Introduction

As we’ve already seen, the dissolution of the Soviet state in December 1991 led to the break-up of the system of state–Muslim relations centred on the four muftīates situated in Ufa, Makhachkala, Baku and Tashkent. The Soviet muftīates were either disbanded or fragmented, and replaced by a plethora of new muftīates, some of which were formed on the basis of the Soviet ones or their regional branches – muhtasibats and qāḍīyāts – while others were established from scratch by ‘young imāms’ in various Muslim-populated regions of the former Soviet Union. The multiplication of muftīates was especially intensive in the Volga-Ural and Siberian regions, which are home to over eight million autochthonous Muslims of Tatar, Bashkir and other ethnic origin. There emerged over two dozen new muftīates which declared their independence from the Ufa-based Spiritual Directorate of Muslims of the European Part of the USSR and Siberia (DUMES/TsDUM) under muftī Talgat Safa Tadzhuddinov (Tadzhuddin/Tazeev, b. 1948, in office 1980–). Since the mid-1990s, the main challenge to Tadzhuddin's supreme Islamic leadership has come from Ravil Gaynutdin (Gaynutdinov, b. 1959), who engineered the creation in Moscow of the Spiritual Directorate of Muslims of the Central European region of Russia (DUMTsER/DUM RF), and the Council of Muftīs of Russia (SMR), both of which he headed. Through the 1990s among the DUMES/TsDUM's other powerful opponents were the Kazan-based Spiritual Directorate of Muslims of Republic of Tatarstan (DUM RT) under the leadership of Gabdulla Galiulla (Galiullin, b. 1954) and Gusman Iskhakov (b. 1957); the Tobol’sk-based Spiritual Directorate of Muslims of the Asian Part of Russia (DUM AChR) under the leadership of Nafigulla Ashirov (b. 1954); and the Saratov-based Spiritual Directorate of Muslims of Saratov oblast’ (DUMSO) under Mukaddas Bibarsov (b. 1960). By 2000, in central Russia, alongside the three largest muftīates – SMR, TsDUM and DUM RT – there were over 20 regional muftīates headed by ‘young imāms’, many of whom were educated at Islamic institutions in the Middle East and implicitly adhered to Salafī Islam. In Tatarstan, official Islamic discourse became influenced by the Tatar version of Euro-Islam, which was anchored in Tatar jadīdism and promoted by Tatar intellectuals under the leadership of Rafael Khakimov, a political adviser of the Tatarstan President Mintimer Shaimiev (in office 1991–2010).