The president of Karachay-Cherkessia Taimuraz Mamsurov will take direct participation in taking a decision on whether to accept Evteev's resignation over an interview with a website that drew criticism among Muslims in Russia. The North Ossetian prosecutor office is carrying out an investigation for the presence of statements of an extremist character in the interview. According to Evteev, an unscheduled session of Russia's Muftis Council was held at his request. In the interview with the Regnum news agency Evteev said the following: "Jihad is a part of our religion. In its turn it divides into 14 stages, and one of them is an armed Jihad. We acknowledge this stage as well: yes, every Muslim has the right to defend its home, property, reputation and religion. This is his essential right and moreover we are sure that this is the best way to gain salvation. I claim that at the moment I will say there is no Jihad in Islam, I will assert I am not a Muslim anymore, I am sectarian."
The chairman of the Russian Muftis Council Mufti and Sheikh Ravil Gainutdin said that this interview revealed an unknown side to Evteev, and his statements may discredit Muslims. The Council called the interview "provocative" and said it could "harm the reputation of Caucasus Muslims and Islam in general." "Saying Jihad is the best way to gain salvation is a great mistake. Islam says nothing about it and not a single person, competent in religious issues, would say anything like this," chairman of the Coordination Center of Muslims of the North Caucasus Ismail-Hadzhi Berdiev told a VK correspondent.
Everybody was surprised when Evteev revealed that: "First I studied at a famous Wahhabi Madrassas in Uchkeken, Karachay-Cherkessia. Everybody I knew there either died or left the country. We also visited a Hattab training camp".
"When he applied for the post there were rumors that earlier he had had contacts with the Wahhabi and shared their views," comments Ismail-Hadzhi Berdiev. "But according to Shariah Law we can't trust rumors if we have no direct evidence. We accepted his promises to spread traditional Islam...But this interview was like a bolt from the blue. Even if he has such past, he should have keep quite. But if he speaks about it in public, I assume, he is proud of this past. I haven't seen him after the incident, but I will ask him about it for sure."
However, Evteev has distanced himself from the most radical statements. "What I've seen in the article are just fragments of the interview, misinterpreted and taken in the wrong way. They didn't ask me for explanation, I even haven't seen the final edited version of the interview," he said.
The analytic web-site Islam.ru pointed out that Evteev spoke with journalist Yana Amelina not as if he was giving an interview, but rathe discussing something with an academic - an absolutely different format of dialogue. Amelina presented herself as a staffer of the Eurasian Studies Research Center carrying out studies on problems of the Caucasus Muslims, radicalism, and kept to herself that this was an interview for the media. That is why Evteev spoke with her in a language clear for a specialist in religions. Moreover some fragments of the interview were published out of context without any additional details.
But the negative feelings over this issue are growing fast. The scandal took a different turn when a member of the Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation, journalist Maxim Shevchenko, spoke up for Evteev in public, slamming those "provocateurs who blew up the scandal, aimed at destabilizing the situation in the North Caucasus. They try to compromise people who fight the violence in the region. This speaks of their ties with Doku Umarov and Modass agents or even the CIA". But the next day Shevchenko changed his opinion and said that "Evteev forgot about his duties as a person responsible for peace," Interfax reported.
These contradictory events afford ground to assume that this scandal was a well-planned campaign against Evteev. When the situation became very tense, the opposite opinion appeared in the internet. The executive head of the North Ossetian Muslim Organization Hadzhu-Murad Gasanov said that "Muslims of the republic express disagreement with the comments of media on the "Regnum interview" of the North Ossetian Mufti Ali Evteev. We call for all imams to refrain from commenting on this situation, so as not to be involved in the scandal." The president of the republic Taimuraz Mamsurov will take direct participation in taking a decision. Experts point out that he trusts Evteev and will not follow the public opinion. After all, Evteev didn't call for a holy war against ethnic Russians, as another North Caucasus mufti recently did. It seems like this scandal is picking up stream, turning a young mufti from a small republic into a well-known figure.
Oleg Kushati. Exclusevely for VK.
