The Chairman of the Ulems Council of Chechnya, Khozh-Akhmed Kadyrov, reminded all guests how Islam was established in Chechnya in the second half of the 20th century. According to the academic, there were no officially registered mosques or madrasas, but vaynakhs managed to preserve Islam. “I remember how the first mosque was opened in Chechnya in 1979. All our old people were crying. Today there is no religious repression and our society is tolerant,” Khozh-Akhmed Kadyrov said. He reminded that the Church of the Archangel Michael was reconstructed in the center of Grozny long before the building of the central mosque, meaning the republic has inter-confessional peace and no religious intolerance.
The deputy chairman of the Spiritual Governance for Muslims of the Caucasus from Azerbaijan, Salman Musayev, noted that the 20-year activity of the Spiritual Governance for Muslims of Chechnya is a grain in the 15-century history of Islam, but grains form history. According to Salman Musayev, the Islamic spirit hadn’t left the vaynakh’s land even when they were living far away from their homes.
Theologians remembered Akhmat-Khadzhi Kadyrov, who headed the Spiritual Governance for Muslims of Chechnya in the early 1990s. “A man will be remembered with good words after his death only if he built a house, planted a tree and raised son. Akhmat-Khadzhi stopped the fratricidal war, reconstructed the city and planted gardens in the whole territory of the republic. He also raised a decent son,” Salman Musayev said.
According to Vladikavkaz and Makhachkala archbishop Zosima, Orthodox Christians and Muslims of the North Caucasus know each other poorly. He said that in Dagestan priests were invited to attend Muslim religious facilities and professionally tell Muslims about Orthodox christianity. “We also invited Muslim academics to tell our students about Islam, its culture, and spirituality. Ignorance often causes conflicts and arguments, and Islam is wrongly accused of it. I wish we knew each other better,” the archbishop noted.
The Chairman of the Coordination Center of Muslims of the North Caucasus, Ismail Berdiyev, emphasized that a place where faithful people live will be peaceful and calm. But a place where ignorance exists will be disordered. All positive initiatives by the Spiritual Governance for Muslims will be fruitful not only for the republic, but also for the North Caucasus. Our aim is transferring knowledge and educating the population. We should understand that our future depends on us.
The head of the Russian mission of the International center, Al-Vasatyia Farid Asadullin, spoke about his visit to Kuwait five years ago, where he faced “a wrong attitude to Russia in general and developments in Chechnya”: “To alter this attitude our small delegation conducted intensive work with religious ministers and deputies of Kuwait during one year, and we managed to achieve a result.”
Timur Utsoyev, Grozny. Exclusively to VK
