants were distributed among young men 

who were close to the SAM leaders; statements released in the central press 

that “children from beggarly, dysfunctional families and even children 

                                                 

3

 In May 1992, Andrey Kozyrev visited six leading Gulf States with the purpose of 

receiving a loan or securing contracts for Russian arms, but did not achieve success (Yusin 

1992). 

4

 V moskovskoj gostinice 1992. 

www.cclbsebes.ro/muzeul-municipal-ioan-raica.html   /   www.cimec.ro

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A. M. Akhunov 

 

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abandoned by their drunken parents went to Saudi Arabia”

5

 were certainly 

not true. 

Accurate statistics were not collected, as there was no uniform body 

accumulating such information. Some students came back without getting a 

degree, others after a break continued studies in the same or another higher 

education institution or in another country, still others left their homeland 

forever. The main countries which Tatar Muslim youth left for were Saudi 

Arabia, Egypt, Turkey, Malaysia and, to a lesser extent, Lebanon, Jordan, 

Syria, Iraq, Indonesia and the countries of Maghreb. Despite the most 

fantastical figures quoted in the mass media, in our opinion, a religious 

education in Muslim countries was received by no more than 300 people 

from Tatarstan. In 2000 the chairman of the board of muftis of Russia 

(BMR), Ravil Gaynutdin, designated this quantity as “several hundreds of 

people.”

6

 In 2011, a figure of 120 people training in Saudi Arabia alone was 

mentioned.

7

 

The statistics were not recorded because there was no sense of any 

need for control over this group of youths, who were seen as harmless; the 

authority of Arabs as carriers of true religious knowledge was indisputable 

among Muslims, they were “elder brothers” in terms of belief, and there 

was no room for anybody to doubt the purity of their thoughts. The public 

consciousness was not yet ready to discuss “traditional Islam,” 

“Wahhabites” and “Salaphites”: Islam was perceived as the general property 

of all Muslims of the world, without division into legal schools and 

directions. 

This situation changed dramatically after the beginning of the military 

conflict in Chechnya in December 1994, when high-profile acts of terrorism 

began to occur on the territory of the Russian Federation, troubling Russian 

society. Various Arab funds, “Al-Harameyn” being the most often 

mentioned, acted as sponsors of the Chechen fighters, who performed 

terrifying acts, according to law enforcement agencies. In the light of these 

events, Islamic religious institutions, including those in Tatarstan, came 

under the scrutiny of government power structures. Training in these 

institutions was conducted by Arab mentors, and also by graduates of 

foreign Muslim educational institutions. The participation of some shakirds 

in illegal actions in the Caucasus brought to the agenda the question of 

legality regarding the functioning of similar higher and secondary 

educational institutions, according to whose programmes future religious 

figures were trained, without educational licenses. 

                                                 

5

 Postnova 2002. 

6

 O neobhodimosti 2000. 

7

 Kak protivostojat’ 2011. 

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