Interview by Maria Sidelnikova, exclusively for Vestnik Kavkaza
This year due to the Secretary General of the International Union for Muslim Scholars Ali Muhiddin al-Karadaghi, official muftis, representatives of the Sufi branch of Islam and those who are called Salaphites sat down to talk in Dagestan for the first time. According to Vyacheslav Polosin, the deputy Director of the Foundation of Support of Islamic Culture, Science and Education, in November 2012 Karadaghi visited Dagestan, when he issued a fatwa that Dagestan was a territory of Islam and peace. Kabardino-Balkaria was also declared a territory of peace during the visit by Dr. Karadaghi.
Ali Muhiddin al-Karadaghi told Vestnik Kavkaza about his visits to the Caucasus and his vision of Muslims’ life in Russia.
- Dr. al-Karadaghi, what did you learn in your visits to the North Caucasus?
- In the name of Allah, the Merciful and the Compassionate!
We are really happy with our visit to the Caucasus. The goal of it was to make efforts in favor of uniting the Caucasus peoples and developing a united position. We also tried to focus on general problems and unite our efforts in resisting the spread of extremist ideas, as these ideas don’t represent true Islam. We held two conferences: one in Dagestan and another in Kabardino-Balkaria. As a result we made several decisions and adopted a document defining terrorism, jihad, the coexistence of peoples, and the role of the Muslims in the beloved country on behalf of the International Union for Muslim Scholars. The document contains several important moments: for example, the problem of organization of Dar al-Islam countries (a traditional Muslim name for territories where Muslim law operates) and the problem of war. We confirmed that Dagestan, Kabardino-Balkaria, Ingushetia, Chechnya, and all other Islamic republics recognize Dar al-Islam. We met good young people; they shared their ideas with us. We discussed the problems and explained our expectations from them and our offers. The majority of the republics’ heads told us that meetings with the youth and the adopted document played a big role in providing security and teaching young people moderation.
We thank the leaders of Dagestan and other republics, as well as other heads and the government of Russia, for giving an opportunity to Ulemas to play their role in settling urgent issues. The conference stated that problems should be solved by the power of thought; and we are headed in the right direction, which is the prosperity of the country.
- What do you think about Muslims’ life in Russia, including the North Caucasus?
- I believe (and my data confirms it) that Muslims live well in Russia: for example, in the Caucasus, in Tatarstan they have full rightful lives. I would like to stress that, if there are some problems, they should be solved through dialogue rather than military force. There is no state which has no problems, but they should be solved through dialogue between all sides.
