Young People Increasingly Drawn to Islam

Ilgar Ibrahimoglu is the most visible of a new generation of Muslim teachers who are teaching young Azerbaijanis about Islam. Every weekend a group of them come to his office in Baku to learn about the Islamic way of life.



Ibrahimoglu’s problems illustrate the ambivalence of attitudes towards religion in Azerbaijan, an overwhelmingly Muslim country.



The young imam says that he tries to bring people together from the Shia and Sunni communities to unite against Islamic radicals. His approach has won him respect from young people who say they believe the different trends of Islam do not contradict one another.



But Ibrahimoglu’s syncretic, moderate views have not shielded him from hostility from the authorities.



The majority of Azerbaijanis are Shia, especially in the south closer to Iran, but there are large numbers of Sunnis as well, mostly in northern areas.



In common with its close neighbour Turkey, Azerbaijan has a secular constitution and its rulers are suspicious of anything that smacks of radical Islam. In Soviet times, there were heavy restrictions on public worship, many mosques were closed and mullahs were only seen at funeral ceremonies.



In the years that followed the end of the Soviet Union, there was almost no one qualified to teach the principles of Islam in Azerbaijan, as there were no functioning madrassahs or Islamic schools. The opening of the borders meant Azerbaijanis could go and study abroad, but it also allowed fundamentalists to come in and proselytise.



“When I began to take an interest in Islam, I couldn’t find a single person to give proper answers to my questions,” Ibrahimoglu told IWPR. “I wasn’t satisfied by the answers of the ‘Red mullahs’ who worked here in Soviet times. A lot of things about Islam remained unclear for me.”



Over the course of nine years, Ibrahimoglu studied in a number of Muslim countries, learning Islamic philosophy and theology. He also studied western philosophy and human rights in Warsaw.



On his return. he became the imam, or prayer leader, of the Juma mosque in Baku. He also became well-known as a human rights activist and a leading expert in the fight against drug abuse and alcoholism.



Ibrahimoglu recalls when he started teaching, his first class – on Islamic philosophy - was set for seven in the morning, and he was not sure whether many people would come. But the classes were crowded from the first day, and so far 3,000 people have passed through them.



“Our community is fighting for the purity and education of youth,” he said. “We have been able to break down the Soviet-era religious stereotypes, and we are very proud of that.”



However, Ibrahimoglu fell foul of the authorities, and the Juma mosque is now closed.



The official reason for the closure is “repairs”. But it is commonly held that the real motivation is Ibrahimoglu’s support for opposition candidate Isa Gambar against the governing elite in the disputed presidential election of 2003. He was given a conditional prison sentence for allegedly inciting opposition demonstrators during the street clashes with police that followed the ballot.



His case is now before the European Court of Human Rights.



Surveys suggest that Azerbaijan has become a much more religious country since it became independent in 1991. According to a recent poll taken by the ADAM agency, 88 per cent of young people said they believed in God and only five per cent said they were atheists. A quarter of young people said they believed the country should be run by Islamic law.



At the same time, most of those polled said they did not worship actively.



Ibrahimoglu says the changes have really been rather superficial. “A lot needs to be done so that people can get through the post-Soviet period,” he said. “At the moment we see only the extremes. The quality of Islam is not reflected in the number of believers. A lot of practices are not being observed as before.”



Many Azerbaijanis – and especially the police – take a dim view of young women wearing hijab, or young men with beards and trousers that end below the knee. There is a strong fear of Wahhabism, the not always accurate name by which fundamentalist Sunni Islam is commonly known in the former Soviet Union.



Zakir Shikhkerimov from the northern town of Zakatala has experienced this animosity at first hand. He has been going to the mosque regularly for two years, prays five times a day, has a beard and does not drink.



“A beard is the distinguishing mark of a Muslim man,” he said. “The Prophet Muhammad wore one.”



As a result, Shikhkerimov began to be harassed by the police. “Last winter I was arrested by the police who started accusing me of having links with the Wahhabis,” he said. “They forcibly shaved off my beard.”



Lawyer Elman Osmanov has been acting on behalf of 50 devout Muslims from four regions of northern Azerbaijan who say that they have been abused by the police. “We have to put a stop to this kind of harassment, otherwise there could be serious problems in the future,” he warned.



The interior ministry denies such allegations. “We have no concrete evidence suggesting that force has been used against resident of the northern regions of Azerbaijan for wearing a beard,” said interior ministry spokesman Ehsan Zahidov.



The ministry promised to investigate any written complaints. However people are afraid of filing such complaints in case that just lands them in worse trouble.



Ibrahimoglu angrily rejects the idea that by detaining bearded Muslims, the authorities are preventing the rise of Islamic radicalism. In fact, he said, such heavy-handed treatment is counter-productive.



“Illegal actions like these are creating fertile soil for the growth of various kinds of extremist and radical movements such as Wahhabism, which have essentially nothing to do with the holy religion of Islam,” he said.



“In its essence, Islam is far removed from any kind of radicalism and extremism, and calls for moderation in all forms of human activity.”



Baku’s Abu-Bakr mosque, which receives funding from Kuwait, is one of the places of worship under particular scrutiny from the authorities for its alleged links to Wahhabi groups.



The mosque is the biggest centre of “alternative Islam” in the country, with more than 7,000 attending the weekly Friday prayers. Sometimes there is no room inside and the congregation spills out into the street outside.



In 2001, 35 worshippers from the mosque were given prison sentences for conspiring to go and fight alongside militants in Chechnya. The imam of the Abu-Bakr mosque, Haji Hamet Suleimanov, denies that his mosque was directly involved.



“It’s possible that individuals who took part in military action against the authorities in those regions did pray at our mosque at one time,” Suleimanov told IWPR. “But I can assure you that there was no psychological training for these people at our mosque.”



Hidayat Orujev, head of the Azerbaijani government’s state committee for work with religious organisations, said that there was a risk that radical Islamic movements could spread.



“But they are not capable of affecting stability in the country. They are not strong enough to influence Azerbaijani society, democracy or freedom of speech,” he added.



As the Soviet past recedes further, Islamic practice in Azerbaijan is becoming not only more diverse, but increasingly using modern methods to take root.



Rufiz Rahimov, a religious teacher who enjoys a great deal of authority amongst Sunnis in particular, is the founder of a website called Azerimuslims.com.



“Our aim is to serve all the Islamic currents in the country,” he said. “We respect the views of both Sunnis and Shia. At the same time, we don’t hide the fact that the website’s creators are Sunni.”



Rahimov believes that the number of Muslim believers is growing and that this is having a positive effect on young people who have felt their lives were empty.



“Not knowing how to deal with their psychological problems, young people are turning to God,” he said.



Leila Amirova is a freelance journalist based in Baku.