Kirill Popov. Exclusively to VK
Problems of radical movements in Islam became acute after terrorist attacks in Dagestan, first of all murder of Sheikh Said Afandi al Chirkavi. Why does Salafism encourage people to make threatening deeds?
The essence of Salafism is the following of ideals of holy ancestors and fathers of Islam. Salafism’s milestones are strict following of “tauhid” (the principle of monotheism), rejections of “bid” (innovationa), and criticism of “tarklid” (relying on respectful opinion of Islamic scientists). The last two items are actually responsible for hot disputes with other Islamic branches, as all differences between them might be considered “misinterpretation” of the Koran. However, separately these principles are harmless.
Sufis who have chosen peaceful coexistence with other religions call for ideals of early faith. Monotheism is a basis for all world religions. Devotedness to dogmas requiring a careful (sometimes negative) attitude to all innovations is an indispensible attribute of all religions in the world. Criticism of scientists’ views and the dispute connected with it became an important component of Sunnism (where decisions on religion issues are made through consensus between wise people) and all branches of Christianity (its history saw many theological disputes), not mentioning critical methods of Zen Buddhism.
Therefore, Salafism ideology is natural and correlate to other Islamic movements and world religions. But the devil is in the detail. Understanding of monotheism requires that God is the only creator of the whole world, but he is not present in what he created (he is higher than things), and he is the only one who deserves obeisance. This principle leads to contradictions with other religions, as Christianity, for example, admits that people are godlike (as they were created after God’s image) and worships saints, which means obeisance to those who don’t deserve it from the Islamic point of view.
Moreover, monotheism of Muslims denies any hypostasis of God, i.e. doesn’t admit Christian Trinity. However, the question is who to treat it. One can say if God had willed it so, all people would have been Muslims and accept the current situation as a fact. On the other hand, one can perceive existence of religions as insulting of his religious feelings, while spreading these points of view as a riot against God and resistance to his ideas. In this case one step is left for aggressive missionary work and two steps – for striving for making all religious form unified in the only one which is right. These steps are not required by religious dogmas, but they are inevitable, considering shallow attitude to holy scripts and understanding of faith. Salafi explain their deeds by protection of true faith from the rest world.
However, all radical fundamentalist do the same, notwithstanding their religious views. It means the problem of fundamentalism is not in a system of religious views, but in psychology of the faithful.
The problem is that Salafism is a dim and unclear notion. People of moderate views and aggressive radicals call themselves so. The activity of the first requires sermon, but the last undertake an uncompromised war against all who don’t agree with their ideas. The first way is able to lead to a dialogue and cultural exchange, show people various sides of faith and religion, while the second way not only murder direct victims of terrorist attacks and their executors, but causes hatred between people and cultures, which can destroy much more.
