The paradoxes of a localised Islamic orthodoxy: Rethinking Tatar traditional Islam in Russia

Abstract

The question of the process of developing national or local forms of Islam is often approached through the lens of the domestication of Islam and by emphasising the role of the state or Muslim officials close to the state in this process. In my analysis of the process, undertaken by certain Tatar Muslim representatives in Russia, of developing what I call a localised Islamic orthodoxy, I aim to study shifts in the debate on ‘traditional Islam’ towards a more theological understanding of the term. I examine attempts to develop a local interpretation of Islam that, while based on universal religious fundaments, is not in opposition to Tatar national traditions and a secular modern lifestyle. The representation of an ‘orthodox traditional Islam’ is necessarily paradoxical to the extent that a localised orthodoxy claims to be timeless, ‘natural’ and established but still needs to be defined, learned and taught following decades of Soviet atheist policies. Furthermore, this representation relies on the projection of orthodoxy onto the past in a process in which certain elements of a complex Tatar Muslim identity are made visible and emphasised (in particular, the Hanafi tradition), while others are obscured. By referring to the literature on orthodoxy in the anthropology and sociology of Islam and in Islamic studies, I aim to examine the theological dimension of the process of defining a local Islam that is currently being pursued by certain Tatar Muslim representatives in Russia.

Keywords

Islam in Russia Tatar Muslims Islamic orthodoxy traditional Islam domestication of Islam Islamic theology

Introduction

Those who embark on research into Islam in Russia are immediately confronted with a diverse group of concepts and categories. One such concept is ‘traditional Islam’, along with its counterpart, ‘non-traditional Islam’. The concept of ‘traditional Islam’ is often viewed as an official category that does not clearly relate to the lived religious practices of Russian Muslims. At the same time, the category cannot be considered purely etic to the extent that Russian Muslims refer to it and reflect on its meaning. During my field research in Kazan and Moscow, I noticed that my Tatar Muslim interlocutors emphasised different senses of the concept. Traditional Islam is often understood as a state-loyal, secularised form of Islam, or ‘ethnic Islam’. On this interpretation, traditional Islam can be viewed as a form of ‘weak religiosity’ in the sense of the limitation of religious practices to life-cycle rituals such as name-giving ceremonies, weddings and funerals. However, recent developments such as the opening of a new theological centre near Kazan, the Bolghar Islamic Academy, reveal efforts by Tatar Muslim officials to situate the discussion on Islam on a more theological level. In this paper, I refer to the literature on orthodoxy in Islamic studies and the sociology and anthropology of Islam to study the process of defining an orthodox or theological traditional Islam. By adopting the lens of orthodoxy, I aim to understand efforts to develop an interpretation of Islam that fits within several borders: those of religious orthodoxy, of the national secular state and of Tatar ethnicity. I analyse the efforts of certain Tatar Muslim representatives to emphasise an interpretation of Islam as rooted both in the Islamic tradition and in a particular locale. Hence, I aim to understand how the debate on a local Islam can be connected to the notion of orthodoxy. Can the development of localised Islamic orthodoxy reconcile the boundaries of the national secular state and ethnic identity with those of religious orthodoxy? What paradoxes emerge in this process? By using the lens of orthodoxy, I aim to examine the theological dimension of the process of defining local or national forms of Islam.

The Islamic revival and Tatar Muslims

Islam is the second most practised religion in Russia after Russian Orthodoxy. The number of ‘ethnic Muslims’ in Russia (people who are Muslim in terms of their family background but who do not necessarily practise Islam) is around 16 million, according to estimates (Malashenko and Starostin, 2015: 3). Russian Muslims are indigenous people who have lived for centuries in regions such as the Volga and Urals, the North Caucasus and Siberia. The law ‘On freedom of conscience and religious associations’ of 1997 defines Islam as a heritage, alongside Orthodox Christianity, Buddhism and Judaism. The majority of Russian Muslims are Sunni Muslims; the two major Islamic juridical schools are the Hanafi madhhab (in the Volga-Ural region, also followed in some parts of the North Caucasus) and the Shafi’i madhhab, which is prevalent in the North Caucasus. I conducted my research on the concept of ‘traditional Islam’ among Tatar Muslims in Kazan and Moscow. The process of defining what I call a ‘localised Islamic orthodoxy’ among Tatar Muslims is particular to the extent that views on the Islamic revival in Tatarstan have been defined initially with an emphasis on the Jadid legacy, understood as a modernist, more secular understanding of Islam. Tatarstan is a multi-ethnic, multi-confessional republic in the middle Volga region, with Islam and Russian Orthodoxy as the majority religions; hence, peaceful co-existence with other religions is a central concern of Tatar Muslims, as revealed in my interviews. Tatar Muslims are typically viewed as more secular and less pious than their North Caucasian counterparts, for example in Chechnya and Dagestan, where the population is predominantly Muslim.¹ Surveys conducted in the Republic of Tatarstan in 2013 indicate that 89% of Tatars consider themselves Muslims; 80% adhere to the name-giving Islamic ceremony, while only 20% pray every day (Guzelbaeva, 2013). In recent years, however, Tatarstan has seen the emergence of what Benussi (2018) calls a ‘halal movement’, comprising a younger generation of pious Muslims who adhere to a halal lifestyle and follow Islamic precepts. In the following I will argue that, partly as a reaction to a rising trend towards a religious lifestyle in accordance with Islamic principles among certain segments of the Muslim population, Tatar Muslim officials are increasingly seeking to situate the debate on Islam within a religious frame of reference.

A major dichotomy that defines the debate on Islam in Russia is that between the twin concepts of ‘traditional’ and ‘non-traditional’ Islam, the former referring to a ‘local’ form of Islam and the latter to forms of Islam that are viewed as ‘foreign’ and ‘non-traditional’ for Russian Muslims. Non-traditional Islam is often used as a catchword for Salafi Muslims, who are frequently referred to as ‘Wahhabis’ in the official discourse. The discourse of ‘traditional Islam’ can be viewed as a state-approved narrative, supported by the official Muslim elite, that seeks to define acceptable forms of Islam while rejecting others as undesirable for Russian Muslims. In this light, it can be viewed on a continuum with Soviet-era attempts to promote an ‘official Islam’ or forms of Islam approved by the secular authorities and endorsed by a state-controlled Muslim hierarchy (Benussi, 2018). However, the official Islam promoted during the Soviet era can be seen as being closer to Islamic reformist trends, and thus to Salafi interpretations of Islam (Dannreuther, 2010: 13). Forms of Islam that were condemned as ‘backward’ during the Soviet era were precisely the same folk traditions that are now associated with a state-approved concept of ‘traditional Islam’, for example ritual pilgrimages and funeral wakes.

