Nine Days in Russia (Part 1)
Taken from the travelogue ‘Safar dar Safar’ by Hadhrat Mawlana Mufti Muhammad Taqi Usmani (dāmat barakātuhum). English translation by Kaiser Nizamani. Edited by Al Balagh editorial team.
(Shawwal 1427 AH / November 2006 CE)
Praise and glory be for that Being who bestowed existence to the universe
and
peace and blessings be upon His Final Messenger H who elevated the Truth in the world.
About six months ago, a Muslim businessman of Moscow, Mr Abdus Salam, came to Pakistan in connection with the work of the Tablighi Jamat. During this time, he met me and informed: “There is a large Muslim population in Russia but very few ʿulamā (scholars). Now that Russian Muslims have attained some religious freedom, they need guidance in religious matters. Many of these matters can only be truly appreciated on site. We thus wish to request you to visit Russia for some days and to observe the conditions there, and besides suggesting solutions to the issues facing the Muslims and delivering talks related to religious self-rectification, to also consider some permanent setup through which these needs of the Muslims can be fulfilled”. Mr Abdus Salam visited me together with the active member of the Tablighi Jamat, Mr Irfan Jan, who had previously spent quite some time in Russia in Jamat. He backed Mr Abdus Salam and expressed the proposal that he would accompany me if I were ready for this trip.
While I accepted this invitation, this trip could only occur six days after Eid al-Fitr this year, on the 1st of November 2006. Another active member of the Tablighi Jamat, Mr Javed Hazarwi, together with whom I had travelled to Kyrgyzstan, also got ready to travel with us. After attending a meeting in Dubai, this lowly one departed on the morning of the 1st of November together with Mr Javed Hazarwi and Mr Irfan Jan, and landed at Moscow Airport after a five-hour journey. Mr Abdus Salam and his companions were present to receive us at the airport, and they had arranged the VIP lounge facility for us. Light snowfall had begun in Moscow and the days were getting very short. We completed airport processes near the end time of zuhr, so we first prayed zuhr and then asr in the VIP lounge, and it was already maghrib by the time we reached our accommodation. That night was spent in meeting the local acquaintances and finalizing the itinerary of the trip. Mr Abdus Salam informed that a large Muslim population resides in every province of Russia, with about 1.2 to 1.5 million Muslims living in Moscow alone. A very large number of them comprises the people of Chechnya and Tatarstan, and a sizable number hails from Iran, Afghanistan, India and Pakistan. However, there are two provinces of Russia where Muslims are in majority; one is Dagestan, where at least ninety percent of the population is Muslim, and the second is Tatarstan, where Muslims comprise of fifty-two percent of the population. Therefore, after mutual consultation it was decided that after spending two nights in Moscow, we should first travel to Dagestan then to Tatarstan, return to Moscow from there, and spend two more days here.
There are currently five large mosques in Moscow, and Muslims have established small prayer places in various locales. One of these five big mosques is located in the Prospekt Mira neighbourhood. In Russian language, an avenue is called Prospekt, and this mosque is known by the name of this avenue. My talk had been scheduled for after maghrib prayer on the 2nd of November. This mosque is also the headquarter of “Al-Idarah al-Diniyyah”, which contains the secretariat of the Grand Mufti of Russia. As I have written in the travelogue of Kyrgyzstan, while Communist Russia had generally banned religious activities in the countries it ruled, for certain reasons it had retained a madrasa in Bukhara under government administration. They would send individuals they trusted to this madrasa and teach them Arabic language and familiarize them with Islamic sciences and then appoint them to the position of Mufti. During Communist era, this position was mostly symbolic, but after the fall of Communism, when religious freedom was granted, this position was retained, and now this organization is truly doing religious work, and its position is similar to the Ministry of Religious Affairs in Muslim countries. This organization is called “Al-Idarah al-Diniyyah” and its head is called Mufti. It helps in administering mosques and in assisting the Muslims in their religious matters such as marriage, divorce, etc., and religious activities throughout the country take place under this organization. While now there is religious freedom in Russia, as a result of the doubts and suspicions being cast on religious Muslims throughout the world, any activity conducted without involving this organization is considered suspicious, and anyone doing such activities without having any affiliation with this organization has to face intensive investigations. In some cases, people even had to go through the hardships of prisons due to these suspicions. The country-level head of this organization is Mufti ʿAyn al-Din (here in Russia, the letter “ayn” is usually pronounced as “ghayn”, so people call him “Ghaynutdin”). Our hosts had introduced me to him and obtained the visa of Russia through him. One special kind of visa for visiting Russia is called religious visa. We were issued this visa through the respected Mufti. This allowed us to engage in all kinds of religious activities, which included public talks. The respected Mufti had also written a letter for us which said that we were the guests of “Al-Idarah al-Diniyyah”, and that the organization would provide us with all kinds of facilities. The entire secretariat of the respected Mufti is established in a building of this mosque of Prospekt Mira. Though the respected Mufti was himself out of town during our visit, his deputies received us and informed that the respected Mufti would be back towards the end of our tour. We were told that in order to safeguard this mosque from closure during Communist rule, many Muslims sacrificed their lives at its door. My talk took place in this mosque after maghrib prayer in Arabic language, which was translated into Russian by a Siberian scholar Shaykh Zakir, who studied in Tunisia’s Zaytoona University, and travelled with me in Moscow and Kazan for translation. The crowd was considerable and people listened to the one-hour talk with great attention and interest. In it, I presented recommendations for how to live their lives based on the circumstances there. Insha’ allah I will describe further conditions of Moscow ahead.
(…to be continued)