Islam in Russia

There are about fifteen million Muslims in the Russian Federation, belonging to over forty ethnic groups. At one level Russia’s Muslims represent an ethno-cultural and historical entity which, while being an organic part of the world Islamic umma (community), has specific characteristics that distinguishes it from their co-religionists abroad. Those characteristics emerged as a result of interaction between specific local cultures and traditions and the dominant Russian and Soviet cultural order. Beneath these common experiences, however, lie diverse perceptions and practices of Islam, levels of religiosity and political, social and cultural aspirations among Russia’s Muslims. In order to capture both what is shared by, and what is unique to, individual Muslim communities in Russia, this chapter provides an historical perspective on the evolution of Islam in Russia in general ¹ and in Tatarstan and Dagestan, in particular. It examines key stages of the historical development of relations between Russia and Islam, including the Islamic revival in post-Soviet Russia, and analyzes the political and cultural implications of co-existence for both ethnic Russian and Muslim citizens of the Russian Federation.