In order to understand the paradoxes contained in today’s concept of ‘traditional Islam’, one also needs to refer to the different interpretations of Islam that emerged during the conflict between Jadids and Qadimists in the Volga-Ural region in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Jadids were Muslim reformists who promoted educational reform and the emancipation of women and who embraced ideas of progress and modernity from the West. Soviet historiography has tended to emphasise their role as modernists while painting a rather negative picture of the Qadimists, or the traditional ulama – a picture that has been corrected in recent scholarship (Frank, 2001; Garipova, 2016; Kefeli, 2015; Tuna, 2011).² While the dichotomy between Jadid and Qadimist views in Volga-Ural has been referred to as a struggle between modern, secular values on the one hand and conservative religious values on the other, it ought instead to be understood as a religious debate characterised by different attitudes towards changes prompted by Western modernity – a debate that has affected the rest of the Muslim world.

In post-Soviet Tatarstan, Jadid heritage figured prominently in visions of an Islamic revival in the 1990s; the concept of ‘Euro-Islam’, as promoted by the historian Rafael Khakimov, can be understood as a form of neo-Jadidism, the vision of a modern and progressive national religion (Laruelle, 2007: 34). In recent years, however, we can observe a rediscovery and reassessment of the Qadimist legacy. For example, a roundtable on Qadimism in the life of Tatars in the Russian Empire was organised in 2012 in Kazan, with the participation of Kamil Samigullin (at the time a young imam and now the Mufti of Tatarstan) and the late Valiulla Iakupov, a central figure in the debate on ‘traditional Islam’ (Bustanov and Kemper, 2013; Laruelle, 2007). Samigullin’s views on Islam have been described as being closer to the Qadimist legacy (Makarkin, 2013).³ The current dichotomy between ‘traditional’ and ‘non-traditional’ Islam raises a number of questions with regard to the way in which the Jadid and Qadimist legacies can be incorporated into a contemporary idea of a ‘local Islam’. As I will demonstrate later in this paper, current efforts by certain Tatar Muslim officials to promote a more theological understanding of ‘traditional Islam’ rest on the promotion of the legacy of past Tatar theologians. However, a number of these scholars and theologians, who represent the Jadid legacy, can be seen as having shared a vision of Islamic reform that is close to Salafi ideas, in particular in their criticism of Sufi traditions.⁴ Rustam Batrov (2018a), a former deputy Mufti in the Muslim Spiritual Board of Tatarstan and now a critic of Samigullin, argues that leading past Tatar theologians such as Mardjani and Fakhreddin read and diffused the works of Ibn Taymiyya in the Volga-Ural region.⁵ Valiulla Iakupov also drew connections between Jadids and contemporary Islamic reformist trends in Volga-Ural in his defence of the Hanafi madhhab as a major pillar of Tatar Muslim identity, viewing both as positioned against maddhab (Mukhetdinov and Habutdinov, 2012). Bustanov and Kemper (2013: 832) argue that Iakupov eventually strove to minimise differences between Jadids and Qadimists and to unite theologians with differing viewpoints in the image of a common Tatar Islamic heritage. The views of Tatar scholars, theologians and spiritual authorities in the pre-revolutionary period arguably resist being neatly separated into a Jadid or a Qadimist legacy. Their attitudes toward change and modernity were typically more nuanced (for example, the Naqshbandi Sufi Sheikh Zaynulla Rasulev adopted elements of the Jadid educational model in his madrasa). At the same time, disputes and conflicting positions among the Muslim spiritual elite of the past cannot be ignored. This plurality of visions thus complicates the ambitions of contemporary Tatar Muslim officials to promote the image of an unchanging and stable local Islamic orthodoxy.

Searching for an Islamic orthodoxy

The study of traditional Islam in Russia reveals that the term exists in both secular and religious contexts. It can be understood through the lens of the domestication of Islam (Bowen, 2004; Braginskaia, 2012; Humphrey, 2009; Sunier, 2014) as an attempt to create a ‘national Islam’, or an Islam that is contained within the national boundaries of the secular state. Hence, traditional Islam can be seen as a normative secular category that conveys the notion of a ‘moderate’, state-loyal Islam. Benussi (2018) refers to this interpretation as all-Russian ‘sovereign Islam’ and lists as further interpretations Tatar national spiritual heritage and folk or vernacular religiosity.

In the following, I want to analyse the religious dimension of the concept of ‘traditional Islam’ and recent efforts by certain Tatar Muslim officials to emphasise the theological dimension of a ‘local Islam’. Common to the interpretations of ‘traditional Islam’ that are discussed by Benussi (2018) is the perception of a form of Islam that is defined in relation to geography but that lacks a reference to the universal foundation of the religion, the Quran and the Sunna.⁶ I argue that we can observe a shift in the debate on ‘traditional Islam’ towards a more theological interpretation of the concept, which Benussi (2018) identifies as a ‘Sunnification’ of traditional Islam. My fieldwork in Kazan and Moscow from 2015 to 2018 revealed this general shift, as I noticed a certain discontentment with the interpretation of traditional Islam as ‘secularised Islam’ during my conversations with Tatar Muslim representatives in official bodies.⁷ My interlocutors would acknowledge different understandings of the term, but some of them were dissatisfied with the notion of a form of Islam understood simply as state-loyal or as ethnic. Others immediately used a religious vocabulary and references to the Quran and the Sunna to discuss the concept. Traditional Islam was thus discussed ‘within Islam’, by using an Islamic frame of reference to engage with the notion of a local Islam.⁸ My field research also coincided with the opening of the new Bolghar Islamic Academy near Kazan, which aims to raise a new generation of Muslim theologians.

