Thirdly, a couple of questions was related to the perception of the religious market. I was exploring respondents’ knowledge and consciousness of the variety of Islamic branches in Azerbaijan. This set of question was intended to deal with the issue posed by the sociologists of religion: how do people react to the situation of pluralism? Is it a cognitive barrier which inclines people to doubt the truth presented by religion? Or is it a challenge? The discussion I had around this topic revealed the mechanism by which people engaged in constant struggle to defend one’s own religious convictions increase their level of religious commitment. This was one of the main discoveries in this project in the theoretical dimension.
Finally, the issue investigated here was secularism. I was asking whether people would accept the transformation of a secular state into a sharia-based form of government. It is a key issue whether religious revival and the rise of private and public interest in religion cause more support for the introduction of divine law of Islam, which applies to all spheres of life. Interestingly, the combination of “Muslim” and “secular” is not a contradiction for many people in Azerbaijan. Even religious Muslims in Azerbaijan support secular state and law, arguing that political secularism secures most religious values and norms.
After establishing first contacts in the field, the method that I used was so-called snowballing. In social sciences it means “asking people who have already been interviewed to identify other people they know who fit the selection criteria” (Qualitative Research, 2003, p. 94). It enabled me, among others, to interview some people representing the Salafi tradition. Salafi communities feel suspicious of outsiders suspecting them of spying for the state authorities. This is understandable in the context of the recent anti-religious atmosphere in Azerbaijani politics. Interviews were conducted in Russian, English, and in a few cases, with the help of translators, in Azeri. Interviewees’ names are pseudonyms and appear as such in the book. Religious revival is a controversial issue, and state authorities look at religious expression with fear, and thus the security of respondents requires that real names are not given. The exception was made only in some cases of publicly known persons, such as authorities in mosques, who publicly share their opinions and gave their consent for publication of their interviews.
A key dimension of the fieldwork was participant observation. I have engaged in numerous informal conversations on religious topics with randomly met Muslims. It was surprising to find out how eagerly people became involved in such discussions, especially when I had not mention my status as a researcher. When I introduced myself as a Christian interested in Islamic religion, during, for instance, visits to local shops selling religious wares, I often got some valuable information without any inquiry. These conversations enabled me to get new insights which were then pursued in the interviews. I have also found a couple of informants who were introducing me to “secular Muslim” ways of life and understanding of the Islamic religion. Two students with whom I shared an apartment were telling me stories and giving information about religious beliefs and behaviors of their friends and families as well as about Azerbaijani customs. At the university, where I stayed for three months, there were some religious people who also have helped me to notice additional problems and aspects of the religious situation. Besides, I used to visit mosques and pirs (pīr, in Azerbaijan— saint’s shrine) to observe religious rituals and people participating in them. During those visits I was talking to people and often got engaged in conversations about religiosity in Azerbaijan or about particular “saints” whose tombs people visited. Many people were eager to share their histories or opinions with a stranger. I kept a field diary which includes all important observations and notes from informal discussions, as well as my comments and reflections. Each meeting is described, although in some cases, e. g., when discussion and conversations on religion spontaneously emerged, I was making notes later on, but as soon as possible to be sure that I remember the exact words and phrases. I tried to meet my acquaintances many times and discuss with them what I had learned on the topic of religion in the region. Besides discussing only religion, I was also trying to understand other aspects of life, which have an impact on Islam, such as political elections, current government’s policy towards religion, speeches of the president, the classical music of Azerbaijan—mugham associated by some with Sufism. People shared with me their experience of economic crisis and hard conditions of everyday life for the majority of the capital’s inhabitants. I was listening to peoples’ personal stories, their choices in life, encounters with Islamic themes in various aspects of life. Finally, during all phases of the project, I have visited local libraries and studied relevant literature. I have also followed news related to Azerbaijan in order to get more acquainted with the general political, economic and social contexts in which religious competition takes place.
Apart from ethnographic research which was the fundament of the project, I have also studied existing sociological surveys related to religion and religiosity in the Caucasus. The most comprehensive are the surveys from the Caucasus Research Resource Centre (CRRC), which has been established in 2003 by the Eurasia Partnership Foundation. CRRC is a network of research centres operating in Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia which runs survey projects and gather empirical data on social, cultural, political and economic topics, including problems central to public policy. There are also independent surveys by local researchers or NGOs. I have focused on religious questions, and present some data and analyses in the section on “Secularized Muslims” of the chapter 4 “Lived Islam.” The quantitative data are interesting, as they provide a general picture of religious landscape and show the degree of secularization. The reflections on the challenges of Islamic religion in the Caucasus I have included in a separate paper (Wiktor-Mach, 2012).
