Terra sebv s acta mvsei sabesiensi s

Russia-Middle East: The Influence of the Arab Factor 

 

143

An attempt on the life of mufti Ildus Fayzov and the tragic death of 

the Chief of the Educational Department Valiulla Yakupov on 19 July 2012 

again focused the attention of state bodies on graduates of Arab higher 

education institutions, who were considered to blame for the 

“Wahhabisation of Tatarstan.” Adoption by the State Council of Tatarstan 

of amendments to the law Regarding Freedom of Conscience and Religious 

Associations, according to which the imam in the system of SAM of RT 

should be a person who has received a religious education “on the territory 

of the Russian Federation or other states whose diplomas are recognized in 

accordance with the established legislation” in August 2012, was the 

culmination of all this. It was recommended to make such amendments in 

the corresponding federal law as well. 

The local law contradicted the federal one, and Muslim activists 

became involved in the matter. Tawfeeq Vasilov, a parishioner of the Kazan 

mosque “Al-Ikhlas” and, in the recent past, a deputy of the Supreme 

Council of RT and an employee of law enforcement agencies, who was 

repeatedly pursued by power structures for belonging to a forbidden Hizb 

At-Tahrir party, claimed on his page on Facebook that it was he who 

succeeded in winning back the local amendment to the law: 

“Due to the violation of constitutional rights and interests of an unlimited 

number of Muslims, I … filed a Petition to the Supreme Court of Tatarstan 

with the request to recognize these changes in the Law of RT as 

contradicting the Constitution of Russia, violating legitimate rights of both 

the religious organizations and Muslims.”

19

  

According to T. Vasilov, the State Council of RT had no right to 

change the law independently, and was to have put forward a legislative 

initiative to the State Duma of the Russian Federation. Further, according 

to the human rights activist, there were attempts to have the Tatarstan 

amendments passed by the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation 

and the lower chamber of the Federal Assembly. As a result, the issue was 

resolved at the level of the State Duma of the Russian Federation. The 

innovations from Tatarstan did not pass, and the State Council of Tatarstan 

according to the decision of 28 June 2013 eliminated the amendments 

adopted a year earlier, leaving the question of imams’ activity at the disposal 

of the religious organizations.

20

 Thus, the law now in no way limited 

graduates of foreign Islamic higher education institutions. 

                                                 

19

 https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100005125389173&fref=ts, accessed 20 

September 2013. 

20

 Zakon Respubliki Tatarstan “O svobode sovesti i o religioznyh ob`edinenijah.” Adopted at the forty 

second meeting of the State Council of RT of the fourth convocation on 28 June 2013. 

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

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A. M. Akhunov 

 

144

Attempts to raise this question again were made at the federal level in 

January 2014. The State Duma deputy, Mikhail Markelov, suggested making 

a list of foreign spiritual institutions whose graduates had returned to Russia 

and become engaged in “illegal activity.” In his opinion, for students who 

decided to study in higher education institutions from this list, “entrance to 

the territory of Russia could be limited.” As the deputy declared: 

“They [students] learn the basics of non-conventional forms of 

interpretation of Islam in separate educational institutions in Saudi Arabia, 

Pakistan, Qatar, Turkey, Egypt - these higher education institutions are well-

known. Free interpretation of the Koran only leads to the situation when 

the ranks of the so-called ‘forest brothers’ are joined, at the expense of 

young men.”

21

 

This initiative did not go any further as it contravened Article 27 of 

the Constitution of the Russian Federation, according to which citizens of 

Russia have the right to return to their country freely. 

Thus, through the example of the events which took place in the 

religious sphere in Tatarstan in the last twenty years, we can see the attitude 

of the government to the problem of foreign Muslim education change 

from a neutral, sometimes optimistic one to a highly negative one. Attempts 

to legalize the ban on activities of imams who were graduates of foreign 

higher education institutions were made, but none of them led to any 

desirable results. 

On the whole a cautious attitude to this group of Islamic figures still 

remains: SAM of RT conducts various courses for their retraining according 

to local religious traditions, and tries not to permit them to occupy high 

positions in the system of the Spiritual Administration. Nevertheless, the 

tendency is that gradually a process of rehabilitation of graduates of foreign 

higher education institutions is taking place, as well as their social adaptation 

within Muslim Ummah. New groups of shakirds go to Arab countries only 

after studying the fundamentals of Islam and local traditions on the basis of 

Tatarstan religious educational institutions. The stream of trainees is 

gradually decreasing though there is still a need for full higher religious 

education from the largest Islamic centres of the world. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                                                                        

http://www.gossov.tatarstan.ru/fs/site_documents_struc/zakon/3220_file_3022-

IV_ru.pdf, accessed 30 June 2014. 

21

 http://lenta.ru/news/2014/01/28/extremism, accessed 30 June 2014. 

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

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