I refer to the literature on orthodoxy in the sociology and anthropology of Islam and in Islamic studies (Asad, 1986; Knysh, 1993; McGregor, 2009; Wilson, 2007) to study the process of defining what I call a localised Islamic orthodoxy, or an ‘orthodox traditional Islam’, in Russia. By adopting the lens of orthodoxy, I aim to understand efforts to develop an interpretation of Islam that can fit within several borders: those of religious orthodoxy, the national secular state and a Tatar ethnic identity. I analyse the efforts of certain Tatar Muslims, particularly in official circles, to promote an understanding of Islamic practices as rooted both in the Islamic tradition and in a particular locale. Indeed, the two dimensions of Islam are often seen as opposite in the Russian context. As already noted, a state-loyal, national/ethnic or folk Islam can be understood as lacking clear religious references. Those representing a more ‘doctrinal Islam’ are often associated with pious Muslims, for example Salafi Muslims, who live and practise their religion beyond ethnicity. In the European context, the notion of a national, domesticated Islam is viewed by certain Muslim scholars living outside of Europe as a ‘deviation from the universal single path’, as Bowen (2004: 53) observes. In my analysis of the process of developing a localised Islamic orthodoxy, I aim to understand how the debate on a local Islam can be connected to the notion of orthodoxy. ‘Orthodox’ (ортодоксальный) as a term was used in relation to ‘traditional Islam’ by two of my Muslim interlocutors, as was ‘theological’ (теологический); however, the term ‘classical Islam’ was used more frequently.⁹ The terms ‘doctrinal Islam’ and ‘canonical Islam’ were also used. How are the two notions of a local and an orthodox Islam brought together? How can we approach and understand the process of developing an orthodox traditional Islam? What theological references do Muslim representatives use to promote the idea of localised orthodoxy?

The literature on orthodoxy in the anthropology and sociology of Islam and in Islamic studies (Asad, 1986; Knysh, 1993; McGregor, 2009; Wilson, 2007) highlights certain paradoxes associated with the concept. Hence, orthodoxy is necessarily contextual and limited; at the same time, it claims to be timeless and authoritative. In the absence of a centralised church authority, orthodoxy in Islam is a fluid concept that is established only in a limited context. Orthodoxy does not correspond to a timeless doctrine, touchstone or dogma against which Islamic practices that exist in a particular context can be measured. McGregor (2009: 6) notes that ‘the terms “orthodox” and “orthodoxy” have no universal content to them, nothing outside of their immediate historical reality’. We can only refer to situated, localised orthodoxies. In the medieval context, theological schools of thought and religious scholars had to defend their own versions of ‘orthodoxy’, accusing others of ‘delusion’ or ‘heresy’ (Knysh, 1993: 52). As normative sources, the Quran and the Sunna provided legitimacy to various interpretations that sought to establish themselves as ‘orthodoxy’. In the absence of a clergy, every Muslim could propagate his own vision of Islam and reject others as ‘“corruptions” of the initially “pure” Quranic message and Prophetic testament (sunna)’ (Knysh, 1993: 52). Knysh (1993: 65–66) suggests that the most effective means of establishing orthodoxy in the Islamic context was state support, although rulers tended to apply a policy of ‘divide and rule’. Referring to the picture provided by the Muslim scholar al-Shahrastani, he describes Muslim intellectual life as:

a perpetual collision of individual opinions over an invariant set of theological problems that eventually leads to a transient consensus that already contains the seeds of future disagreement. Disparate ideas and concepts, bits and pieces of creeds and doctrines, circulated freely and were thus easily available to individual believers who patched them into a ragtag whole of Weltanschauung. (Knysh, 1993: 57)

Asad (1986) suggests that we view orthodoxy as a struggle for power by adopting a sociological/anthropological lens to study the claims of Islamic currents to represent a timeless ‘religious orthodoxy’. He notes that

[o]rthodoxy is not a mere body of opinion but a distinctive relationship – a relationship of power. Wherever Muslims have the power to regulate, uphold, require, or adjust correct practices, and to condemn, exclude, undermine, or replace incorrect ones, there is the domain of orthodoxy. (Asad, 1986: 15)

In my analysis of perceptions of traditional Islam by Tatar Muslim representatives and of their efforts to emphasise the religious dimension of the concept, I view orthodoxy in terms of a ‘bid for orthodoxy’ (Mathiesen, 2013), a claim to determine correct beliefs and practices amid a landscape of alternative religious narratives.¹⁰ As already observed, what makes the Tatar context unique is that a particular orthodoxy is legitimated precisely on the basis of its locality, while being represented as timeless. Another particularity of the Russian context as a whole is that state support for a particular interpretation of Islam does not consolidate its claim to orthodoxy; on the contrary, the perception that ‘traditional Islam’ is simply state-loyal undermines the concept’s religious legitimacy. The existence of a state-sanctioned Muslim clergy does not prevent the emergence of alternative interpretations of Islam; instead, it can further them if that Muslim clergy is perceived as lacking religious knowledge. Thus, Tatar Muslim official representatives need to assert the religious dimension of the concept of ‘traditional Islam’ while at the same time emphasising continuity with the past as a source of legitimacy for their claims to orthodoxy. To present an alternative to religious narratives that situate the Islamic doctrine beyond ethnicity, they need to anchor their representation of an orthodox traditional Islam within a particular local context. In the discourse of orthodox traditional Islam, this interpretation of Islam is rooted both in the Islamic tradition and in a long local history, representing a ‘centuries-old tradition’, as certain of my Tatar interlocutors asserted. In the following, I will examine how religious orthodoxy and locality are brought together.¹¹

The multiple meanings of traditional Islam: Doctrinal Islam and folk Islam

While listening to a Tatar Muslim representative in an educational institution, I observed the emergence of two diametrically opposed interpretations of the concept of ‘traditional Islam’ in the same conversation:

It seems to me that they [the media] understand under traditional Islam only ethnic Islam. […] Name-giving,¹² marriage, and funerals: Islam is limited to this. You can be absolutely un-Muslim in your actions; you can drink, eat pork, live absolutely as a non-Muslim. In doing so, you can still observe a position of honouring folk, national traditions. This is traditional Islam. And when we talk, for example, to Russian acquaintances, they say that traditional Islam… my friend here, he is Muslim, Ahmet. He can drink with me. This is what I understand as Muslim. Not those with a beard who pray namaz [the Islamic prayer].

