Paul Goble, vice Dean of Social Sciences and Humanities at Concordia-Audentes University in Tallinn, Estonia said ethnographers predict Russia will have a Muslim majority “within our lifetime.”
Goble said, since 1989, Russia’s Muslim population has increased by 40 percent, rising to some 25 million self-declared Muslims.
He said that 2.5 million to 3.5 million Muslims now live in Moscow, giving Moscow the largest Muslim population of any city in Europe.
Russia today has more than 8,000 mosques, up from just 300 in 1991.
Experts predict that by 2010 some 40 percent of Russian military conscripts will be Muslim.
Moscow mosque
On a windswept field, next to Sobornaya Square, the central square of the Moscow Kremlin, is to be the location of the city’s largest mosque with a capacity for 5,000 worshippers. It will be second largest mosque in Russia.
The mosque is set to open in September 2008.
The chief mufti’s office estimates that there may be as many as 2 million Muslims in Moscow. Their numbers are growing as immigrants from former Soviet republics join Muslims from Russian republics such as Tatarstan, Dagestan and Chechnya.
Officially there are four mosques in the city.
On holy days, there is not enough room in the municipal mosques, and worshippers spill out into corridors and anterooms, and many praying on newspapers outside.
“We can see a revival of spirituality,” said Gulnur Gaziyeva, head of the press service at the chief mufti’s office.
“More people are coming to the mosques, because earlier it was forbidden – from to 1930’s to the 1950’s, until Stalin’s death, just keeping religious books written in Arabic could get you a gulag sentence. In the 1990’s, religion simply became possible,” said Gaziyeva.
In Moscow, Muslim speciality stores and services are flourishing. Many of these stores, such as food and clothing stores, are patronized by Muslims and non-Muslims alike.
The main mosques are in Olimpiisky Prospekt, Zamoskvorechye, Otradnoye and near Poklonnaya Gora, and there are also a number of neighbourhood prayer rooms. They are increasingly led by Russian imams and draw a mix of denominations.
Many Russian Muslims want to learn Arabic. Lessons are offered at the Moscow Islamic University.
Two factories in the Moscow region produce halal meat, from animals slaughtered according to Islamic law.
There are halal butchers near the mosques and in the outer southern suburbs of Moscow.
The Tatar Cultural Centre organises activities for the Muslims. Groups from the cultural centre sometimes hire out swimming pools so they can be used with genders segregated. The centre also runs language and painting classes.
Islam
Islam came to Russia at the end of the 7th century. Preachers sent by the Baghdad Caliphate brought Islam to Russia’s Volga region in 921 and to Siberia around the 13th century.
The largest Muslim community is that of Tatars who began to settle in Moscow in the early 15th century. Even though prayer houses were built in those times, according to official historical documents, the first mosque in Moscow was built in 1782. In 1812, Tatar and Bashkir regiments fought for the Russian army in the war against Napoleon and a historical mosque was built in Russia to commemorate that victory.
The Tatar community asked for permission to build another mosque but it was not until 1902 that their petition was approved and construction of the new mosque was financed by Saleh Yerzin, a Tatar merchant.
It was June 25, 1904 that the construction of a concrete mosque with semi-basements finally began. By November, the first imam of the mosque, Badridden Alimov, led the first prayers.
The Sobornaya Mosque was the only mosque that remained open in Moscow during the Soviet communism era.
During that era houses of worship were converted into factories and prisons and Muslim imams were executed along with other religious leaders and Muslims were exiled to Siberia and other places.
The Sobornaya Mosque complex is made up of the mosque together with another building. It houses a university, an Islamic centre, a halal shop as well as a place of worship.
The complex is not only a spiritual but also a public and political centre where the headquarters of the Council of Muftis of Russia, headed by the Grand Mufti of Moscow, is located.
The Moscow Islamic University also conducts special courses for learning Arabic and the basics of Islam for adults and children.
It is indeed a thriving centre of modern Islamic life hosting a diverse spectrum of Muslim cultures practised today in Russia.
The current mosque is unable to cater for all of Moscow’s growing Muslim population.
Russia’s Muslim population is growing at a much faster rate than its overall population growth.
Hundreds of thousands of Muslims from Tajiskistan, Uzbekistan Kazakhstan have been flocking to Russia in search of work.
Russia’s Muslim population has increased by 40 percent to about 25 million and by 2020 will make up a fifth of the population.
The new mosque, which is set to open in September 2008, will be the second largest in Russia (after a mosque in Makhachkala, Dagestan) and will become the Islamic headquarters of Russia.
