Free Republic

Tucker Carlson has claimed the United States 'hates' Russia because 'it's a Christian country' - amid claims in Moscow that he's trying to land an interview with Vladimir Putin. The former Fox News star told MCC Feszt, a social, political and cultural festival in Hungary, that Russia is like Hungary in that both are nations 'built on Christian precepts'. 'That is enough to incite our policy makers in the United States and that is exactly why they hate Russia,' he said. Carlson told the audience at the festival - which ran through the final weekend of July - that he...

Two little-noticed news stories capture the true picture of the state of the global culture war today. The first is from the American deep red state of Idaho, where The Satanic Temple is holding a "Pride" event that features a "Drag Dance Party" and "Unbaptisms" – a ritual in which people who were once baptized as Christians publicly renounce Jesus Christ.The other is from Russia, where the national Duma (legislature) has just introduced legislation to expand its 2013 ban on LGBT propaganda to children to include ALL LGBT propaganda throughout the society.To my knowledge, I am the only culture war...

President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Mr Erdogan, Mr Abbas, members of the clergy, foreign guests, friends, Let me congratulate you from all my heart on the opening of Moscow’s rebuilt Cathedral Mosque. This is a big event for all Muslims in Russia. One of Moscow’s oldest mosques stood on this historical site and has undergone reconstruction that now makes it the biggest in Europe. It was given a magnificent modern new look worthy of the capital of our united, multi-ethnic and multi-confessional country. This new mosque is worthy of Russia, in which, I want to stress, Islam, under our country’s...

Aina Gamzatova, a 46-year-old woman from Dagestan, has made it official. She wants to run against Russian President Vladimir Putin in the March 2018 election. Some see her campaign - irrespective of its results - as a way to boost the image of Muslim women in Russia and to attract attention to the needs of impoverished, overpopulated and multi-ethnic Dagestan. Her husband, Akhmad Abdulaev, is the Mufti of Dagestan, Russia's troubled province where a confrontation between fighters, clans and federal forces has killed thousands. She belongs to a Sufi order that has tens of thousands of followers and whose leader,...

Moscow, November 29, Interfax - Chairman of the All-Russian Council of Muftis' Executive Committee Mukhammedgali Khuzin has called on military students of the Cadet Corps to be ready to repulse enemy attacks anywhere, including in the United States if necessary. "The time may come when you may not only have to defend your homeland ,but also to curb enemy sorties on their own territory. May be some day you will march along the streets of Washington like our forefathers marched along the Champs Elysees," he said in his speech to military students of the Perm Cadet Corps during the oath-taking...

Until recently traditional Muslims and Salafists lived harmoniously side-by-side in Tatarstan. No longerFOR years Tatarstan was held up as a model of stability and tranquillity as the Muslim-majority republics of the Russian north Caucasus became embroiled in a separatist conflict that spawned a still-continuing civil war along religious lines. More than half of Tatarstan’s 4m people are Sunni Muslims who have long enjoyed friendly relations with the rest of Russia. Kazan, the regional capital on the Volga river 450 miles (724km) east of Moscow, is a prosperous and attractive city. That sense of calm has changed since July, when assassins...

The Russian republic of Tatarstan once boasted the largest mosque in Europe, the Kul-Sharif -- a lavish stone and marble edifice unveiled five years ago in the regional capital of Kazan. Tatarstan also used to be run by Russia's most powerful Muslim regional leader and hosted the only Islam-themed international film festival in the country. All this changed with the advent of Ramzan Kadyrov as Chechen president. Since his appointment by the Kremlin in 2007, Kadyrov has aggressively sought to present Chechnya as Russia's new up-and-coming Muslim region. "Chechnya is now actively positioning itself not only as a relatively autonomous...

Aug 2010: Many women complain they have been harassed by bands of men for not wearing headscarves in Chechnya. Some of the assailants said they were working under orders from religious authorities. Aug 2010: Chechnya's mufti Sultan Mirzayev, the region's spiritual leader and a close ally of Kadyrov, makes the radical order that all eateries shut completely for the holy month of Ramadan. Though it carries no legal weight, it is followed through, residents and witnesses say. July 2010: Hardline, Kremlin-backed Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov says in a state TV interview that he was grateful to assailants who targeted women...

MOSCOW (Reuters) - The price tag on a bride in Russia's Ingushetia province has been tripled by the regional government, in a sign the Muslim North Caucasus region is slipping out of Kremlin control as sharia law eclipses Russian. Against the backdrop of a bubbling Islamist insurgency, the revival of Islam in the North Caucasus following the break-up of the Soviet Union almost 20 years ago has brought sharia law to the region, revered by both rebels and ordinary citizens alike. The issue of the 'kalym', a price paid by a groom to the family of the woman he chooses...

Grozny, January 25, Interfax - Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov says Russia needs to create a single Council of Muftis comprising all spiritual directorates of Russian Muslims. "I definitely support the idea of uniting the Muslims of Russia. I believe this will benefit both Russian Muslims and the state in general," Kadyrov said. Kadyrov said Russia needs a Council of Muftis led by a man with a lot of experience, including in politics, and in-depth knowledge of Islam. "Only enemies of traditional Islam and Russia can say that a union of Muslims contradicts the interests of Islam. It's easier for our...