The traditional Islam of the Tatars before the Revolution, what was it? The Tatars had these beards; they shaved their heads; they had special long Muslim clothes. If a Tatar from the beginning of the 20th century suddenly appeared by chance in today’s Moscow, people would think that he is a Wahhabi [laughs]. A Tatar could not speak in Russian in the mosques; one should not come into contact with Christians unnecessarily. It was a closed traditional community.¹³

In these two accounts, we find quite different depictions of Tatar Muslim life. In the first account, Islam is limited to life-cycle rituals, while in the depiction of Tatar traditional Islam before the Revolution, religion is visible in the Tatars’ outward appearance. Contemporary Tatar Muslims are represented as secular and undifferentiated from other secular Russians, whereas they had limited contact with other confessions in pre-revolutionary times. These two images of Tatar Muslim lives can be interpreted as revealing a spectrum, from secular to religious, on which a contemporary Tatar Muslim identity must be defined. Furthermore, they refer to different time periods: the Soviet era (the Muslim representative referred in his first account to ‘Soviet Islam’) and pre-revolutionary times. As discussed above, the concept of ‘traditional Islam’ also relates to different interpretative realms that are also evident in a quote from a Muslim representative:

When I talk to an Orientalist scholar, I say ‘traditional Islam’ and I mean one thing. And when I talk to a politician and I say ‘traditional Islam’, I mean something entirely different. And when I speak to a Muslim who came here with a long beard and say ‘traditional Islam’, I also mean something completely different.¹⁴

My interviews with various Tatar Muslim representatives revealed a concern with defining a Tatar Muslim identity that is neither overly religious, in the sense of too ‘conservative’, nor overly secular. For example, one interlocutor used the term ‘Islam light’ to discuss the idea of a secularised Islam that is non-threatening to the Russian secular state, as it accommodates the dominant position of the Russian Orthodox Church and is contained within national borders.¹⁵ On the opposite side of the spectrum, I also noticed scepticism towards a very strict and conservative Islamic lifestyle during my field research. This lifestyle was associated with a heterogeneous group of Muslims comprising Salafi Muslims, the old Tatar Muslims, North Caucasus Muslims, Arab Muslims and Sufis. Muslim clothing and a long beard are viewed as typical markers of a conservative way of life, as is evident in the remark above, in which the pre-revolutionary Tatars’ outward appearance is ironically likened to that of contemporary ‘Wahhabis’. A reference to ‘the tradition’ by a Tatar representative in an educational institution reflects a concern for the compatibility of having a religious lifestyle and modern secular life:

I was witness to a conversation not long ago: they said that if najas – dirt – stains some clothes, then you need to take only this part [of the garment], wipe, wash seven times, wipe with sand, earth. This is the tradition. A new way to wash is the washing machine. You put your clothes in the washing machine and everything spins. From the point of view of tradition, you didn’t do it correctly, because if a piece of dirt gets in the water, then all of the water becomes dirty [laughs].

Nikah [wedding], the pure religious tradition: formally, two people are witnesses, the imam, the girl agreed, the man agreed, a wedding was held. We propose in any case to register the marriage not only in the mosque, but also in the registry office. Why? Because it will have a legal effect. The traditions say that it is not needed. But life in Russia shows that these marriages… you know here we have nikah, a girl came with a man, they found two witnesses, they read nikah and tomorrow they divorce. Or they divorce after a month, she is pregnant and she cannot prove that she was married. Because of this I think that you need to connect the traditions with reality.¹⁶

The accounts reflect a concern for finding a middle way between religious traditions and the demands of secular life, for example by letting a wedding take place in two different spheres, the secular and the religious.¹⁷ The Islamic educational sphere is also an important arena with regard to the question of finding a middle way between doctrinal knowledge of Islam and everyday religious practices. An account by a Muslim representative in an educational institution illustrates the relation between folk Islam and a more ‘doctrinal Islam’:

In Soviet times, when religion was banned, Islam was preserved in villages. Grandmothers, grandfathers, they remembered something from their relatives, and they continued to perform these rituals without understanding what they were doing. When it became possible to study in the Arabic world some young people left; they got a good religious education; they came back to the villages, where they became imams, and these grandmothers and grandfathers did not want to learn from them. Because it was not consistent with Tatar traditions. And there were some hostilities. This young educated person, who received his education abroad, thought that his Islam was correct.¹⁸

This account can be related to the 1990s, when young Muslims went to study in Arabic countries, with some of them being influenced by Salafi currents. In the account, popular Islam represents a blend of Islamic and folk traditions, rituals that have been preserved in a narrow family circle. This form of Islam was typically passed down by elders who possessed a rudimentary knowledge of Islamic religious fundaments and of the Arabic language. The young people who have a better religious education claim to represent a ‘correct’ interpretation of Islam. Hence, they perceive the popular Islam that was preserved by elders as a ‘deviation’ from a more ‘doctrinal’ Islam.

The accounts presented above demonstrate scepticism towards a rigid and conservative religious lifestyle. At the same time, they reveal that a secularised Islam, or a folk/popular Islam, may be perceived as lacking a religious dimension and does not constitute a clear alternative for a younger generation of Tatar Muslims that claims to represent an Islamic orthodoxy, or the ‘correct Islam’. These tensions and concerns provide the background against which I analyse attempts to define traditional Islam in a more religious sense. As noted above, my interviews with representatives in official Muslim institutions revealed an effort to talk about traditional Islam by making references to Islamic religious fundaments. A Muslim official thus referred to the Quran and the Sunna in his discussion of common Islamic traditions:

When we talk about traditional Islam, I’m not speaking about the traditions of more recent times, folk traditions. In Chechnya, they have those traditions; here in Tatarstan, we have others. We need to preserve the common Islamic traditions. Traditional Islam, as we understand it, is a basis; it is based on traditions which have a (more than) thousand-year-old history. These are traditions that the first Muslims left us, the companions of the Prophet Muhammad. The Prophet Muhammad himself relied on traditions. See, the hajj ritual; he relied on the traditions of the Prophet Ibrahim. These traditions, which are more than a thousand years old and which rely on the Sunna, the Quran, which come from our first Muslims – this is what we need to cultivate.¹⁹

Another Muslim representative commented: ‘Traditional Islam, I understand it like this: it’s a core, a frame or a kernel that was honed over centuries by hundreds, thousands of scholars’.²⁰ The comments by the two Muslim officials thus emphasise the religious dimension of ‘traditional Islam’, understood as Ahl al-sunna wa-l-jama’a, or Sunni Orthodox Islam. Kamil Samigullin (2014) also emphasises this conception of ‘traditional Islam’ and says that the ‘tradition’ is ‘Sunna’ in Arabic. The terms ‘classical Islam’ and ‘orthodox Islam’ appeared in other conversations related to the Hanafi juridical school. A Tatar Muslim representative distinguished this ‘classical Islam’ from a past Muslim way of life as a tradition which needs to be preserved by Tatars:

