GROZNY - At school No. 20 in Russia's troubled region of Chechnya, boys sit on one side of the classroom and girls in headscarves on the other. All are silent as the new teacher rises to speak.
“Do you say your morning prayers?” Islam Dzhabrailov, 21,
asks, wearing a green prayer cap and a plain tunic, religious
dress that is increasingly popular in the mountainous province
in southern Russia‘s mostly Muslim Caucasus region.
“It’s just as important as doing your homework,” he tells
the students aged 14-15.
One of 420 teachers employed from madrasas to teach history
of religion, Dzhabrailov is driving efforts by Chechen leader
Ramzan Kadyrov to combat Islamist insurgency by implementing his
own brand of Islam. In this Kadyrov has the backing of President
Vladimir Putin, though some may harbour doubts about the man.
Against a background of stricter guidance on women’s dress
and wider acceptance of polygamy, critics say Kadyrov is defying
Russian separation of religion and state and pushing Chechnya
further from Moscow only a decade after federal troops ousted a
separatist leadership there to reinstate Kremlin rule.
In nearby Stavropol, part of the Russian Orthodox heartland,
a school principal set off a storm when she forbade a small
group of Muslim girls from wearing the hijab to class. Putin
weighed in, stressing the need for secular standards in schools.
This year, Russian schools started offering courses in the
history of world religions, like Orthodox Christianity and
Buddhism; a course on secularism is also offered, reflecting
attitudes fostered during the era of the communist Soviet Union.
In Chechnya the lines between history of religion and
religious education are being blurred. Dzhabrailov, who says he
is deputy director of his school’s spiritual-moral department,
says the programme is implemented in Chechnya with materials
prepared by local religious leaders.
Although officially not mandatory, students and teachers say
all pupils are obliged to take the course on Islam, which
focuses on the history of Islam and how to behave as a Muslim.
Russian media reported that between 99 percent and 100 percent
of Chechen students are taking the class.
“A school should provide a secular education, that is what a
school is for, and all the more Russian schools,” said one
teacher at the school who declined to give her name for fear of
retribution for speaking out against Kadyrov’s policies.
“We have enough madrasas open for those who want a spiritual
education,” she said.
Critics say the Kremlin has given Kadyrov freedom to enforce
Islam as he sees fit and build up his authority in Chechnya in
exchange for a clamp-down on insurgents seeking to carve an
Islamic st a te out of the North Caucasus.
Kadyrov has targeted insurgents and sometimes their families
with strongarm tactics including kidnappings and torture, rights
groups say. In the neighbouring region of Dagestan insurgents
still wage nearly daily violence.
Kadyrov denies the charges as attempts to blacken his name.
Chechnya established a de facto independent government after
a devastating 1994-96 war against Moscow, but federal troops
reinstated the Kremlin’s authority in a second war in 1999-2000.
While Kadyrov appears to hold separatists under control in
his area, Islamist rebels prosecute an armed campaign in
neighbouring Dagestan to create a sharia-based Muslim state.
GAINING TRACTION
Kadyrov, who invited the likes of Gerard Depardieu to a
glitzy birthday bash earlier this month, has strengthened his
own authority in the region. His father Akhmat was leader of the
region until 2004, when he was killed in a bomb attack.
Last year Chechnya’s leadership said it wanted state workers
dressed in “Muslim clothes”, including the hijab for women. They
insist it was a “recommendation”, but it is strictly followed.
Kadyrov himself has publicly supported polygamy.
Earlier this year, barrel-chested Kadyrov, 36, held a
meeting with middle school directors and representatives of
spiritual authorities to drive home the point of the new class.
“You must make schoolchildren understand the meaning of true
Islam. You must understand that this is a huge responsibility,”
his government’s website reported him as saying.
Where Putin uses his ties with the Russian Orthodox Church
to galvanise his conservative base, Kadyrov plays to the
religious sentiments of the local population to compete
ideologically with an insurgency stoked by human rights abuses,
poverty and corruption.
Grigory Shvedov, editor of the news portal Caucasian Knot (
www.kavkaz-uzel.ru ), says Kadyrov is trying to turn Grozny into
a new centre of the Islamic world.
“He wants to be seen not only as the head of a region but an
Islamic leader, a Caliph,” he said.
“The problem for the Kremlin is the more Chechnya develops
as the religious centre of the Caucasus and Russia, the further
it moves away from Moscow,” he said.
Kadyrov sought to raise his Islamic credentials earlier this
year by bringing what he said were relics of Prophet Muhammad to
Grozny where they were displayed to men for three days and to
women for one. Since then he has said he will remain the
guardian of the relics, which include strands of what he deems
to be the prophet’s beard.
Kremlin officials do not express worry in public over the
increasing role Islam has played and analysts say Kadyrov will
remain loyal to Putin.
But the very personal nature of their relationship is also
its weakness, said Alexander Mukhin, head of the Moscow-based
Centre for Political information.
“Putin depends on Kadyrov and Kadyrov on Putin. The
relationship between Chechnya and Moscow depends directly on
that personal relationship and if either of them were, God
forbid, not to be in power, then that relationship could change
drastically,” he said.
SCHOOL NO. 20
In School No. 20, Dzhabrailov said the region’s top Muslim
leader has decided who will serve in the schools. But he says
his position “was created by … Ramzan Kadyrov himself”.
“The authority is given to us not only to teach but to look
after the moral upbringing of the students of the school. We as
spiritual mentors, have the ability to recommend activities of
the teachers,” he said.
“All of that for example allows me to control the appearance
of the female half of the school,” he said.
In class, students yell out answers to questions that he
poses. He tells girls that they should not interrupt boys, “even
if they are wrong”.
Like many buildings in the Chechen capital of Grozny, School
No. 20 is sparkling new.
The city was almost entirely rebuilt after the two wars that
nearly destroyed it. With Kremlin funds, the city is now
spotless, and construction projects like business centres and
hotels are sprouting, though rarely occupied.
A big new mosque occupies a prominent place.
In schools the dress code for girls is a headscarf. In
universities Kadyrov has outlawed the use of the hijab among
female students, but a recent trip to campus proved many women
still wear them along with long skirts.
New public buildings throughout the region are being built
with what locals say are mandatory prayer rooms.
In a region where violence and authority have been linked
since the fall of the Soviet Union, the classes on Islam appear
to be gaining traction.
“I love going to class on the history of Islam and I want to
understand Islam better in a local madrasa,” said a student who
identified herself as Malika.
“I used to not be able to picture myself in a headscarf …
but now I’m already used to it.”
Dzhabrailov says that the teaching of Islam is necessary
among the students to stop the spread of religious
fundamentalism, which he said has led to Arab Spring revolts
across the Middle East and North Africa.
“We don’t teach radical Islam. And we don’t decrease the
freedoms (of our students) as it may appear. It’s simply the
proper upbringing of a Muslim Chechen society.”