Ufa, November 30, Interfax - Talgat Tajuddin, the head of Central Muslim Board of Russia offered the way of the Far East counteraction by Chineses. "Chineses will soon captivate all Siberia... I would direct one million of Tatars, one million of Bashkirs to the Far East and would marry them to Chinese and Korean women," Mufti told in an interview published by Bashkirian issue of Komsomolskaya Pravda daily. According to him, the first wife of Tatars and Bashkirs, for example, must be a woman of their nation. "And after that we would secure our country and eastern frontiers at the...

KAZAN, Russia — US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Wednesday visited Kazan, the capital of Russia's predominantly Muslim Tatarstan region, lauding it as an example of multi-ethnic tolerance and peace. .... Over half of the region's population are Tatars, a Muslim Turkic people who live alongside a large ethnic Russian Orthodox Christian population and other minorities. Clinton, donning a yellow headscarf and taking off her shoes in line with Islamic custom, visited the gigantic Kul Sharif mosque in the Kazan Kremlin alongside the regional leader Mintimer Shaimiyev. "You are well known as someone who has fostered religious tolerance. It's...

In a move welcomed by the Orthodox Church, Russia is introducing religion classes in its schools, but Catholicism is not one of the four creeds to be taught. Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill praised the initiative announced Tuesday by President Dimitri Medvedev, which programs a choice of classes on Russian Orthodoxy, Islam, Buddhism or Judaism, or on a combination of these four creeds, or on secular ethics. Medvedev explained that children under 10 in 12,000 schools of Russia's 18 regions would receive these classes. Patriarch Kirill praised the proposal: "All of the worries that society expressed will be taken care of...

The Russian president has promised Muslim leaders to assist in developing Islamic education and building a mosque in Sochi and asked them to help in fighting extremism. Observers and media have commented on the first visit of the Russian leader to the central mosque in Moscow. Dmitry Medvedev, on July 15, came to the Moscow Congregational Mosque, which was built in 1904 and is under reconstruction now. After the work is complete, the mosque will be able to accommodate several thousand worshipers. So far, it is unclear how much time the reconstruction which is going on near the Olimpiysky national...

Russia's religious life is a multi-confessional one and Islam is a faith with a vast influence. So President Dmitry Medvedev said during a meeting with leaders of Russian Muslim organizations. The statement was made as Medvedev was paying a visit to the country's central Mosque in Moscow to see ongoing reconstruction work. After being shown around the historical part of the mosque and a section under construction, Medvedev met with muftis. Medvedev stressed the importance of Islam in the country's internal affairs. ”Russia is a multi-national and multi-confessional country. Russian Muslims have enough respect and influence. Muslim foundations are making...

Some of Russia’s Muslims Seeking to Define a Place between ‘Dar ul-Islam’ and ‘Dar ul-Harb’ 20 April 2009By Paul Goble / Special to The Moscow Times Muslim theorists traditionally have divided the geography of the world between the dar ul-Islam, or “abode of peace,” in which Muslim governments rule over Muslim peoples, and the dar ul-harb, or “abode of war,” in which Muslims find themselves in places with non-Muslim governments and are urged to practice jihad to change that. But some Muslim writers now argue that Muslims living in non-Muslim areas must make a distinction between countries where Muslims can...

From correspondents in St Petersburg | April 13, 2009 Article from: Agence France-Presse AN Azeri immigrant in Russia's northern city of Saint Petersburg has been charged with hiring hit men to kill his 21-year-old daughter for wearing a mini-skirt, police said today. The man's arrest follows the detention last week of two other citizens of Azerbaijan, a majority Muslim state in the Caucasus, who confessed to murdering the girl, a university medical student. “They admitted to being paid 100,000 rubles ($4140) by the girl's father. They said he wanted to punish his daughter for flouting national traditions and wearing a...

A Caliphate “from the Red Sea to the Caspian”? By Kathy Shaidle FrontPageMagazine.com | Tuesday, December 30, 2008 In the wake of last month’s horrific Mumbai massacre, a recent warning about the spread of Islamic extremism in Russia is particularly chilling. On December 12, the Interfax news service quoted Major General Yury Tomchak, interior minister of the Kabardino-Balkaria Republic, as saying that “the wide-scale expansion of radical Islam into practically all regions of the Russian Federation” is a “source for concern.” He added that, “cells of international extremist organizations have developed intensive activities lately in individual constituent territories [of Russia],...

MOSCOW, November 8 (RIA Novosti) - Russian Muslims hope that U.S. President-elect Barack Obama will be able to improve relations between Washington and Moscow, a deputy head of the Council of Muftis of Russia said on Saturday. "First of all, we congratulate Obama with the victory. We hope that relations between our countries will improve," Damir Gizatullin said. Relations between Russia and the U.S. have plunged to a post-Cold War low in recent years over a host of differences, including the deployment of a U.S. missile defense system in Central Europe and a brief conflict in August between Russia and...

Moscow, October 28, Interfax - President Dmitry Medvedev has sent greetings to the fourth meeting of the Russia - Islamic World strategic vision group in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, the Kremlin reported on Tuesday. "Russia's developing cooperation with the Islamic states remains highly dynamic. Your Group is playing no small part in this," Medvedev writes. "Russia, a country with observer status in the Organization of the Islamic Conference, intends to abide firmly to its course to expand active interaction with the Islamic world. I think in connection with this, that a broad discussion of the initiative to further develop interregional dialogue,...