I can simply judge from my grandmother: she said that you should not draw a cross. From the point of view of traditional Islam, it is considered kufr [disbelief]. But this tradition was not preserved. If we rebuild these traditions, where does that lead? The children will not go to school; they will not speak in Russian. Will we rebuild this tradition? Or rather the classical tradition? Classical Islam, this is precisely the traditional Islam. The Islam of Imam Abu Hanifa, the Maturidi aqida. We can say the orthodox Islam. Traditional Islam, classical, and at the same time, with national specificities.²¹

He refers to the Islam of Imam Abu Hanifa, the Hanafi madhhab, and to the Maturidi creed, or aqida, as representing ‘classical’ or ‘orthodox Islam’. The Hanafi tradition is represented as flexible and as able to accommodate folk traditions:

When a person dies, all the relatives gather and eat, drink tea, listen to the Quran, pray for the deceased. This is the tradition: we hand out money, give presents. It holds the Tatars together. Even those who live in Moscow and do not speak a word of Tatar; maybe they do not know Islam; they perform this tradition. It strengthens their family ties, friendship ties, helps them stay Muslim. Even if these traditions are not found in classical Islam, it doesn’t mean that you have to throw them away. The Salafis think that we need to throw them away. What is our approach? We have the classical Islam, but with certain national traditions which do not contradict Islam.²²

On this account, ‘classical Islam’, as represented by the Hanafi madhhab, can be understood as an Islamic orthodoxy which harmoniously integrates elements of Tatar culture and does not stand in opposition to folk customs. During my field research, I encountered an example of efforts to preserve local traditions alongside a ‘correct model’. During a visit to the brand-new Hafiz centre in Kazan in 2016, a representative told me how the teaching of Quran recitation was carried out according to universal rules that exist throughout the Muslim world. For example, the centre works with the Holy Quran Memorization International Organization. He also noted that the Muslim Spiritual Board of Tatarstan asked the centre to engage in the preservation of the local style of reciting the Quran or maqam, apparently with a view to harmonising it with universal rules of recitation.²³

The Hanafi tradition: Talking about tradition ‘within Islam’

The accounts analysed above reveal a concern among representatives of Muslim official institutions with an understanding of traditional Islam as limited to the notion of a secularised Islam or folk Islamic rituals not grounded in theological precepts. The concern with emphasising the religious dimension of traditional Islam can already be seen in the writings of the late deputy mufti of Tatarstan, Valiulla Iakupov. In relation to efforts to promote a more modern understanding of Islam, he suggests that ‘[t]he reformers of Islam should not forget one simple thing – we need to stay within Islam, and not go beyond it’.²⁴ As a way to provide an alternative to those pious Muslims who claim to represent a ‘doctrinal Islam’ or to integrate them into the project of an Islamic revival, Tatar Muslim officials need to develop a theologically grounded understanding of traditional Islam. As already noted, the challenge for developing a localised Islamic orthodoxy is how to reconcile different sets of boundaries – religious, national and ethnic. The Hanafi tradition figures prominently in the idea of an ‘orthodox traditional Islam’, as revealed in my conservations with Muslim interlocutors. In the following, I analyse their statements as shedding light on how the Hanafi legal tradition is represented as orthodoxy in the sense of an established, ‘natural’ interpretation of Islam for Tatars.

The question of the relation between Islamic orthodoxy and Tatar culture is at the core of discussions on traditional Islam. In the writings of Valiulla Iakupov, we find a concern with the position of Tatarstan as a Muslim region which is rather distant from the traditional centres of Islamic knowledge. This geographical distance, together with the experience of Soviet atheist policies, can be regarded as having produced a local Islam that entails ‘deviations’. Iakupov inverts this notion, arguing that Tatars have succeeded in preserving a ‘pure’ Islam. References to the tale of the three Sahaba, companions of the Prophet Muhammad, and their presence in the ancient city of Bolghar figure prominently in his writings (Bustanov and Kemper, 2013):

It [the local Islam] took on a purity and prophetic character that does not exist in Central Asia or in neighbouring places. […] The merit of Tatars is in the fact that they were able to convey to modern times the pure, prophetic Islam, undistorted by heresies from later times, 18th and later centuries. Tatars, having received Islam from the Sahaba of the Prophet, preserved it like an amanat [trust]. (Iakupov, 2003)

The presence of the three Sahaba establishes a connection between the local Islam of the Tatars and an ‘Islam of origins’, or a ‘prophetic Islam’. This prophetic Islam remained unchanged, or ‘undistorted by heresies’, over centuries. In the discussion on the Hanafi tradition, the idea of a Hanafi traditional Islam is also presented as ‘natural’, established over centuries, and stable. For example, a representative in an educational institution notes the following:

We understand it this way: traditional Islam – it comes from the word ‘tradition’. It means that we follow some tradition. The whole question is about the tradition that we follow. The answer is actually simple. If we are representatives of the Hanafi religious juridical school, then we follow the Hanafi tradition. If in the Caucasus, people are from the Shafi’i madhhab, they follow the Shafi’i tradition.²⁵

In my conversations with Muslim interlocutors about the Hanafi tradition, I also noted frequent references to the notion of ‘fundaments’ and ‘foundations’. These fundaments can be the religious fundaments of Islam, as noted by one interlocutor in a Muslim educational institution: ‘We do not talk about the fundaments of Islam, about some basics; because this fundament is everywhere the same. This is why we say that Islam is everywhere one’.²⁶ He then refers to ‘questions of a second order’ which can be answered in one way or another in different regions when discussing the role of madhhab. He uses the metaphor of the foundations of a house to refer to Hanafi heritage:

We need a balance between the classical theology and the heritage that exists. We cannot just take it and throw it away, and say that it’s old, it’s outdated. If we enter a house, saying ‘I don’t like it, I will knock out the foundation,’ if you remove the foundation, it [the house] collapses. Even if you put a nice roof on it. It’s the same here: we should not throw away the history, the classical heritage, because there are many different ideas here which are relevant today. This is precisely why we revive the Hanafi tradition. Because the Hanafi heritage – it is very wide. It represents not only certain medieval ideas. A very serious fundament is established for the revival of this theology in different eras. The Hanafi heritage is strong because it is rather universal and tolerant; it is not so conservative. And this is why it took hold in some regions like ours. Here, the Hanbali heritage could not have taken hold. Living in the vicinity of other people, of other religions, we simply could not live in such a conservative way as somewhere like Saudi Arabia.²⁷

