Islamism - 6

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<b>The Spread of Islamic Fundamentalism in Russia</b>

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<i>By Dr. Dmitry Shlapentokh for Prague Watchdog</i>

Ever since the beginning of Gorbachev’s reforms almost a generation ago, Russia’s large and growing Muslim population has been continuously restless. While at the beginning of the process many Russian Muslims actively integrated Islam into the nationalist discourse of the various ethnic groups of the Russian Federation, which has historically professed Islam, a new trend has recently emerged. <b>The Islam that was integrated into the various nationalist ideologies has increasingly been replaced by a universalistic jihadism. </b>

Although there are many different reasons for this transformation of Islam in Russia, one or two major causes can be singled out. First, the unworkability of nationalistic Islam as an ideology of national revival and possible independence or semi-independence from Russia. Second, the fact that the ideology of universalistic Islamism has increasingly become a replacement for universalistic Russian imperial nationalism.


And because of this, Islam has become increasingly popular among a wider range of converts, mostly ethnic Russians for whom Islam is not connected with any particular national aspiration and who seek in Islam what they have been unable to find in traditional Russian nationalism. The Russian converts seem to find in Islam a global appeal that transcends ethnic and national boundaries, something that has been known historically as the “Russian idea,” implying that Russia, as a sort of collective messiah, will lead humanity to a sort of Omega Point that represents the ideal society.

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