Dagestani Muslims share a mosque with the help of police

The conflict around the mosque on Kotrova Street in Makhachkala is intensifying. After the police raid, representatives of the Spiritual Administration of Muslims of Dagestan came to the Friday prayer and informed the Salafis, who traditionally gather in this mosque, that they were “installing their own imam.” According to Kommersant, over the past few days representatives of both sides have been conducting intense negotiations regarding further coexistence.

Photo: Kommersant / Dmitry Korotaev / buy photo

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Photo: Kommersant / Dmitry Korotaev / buy photo

The mosque on Kotrova Street in Makhachkala has long been known as a popular gathering place for local representatives of the Salafi movement in Islam. Local security forces consider this group to be the most problematic, which is why many who profess this type of Islam end up on preventive registration. Therefore, there are often cases when, after Friday prayers, employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs organize mass detentions of believers on Kotrova in order to take them to the department, register them, etc.

This happened on November 20th. A Kommersant correspondent witnessed this purge. At about 13:00, Kotrova Street was blocked on both sides by two police buses, from which uniformed policemen and special forces soldiers in camouflage, masks and with machine guns got out. By that time, most of the mosque's parishioners had finished their prayers and watched in amazement as the security forces took their positions. For several minutes the crowd stood confused in the middle of the street, until a few tried to leave Kotrov. But no one managed to get past the buses: some were taken onto the bus and released after a check, others were left on it and subsequently taken to the Kirovsky and Leninsky district police departments. At some point, the crowd, outraged by the arrests, shouted “Allahu Akbar!” began to move towards the security forces. Masked fighters pressed against the wall fired several warning shots into the air, after which the believers retreated. The confrontation ended with dozens of arrests, but the tense situation around the mosque on Kotrova did not end there.

That same evening, the mosque was again cordoned off by the Ministry of Internal Affairs. In the light of sirens in police UAZ vehicles, several dozen strong young people marched into the territory of the mosque; as it later turned out, they were representatives of the most widespread Sufi movement of Islam in Dagestan, which is considered official. They told the remaining Salafists in the mosque that they had brought their imam with them, and “the sermons that cause people to leave for Syria no longer have a place here.” As one of the Salafi parishioners told Kommersant, those who tried to rebel were instantly surrounded by Sufis. “One guy’s jaw was broken when he started talking on the phone what was going on here. Naturally, it was not possible to find out who did it, there was such a commotion,” he said. After this, a new imam from the Spiritual Administration of Muslims (SAM) was introduced to the few Salafis remaining in the mosque. The imam of the central mosque of Makhachkala, Magomedrasul Saaduev, who arrived at the scene, explained that the change of imam occurred due to an ultimatum from the authorities. According to him, the mosque was planned to be closed due to the fact that radical ideas were in circulation in it, but the Sufis from the Muslim Spiritual Directorate decided to save it by taking it for themselves. “They said that everyone there would be able to pray, that there would be no problems, there would just be a moderate imam,” said one of the parishioners, adding that many Salafist believers would still find it impossible to visit the mosque after this.

According to Kommersant, representatives of Salafist parishioners continued to negotiate with representatives of the Muslim Spiritual Directorate of Muslims in order to reach a compromise on the controversial mosque. “Both sides fear that it will lead to bloodshed. Radical youth perceive this as a personal insult and persecution of believers,” a source familiar with the progress of the negotiations told Kommersant.

As previously stated by the head of the Russian representative office of the International Crisis Group, Ekaterina Sokiryanskaya, this situation is similar to the one that took place in Kabardino-Balkaria in 2005 and subsequently resulted in a militant attack on Nalchik: “I really hope that respected people in Dagestan will be able to come to an agreement " Senior researcher at RANEPA, expert on the North Caucasus Denis Sokolov also considers the situation around the mosque on Kotrova to be explosive. “Similar seizures have happened in the republic before; this is a well-established policy to oust Salafist imams from the public space. As a result, this leads to the marginalization of a significant part of the Muslim community,” he told Kommersant. According to Mr. Sokolov, the “capture” of the mosque may lead to the fact that previously hesitant Salafi youth may decide to act radically: “Someone may go underground, someone will go to Syria. In any case, this will not improve the situation in Dagestan.”

Grigory Tumanov

Believers crowded together