The Hanafi maddhab is discussed in terms of a local heritage that provides a foundation for an Islamic revival in different periods of Tatar history. It is presented as espousing the particularities of Muslim Tatars who ‘live in the vicinity’ of other people and religions. There is an inherent harmony between the ‘doctrinal Islam’ represented by the Hanafi tradition and the historical and geographical circumstances of Tatar Muslims. The Hanafi madhhab is often presented as ‘tolerant’, flexible and adaptable against the idea of the overly ‘strict’ and conservative tendencies of the Hanbali madhhab. Hanafi traditional Islam is a ‘doctrinal Islam’ that does not imply a conservative, insulated and closed Muslim way of life. Furthermore, the Hanafi tradition is presented as being able to accommodate folk traditions, as long as these do not contradict Islam. My Muslim interlocutors often referred to the capacity of Islam, and particularly the Hanafi madhhab, to absorb folk customs and traditions, with Tatar culture essentially being Muslim Tatar culture.

In my discussions with Tatar representatives, the Hanafi madhhab was also associated with an environment, habitat (среда) and particular worldview that had been transmitted throughout the Tatar Muslim community over centuries. The teaching of Islamic beliefs and rituals implies that the student is socialised within a particular environment, with the teacher acting as a living role model (Saetov, 2012). In the context of Islamic education, my interlocutors referred to the need to provide ‘foundations’ on which to build knowledge of Islam. Knowledge of traditions, such as the Hanafi tradition, and the heritage of Tatar Muslim theologians represent these foundations. Thus, young students in Islamic universities in Moscow and Kazan must spend a few years at these universities before they can receive an official authorisation from the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs to study abroad, for example in Arabic countries. A Muslim representative in an educational institution talks about the Hanafi madhhab as a ‘world view’, a cultural environment:

Madhhab is a whole view of the world; it implies the formation of a corresponding legal and spiritual culture. From this perspective, it is very important to explain today that the choice was made. A Tatar is already a Hanafi on a confessional level, because practically all his history, his culture, the theological-legal values were formed in this framework. If today you became a Wahhabi, in principle – it is your right. It cannot be a contradiction, because all madhhab are equal, but for this, you need to look for a corresponding cultural-theological environment, and there is none. Here one needs to reject centuries-old traditions, create something that is entirely new. It is very dangerous for the society, because it is not simply a change in the reading of namaz; it is an attempt to create a completely new culture.²⁸

On this account, the Hanafi madhhab is understood as a ‘centuries-old spiritual environment’; religion and culture are viewed as intimately linked. The theological foundations are linked to the development of particular spiritual and cultural values, a spiritual environment. The representative notes that ‘the choice was made’ by Tatar Muslims long ago to follow the Hanafi madhhab. Those who do not follow it become outsiders, ‘marginal’ (as described by the representative). In the discussion about an ‘orthodox traditional Islam’, the Hanafi madhhab is represented as constituting a foundation for Tatar Muslims to transmit knowledge of Islam over centuries. It is represented as conventional, established over centuries (‘the choice was made’) and timeless (a ‘centuries-old spiritual environment’).

The boundaries of orthodoxy

The Hanafi tradition is represented as a centuries-old spiritual environment, a space that allows for the definition of a Tatar Muslim identity by drawing certain boundaries. This Muslim identity is represented as timeless – as being connected, for example, to a ‘prophetic Islam’. The emphasis on the Hanafi tradition represents an attempt to adjust the boundaries of an ethnic and national/secular identity to those of a religious orthodoxy. The Grozny fatwa that was adopted in 2016 during the international theological conference ‘Who are they, the followers of Sunnah?’ can be seen as a similar attempt. The document refers to Sunni Orthodox Islam, or Ahl al-sunna wa-l-jamaʿa, and to the four juridical schools. However, it defines the Wahhabis as a sect. Thus, the Grozny fatwa seeks to provide a religious basis for the notion of traditional Islam and the boundaries it entails. Wahhabis are not only defined as ‘non-traditional’, as representing an interpretation of Islam that is foreign to a Russian cultural environment, but also excluded from the religious boundaries of Sunni Orthodox Islam. The Grozny fatwa raised criticism in the Muslim community in Russia, in particular from the Russian Council of Muftis in Moscow. A Muslim representative in Kazan commented on the fatwa as follows:

If we consider the Quran and Sunna, radicals can be more God-fearing than contemporary Muslims who don’t all pray namaz and can skip a prayer. Where are we, when we say that a Muslim needs to live according to the Quran and Sunna, these are the criteria of the true Islam? It means that we do not draw any boundaries, [showing] where radical is. It means that we legalise everything, we consider all as representatives of the true Islam.²⁹

The Muslim representative comments on the necessity of drawing religious boundaries that go beyond the religious fundaments of the Quran and the Sunna. Indeed, Salafi Muslims are viewed as being more pious, ‘God-fearing’, and as having knowledge of Islamic scriptures in comparison to other Tatar Muslims, ‘who can skip a prayer’. A weak religiosity as represented by the idea of ‘skipping a prayer’ cannot be seen as a basis for a Tatar Muslim identity. Thus, the Hanafi madhhab represents a ‘doctrinal Islam’, a ‘correct model’ or religious tradition, represented as being in harmony with a Tatar cultural heritage. It constitutes a religious tradition within the boundaries of Sunni Orthodox Islam that is based on the religious fundaments of the Quran and the Sunna. Kamil Samigullin (2014) defines ‘traditional Islam’ as Sunni Islamic Orthodoxy by referring to the four juridical schools and the two Maturidi and Ashari theological schools. However, he then specifies that Tatars have followed the Hanafi madhhab for more than one thousand years since their conversion to Islam on the site of Bolghar.³⁰

