Medvedev reaches out to Muslims

russiatoday.com ^ | July 16, 2009

[Tailgunner Joe]

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 sports complex will take. Besides the work on the mosque, the plan includes constructing a hotel, food and book stores, and an underground parking lot on the territory of the mosque.

After the excursion Medvedev met with muftis to discuss the co-operation of the Russian state and Islamic structures. The president promised to assist religious Muslim organizations in developing the system of training imams and teachers, media noted. Muslims are the second largest religious group in Russia.

Chairman of the Muftis’ Council of Russia, Mufti Ravil Gainutdin, was quoted in the media as saying that Medvedev’s visit was “a significant and historic event. We began to feel the state’s attention,” he added.

Gainutdin said Muslims, “Have been long waiting for the visit to the mosque of the head of our state.” He added that heads of many foreign countries have visited the central mosque over its century-long history.

Medvedev has already visited mosques in Ufa, Bashkortostan and Kazan, Tatarstan, Vremya Novostey daily noted.

Speaking before the muftis, Medvedev said that, “The duty of the leader of our state, whoever is president of the Russian Federation, is always to pay attention to all confessions.” First of all, he stressed, this concerns “big religious groups, including the Muslim one,” Vremya Novostey quoted him as saying.

“The president came to the muftis on his own initiative, and thus continued a number of meetings with leaders of traditional confessions, to which Orthodox Christians, Muslims, Jews and Buddhists belong in Russia,” the paper added.

During the meeting, the president and the muftis “reminded each other about Russia’s position as a country with many confessions,” Vremya Novostey wrote. Medvedev said there are 182 ethnic groups living in Russia, and 57 of these associate themselves with Islam.

Muslim leaders say there are 20-25 million Muslims in Russia, the paper noted. However, independent sociologists mention 14.5 million people, it added. Moreover, sociological surveys trying to find out how people meet “at least the basic requirements of a confessional group,” show that “there are only between 7 and 9 million Muslims in Russia,” the paper wrote.

The Russian leader thanked muftis for “strengthening mutual understanding between peoples in Russia,” but also mentioned the problems that exist, Komsomolskaya Pravda daily reported.

“Extremists use different slogans as a shield – religious, Islamic, non-Islamic, and those ones that do not relate to belief,” the paper quoted Medvedev as saying.

“Nevertheless, this factor is a complicated, destabilizing one and we should take it into account,” he added. Media also quoted Medvedev as saying that he frequently visits the Caucasus where, in his words, “the situation is not simple.” He promised “to do everything” and stabilize it.

“As before, everything is not very easy in the world, there are ethnic and confessional conflicts,” Medvedev said, according to Gazeta newspaper.

“Unfortunately, the growth of extremist moods is noticeable in many regions of the world,” Medvedev added. “And, unfortunately, the activities of extremist organizations in Russia are very active,” he said.

Gainutdin said that “Muslims, together with other traditional religions fight such vices as extremism and xenophobia, alcoholism and drug addiction, immorality and dissoluteness,” Kommersant wrote.

Ismail-Haji Berdiev, Chairman of the Muslim Co-ordination Center of the Northern Caucasus, in his turn, told Medvedev the story of a pilgrim who had been considered as a terrorist by law-enforcement agencies, but, in his words, was a law-abiding citizen, Moskovsky Komsomolets daily said.

Muftis at the meeting asked Medvedev to assist in constructing new mosques. Gainutdin said that there would many Muslims among the sportsmen who will come to Sochi for the Winter Olympics in 2014. The city also has its own Muslim community and needs a mosque, he added.

After being told that a temporary mosque for the period of the Olympiad is proposed to be constructed there, Medvedev replied: “If one is to construct [a mosque], this should be a normal one, for full-time use.”

“Mosques should be constructed, it is absolutely necessary, so that Muslims feel comfortable and are able to pray,” Medvedev said, according to Kommersant daily.

However, Vremya Novostey noted that many people of different confessions who live near the mosque that Medvedev was visiting are not delighted with “such a change in the city’s scenery.” The reconstruction of the mosque is being conducted at a historic place of Moscow where there are many churches.

Muftis also complained that maintenance of existing mosques is very expensive because of high public utilities tariffs. They asked for benefits such as many religious organizations in Europe get, but Medvedev said that Russia is a bigger country and this issue needs a serious study.

In this regard, Vremya Novostey noted that Russia is “a secular state and nobody is going to impose the burden of maintenance of religious buildings on the state budget.”

“The meeting was not the last contact with Muslim leaders,” Moskovsky Komsomolets wrote. Medvedev promised to visit a new mosque in St. Petersburg which opens on 16 July, and he is planning to meet Muslim leaders of North Caucasus.

[colorado tanker]

planning to meet Muslim leaders of North Caucasus

I'd say Tsar Vlad doesn't want any restless subjects when the Winter Olympics come to the region.

[americanophile]

The “3rd Rome” is now building Mosques? What has happened to the Christian East?

[hometoroost]

If the Russians go squishy on this it will be a Muzzie world before you can say “off with their heads.”