However, the effort to create boundaries on a religious level is problematic if one considers the existence of multiple planes within Islam. Knysh (1993: 52) refers to Hodgson when observing that a Muslim, in a general sense, can have a multitude of religious ‘commitments’. As Hodgson (1974: 67) notes, ‘a person could maintain a given viewpoint on the imamate, one on questions of metaphysics or kalam, and one on fiqh law’. Knysh (1993: 52) observes that ‘[a] legitimate question arises as to which of these numerous commitments should be considered crucial in establishing his “orthodoxy”, whatever we take it to be’. In the case of the Hanafi tradition, I was told by informants during my field research that Salafi Muslims can also be followers of the Hanafi madhhab. As one Muslim representative notes:

The namaz is performed according to the Hanafi madhhab (по-ханафитски), but his inner creed – aqida – is Salafi. As a result, some complex processes occur, in which different traditions are blended. He is a little bit Hanafi, Salafi and so on. In the end, who is he?³¹

The existence of multiple planes within Islam also raises the question of the place of Sufism in the discussion on an orthodox or theological traditional Islam. The hadith of Gabriel recounts an encounter between the Prophet Muhammad and his companions and the Archangel Gabriel, during which he unveils three dimensions of the religion, islam (submission), iman (faith) and ihsan (doing what is beautiful) (Murata and Chittick, 1994: 18). The last, inner dimension of the religion, ihsan, is connected to Sufism. The Grozny fatwa refers to these three dimensions of Sunni Islamic Orthodoxy. It defines Sufism as Sunni Islamic Orthodoxy and even specifically names three historical Sufi figures: Junayd al-Baghdadi, Abdul Qadir al-Jailani (the founder of the Qadiri order), and Baha-ud-Din Naqshband Bukhari (the founder of the Naqshbandi order). In the case of Tatar Muslims, the discussion on Sufism’s place in an Islamic revival is complicated to the extent that some observers argue that Sufism simply disappeared during the Soviet period. Some of my interlocutors defined Sufism as an integral part of traditional Islam. One Muslim representative observed: ‘In general, we didn’t preserve the tradition of Sufi tariqas. In Tatarstan, they are trying to re-establish it, but in reality there is no continuity. All this with tariqa is brought artificially either from Turkey or from Dagestan’.³² Unlike in the North Caucasus, where Sufism can be seen as a collective phenomenon, Sufism in the Volga-Ural region is more marginal (Di Puppo and Schmoller, 2019). The Mufti of Tatarstan, Kamil Samigullin, defines islam as the Hanafi madhhab for Tatar Muslims, iman as the Maturidi aqida, and ihsan as morality, ethics and the ‘science’ (наука) of Sufism (Muhametrahimov, 2016). He notes that Sufism is more ‘a path of spiritual self-development’ and that the priority for Tatar Muslims is the Hanafi maddhab, observing that if people lack simple knowledge of the Hanafi maddhab, they cannot be expected to speak about more complex matters (Zavalishina, 2013). The Hanafi tradition can be seen as the public face of traditional Islam in Tatarstan. The uncertain place of Sufism in the official representation of a Tatar Muslim identity reveals the extent to which the process of defining a local Islamic orthodoxy is changing and unfinished.

A further difficulty in the attempt to adjust the boundaries of orthodoxy to those of a national and ethnic identity concerns the impossibility of cultivating an orthodox traditional Islam in isolation. The Hanafi madhhab is transnational and anchored in several regions of the Muslim world.³³ The emphasis put on the Hanafi tradition thus corresponds to a process of appropriating a transnational religious tradition on a local level. The cultivation of an Islamic orthodoxy necessitates a connection to sources of knowledge outside the borders of the national state. When perusing the new arrivals at a Muslim bookshop on the Parisian Commune Street in Kazan’s old Muslim neighbourhood, I found a small book on the teachings of Abu Hanafi by Sheikh As-Sagdi, a professor in Jordan and at the new Bolghar Islamic Academy and a regular visitor to the Volga-Ural region.

Conclusion: The paradoxes of constructing orthodoxy

The representation of a theological traditional Islam can be related to two understandings of orthodoxy: (1) religious orthodoxy in the sense of references to the Quran and the Sunna, and more particularly Sunni Orthodox Islam, in the sense of talking about Islam ‘within Islam’; and (2) orthodoxy in the sense of convention, of an established religious tradition and of continuity with the past.³⁴ As discussed above, the question for the representation of a theological or orthodox traditional Islam is whether the boundaries of religious orthodoxy can be adjusted to those of Tatar ethnicity and of the national secular state. If religion is subordinated to the last two elements, we are left with an ethnic or state-loyal Islam, which can be interpreted in the sense of ‘weak religiosity’ or ‘deviation’ from a ‘doctrinal Islam’. The emphasis put on the Hanafi madhhab as Tatar traditional Islam allows for the creation of a representation of orthodoxy, both in the sense of rootedness in the Islamic tradition and in the sense of rootedness in a particular Tatar culture and locale as a ‘centuries-old tradition’. Another reference that provides an image of continuity with the past and of ‘foundations’ for the revival of a Tatar Muslim identity is the Tatar theological heritage.

A first difficulty with this representation is that the boundaries of religious orthodoxy do not necessarily fall together with those of Tatar ethnicity and of the national state. As discussed earlier with reference to Knysh (1993), the multiplicity of planes and religious ‘commitments’ in Islam raises the question of which commitment should serve to establish orthodoxy. The representation of theological traditional Islam can be seen as an effort to delimit a space in which a discussion about Tatar Islam can take place. This space is not only religious, but also ethnic; it is situated both ‘within Islam’ and ‘within ethnicity’. Benussi (2018) defines a theological interpretation of traditional Islam as being ‘ethnic in form, ethical in content’. However, we can also speak of two sets of boundaries (with a third being that of the national secular state). In terms of different religious commitments, Kamil Samigullin refers to the three dimensions of the religion for Tatars as consisting in: the Hanafi madhhab (islam), the Maturidi aqida (iman) and the morality, ethics and ‘science’ of Sufism. However, the contentious point in this representation is that following other schools of law or another creed (the Ashari theological school) cannot be considered ‘unorthodox’, in particular since Tatar Muslim officials such as Samigullin refer to the broader theological framework of Sunni Orthodox Islam, or Ahl al-sunna wa-l-jamaʿa.³⁵ This point shows that the boundaries of orthodox Sunni Islam, which are also approved by Tatar Muslim officials, do not correlate clearly with a representation of Tatar traditional Islam, necessitating ever more exclusive boundaries. But the addition of these boundaries cannot be clearly justified on theological grounds. Furthermore, the Hanbali school of law is also situated within the boundaries of Sunni Orthodox Islam, with the Grozny fatwa representing a problematic attempt to exclude Wahhabism by defining it as a ‘sect’. Another aspect of the correlation of different boundaries is the question of Sufism. As noted by one of my interlocutors, Volga-Ural Muslims are traditionally Hanafi, while North Caucasian Muslims are Shafi’i. In terms of an additional religious plane, however, Sufism is (or was) common with the majority of Russian Muslims. Nowadays, the Sufi tradition is rather strong in the North Caucasus. The Grozny fatwa was thus interpreted as an attempt at the ‘sufisation’ (cуфизация) of the Russian umma in a commentary published on the Russian Muftis Council website (Emelyanov, 2016). The commentary also warned against Chechnya’s ambitions to assume the role of leader of the Russian umma.³⁶ These interpretations of the Grozny fatwa show that attempts to establish a religious orthodoxy for all Russian Muslims based on giving a prominent place to Sufism encounter mixed reactions on the part of the Tatar Muslim clergy.

The uncertain place of Sufism in theological traditional Islam in light of the Jadid legacy also raises the question of how to establish orthodoxy when considering the Tatar theological heritage. As the literature on the concept of orthodoxy in Islam shows, orthodoxy is fluid and changing, even if it claims to be authoritative and timeless. In the case of Tatar traditional Islam, the stricter boundaries of the Hanafi madhhab and the Maturidi aqida cannot be clearly justified on theological grounds; thus, they are represented as a timeless religious Tatar tradition. As one interlocutor argued, the ‘choice was made’ by Tatar ancestors, a choice justified by the natural suitability of the Hanafi madhhab to Tatar circumstances. However, the past Muslim history of Tatars rather shows that the orthodoxy of certain religious practices was always questioned, providing an image of a fluid orthodoxy that was continuously being redefined. Kefeli (2015) reveals the wealth of religious debates on practices and theological questions such as salvation that characterised the Volga-Ural region in pre-revolutionary times. Certain Tatar scholars and theologians, not only Jadid, would question the orthodoxy of practices such as ziyarat, the performance of pilgrimage to venerate saints’ graves. A plethora of opinions can be found within the Hanafi tradition itself. A critic of the Kazan Muftiate quoted above, Rustam Batrov (or Batyr) (2017), points to the differences between the teachings of Imam Abu Hanafi and the Hanafi madhhab itself, as a tradition within which late followers occasionally defended opinions on Islamic law which contradicted those of Abu Hanafi. The multiplicity of Hanafi sources raises the question of which Hanafi legal and theological texts should be translated and taught in Muslim higher educational institutions today. Garipova (2018) also refers to sharia in pre-revolutionary times as a flexible institution and a societal discourse in which both Tatar higher clerics and ordinary Muslim men and women took part using a variety of Hanafi sources.

The representation of Salafism as a foreign influence is also problematic if one considers that Jadid Tatar theologians embraced ideas of Islamic reform which can be viewed as close to Salafi interpretations of Islam (DeWeese, 2016). Certain parts of a pre-revolutionary Tatar theological legacy can also be claimed as local orthodoxy by the pious Muslims who form a halal movement, as analysed by Benussi (2017: 22). Suleymanov (2016), a defender of a state-loyal conception of traditional Islam, argues that Salafi Muslims in Tatarstan indeed relate to past Tatar theologians in their criticism of Sufism and of certain national customs, for example Rizaetdin Fakhreddin, Shihabetdin Mardjani and Musa Bigiev. This work of rediscovery of a past heritage reveals an alternative view of continuity with the past and of local orthodoxy. On the basis of these references, pious Muslims can argue that they remain within the bounds of a Tatar theological heritage in their religious practice.

The diversity of the Hanafi tradition and of a past Tatar theological heritage which cannot simply be contained within Hanafi boundaries poses the question of how borders can be drawn. If certain Tatar Muslims are represented as situated beyond the boundaries of the Hanafi madhhab and as cut off from their ‘natural’ spiritual environment, should elements of a Tatar theological heritage also be viewed as not fitting today’s claims to orthodoxy? While certain of my interlocutors expressed more cautious views about the Jadid heritage in an effort to draw a more positive picture of the Qadimists, none would go so far as to reject it. In their answers to my question about the role of the Jadid and Qadimist views in today’s debates, many of them would argue that there was no relation between these two epochs. Kamil Samigullin often refers to a Tatar theological heritage as a whole without introducing clear distinctions.

The image of continuity in the representation of theological traditional Islam is also made difficult by the fact that this local Islam needs to be revived. Although it is represented as being ‘natural’ to Tatars, the Hanafi tradition needs to be learned and taught. In Kazan’s Muslim bookshops, one finds manuals for both children and adults, with detailed instructions and pictures showing how to perform the Hanafi namaz. Prayer rituals need to be ‘corrected’ not only because they are performed according to other rules (see Benussi, 2018, on the policing of prayers in mosques in Tatarstan), but simply because they are not known. The ambition to educate a new generation of imams and Muslim theologians raises the question of pluralism to the extent that Islamic theology is constituted through a plurality of voices. In his discussion of how European Muslims theologise and of the emergence of a European Islamic theology, Hashas (2018) refers to J⊘rgen S Nielsen and to the concept of pluralistic theology to talk about an environment in which Muslims think differently and provide different theological interpretations of the same issues. As discussed earlier, this image of pluralism also corresponds to the Hanafi tradition itself and to the Tatar theological heritage. It remains to be seen whether the plethora of views and interpretations that a past heritage opens up can be accommodated in official Muslim spaces, for example in the new Bolghar Islamic Academy. As Benussi (2018) observes, the emphasis on the theological dimension of traditional Islam can be seen as an attempt to meet pious Muslims half-way and to create a new religious space in Tatarstan, beyond existing dichotomies. Again, it remains to be seen on what terms a more pluralistic space can be realised.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank three anonymous reviewers, and Matteo Benussi and Jesko Schmoller for their excellent comments on previous drafts of this article. All remaining errors are my own. I also greatly benefited from the help of Leila Almazova, Rezeda Safiullina and Inessa Beloglazova at the Kazan Federal University during my research stay in Kazan. Finally, I would like to extend my warmest thanks to my Muslim interlocutors for taking the time to share their thoughts with me on the topic of Islam in Russia.

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes

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