Chapter 2
Islam in the Caucasus: Historical Contexts of Religious Pluralism
Religious Identity and History
Many scholars writing on Islam in the former socialist region claim that in order to understand current religious dynamics we need to turn back to the Soviet experiments with society and politics. An analysis of communism, its ideology and anticlerical practices is thought to open the gate to our understanding of contemporary Muslim identity in Central Asia and the Caucasus. Indeed, the Soviet impact was profound and it is still noticeable everywhere, in all aspects of social life. It introduced new architectural styles with monumental buildings, massive housing projects and new aesthetic principles. It reformed workplaces and everyday bureaucracy. The Soviet war with religion led to the destruction of mosques, deadly attacks on religious leaders and observant Muslims. Emancipation of women and the ban on Islamic veil radically changed the way Muslim women used to live and work. Lots of such Soviet actions had an overwhelming influence on peoples’ lives.
Adeeb Khalid’s opinion that “[s]oviet understandings of culture and identity remain dominant in Central Asia” (2007: 3) is equally valid in the Caucasus two decades after the end of Soviet empire. In this aspect, there are striking similarities between Islam in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan in Central Asia and the Republic of Azerbaijan, which is situated in between Russia, Armenia, Georgia and Iran.
As Khalid, one of the greatest experts on Islam in the post-communist region, argues—in order to deeply understand current Islam and its ambivalent links with politics and the public sphere, we shall learn the lesson of the Soviet deep and long-lasting transformation of society and culture. Undoubtedly, Soviet times require our attention. There are still gaps in our knowledge of this period, some of which may be filled with only after the full opening of archives.
In my view, to fully appreciate the contemporary Azerbaijani identity, we must first look deeper into the region’s long history. Lots of Azeris, at least in Baku, tend to speak of their country as an exceptional place of cultural pluralism and religious tolerance. It is, they say, a place of rich cultural and religious heritage, both mater
ial and spiritual. In justifying this position they often use historical arguments. The narrative of various religions existing side by side and of religious freedom is taken for granted. This tradition of tolerance and cultural coexistence in the South Caucasus is eagerly evoked nowadays by many Azerbaijanis. People like to underline the “idyllic past” of the ethnic and religious mix as a proof of their country’s exceptional tolerance towards the others.8
In the Muslim majority country, where over 90 percent of people underline their Muslimness, this rhetoric of tolerance was one that caught my attention since my first days in Azerbaijan. It was not a distance to Christianity or Judaism that they underlined. Neither was is the “clash of civilisations” attitude. For an average person being a Muslim in Azerbaijan means being a “moderate” Muslim, i. e., tolerant and open to other faiths. That’s what they say and are proud of. It does not mean having much knowledge on other religions, but an approach that accepts otherness, at least in the religious aspect. As a Christian, I have not encountered a single incident of religious intolerance nor hatred for this reason. People were eager to talk with me, to invite me to their homes. My religious background was not a problem at all. At the very beginning it was surprising for me, as I was aware of the intense emotions related to the unresolved conflict with Christian Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh. I had expected more troubles and complications.
Researchers, such as Jennifer S. Wistrand (2012), also acknowledge this surprising paradox and quite exceptional stance of Muslim Azeris on religious tolerance. In an article “Azerbaijan and ‘Tolerant Muslims’,” she suggests that this discourse can be understood in relation to two factors. One of them is the current geopolitical situation and Azerbaijan’s aspirations in world politics. The country has been conducting balanced, or multi-vector, diplomacy and foreign policy (Strakes, 2013). It tries to build good relations with US and the European Union, which look with a great deal of suspicion at Iran—Azerbaijan’s close neighbour. Iranian theocracy frightens the West. There is a fear that the Islamic revolution will spread over the region. Azerbaijan, a Shiite country, is thus under surveillance. To gain and retain recognition on the global stage, it must distance itself from the fundamentalist attitudes which are commonly attributed to Iran, especially in mass media. The second factor, Wistrand argues, is Azerbaijanis’ conception of their own history. It can be summarized with the words of an Azeri scholar, Anar Gafarov (2010: 3) from the Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences: “Azerbaijan has a well-deserved reputation for religious tolerance, a country whose people respect each other’s faiths.” This view of the nation’s history seems to prevail in the society. In the course of past centuries Azerbaijani lands were places of worship for a number of religious traditions. This multi-ethnic and multi-cultural history is still influencing the present. The traces of religious diversity are everywhere, most notably in the cultural landscape. Apart from mosques and pirs, the scenery of the Caucasus is embellished with churches of various Christian denominations, synagogues, fire temples and other places of worship.
There is another, more important reason to study the cultural history of the region. Historical context can shed light on the power relations between various religions and, what’s even more important in this context, between various currents inside Islam, especially Sunnism, Shiism, and some Sufi networks. The heterodoxy of religious models might have contributed to the undogmatic interpretations of Islam. Especially Sufism, a mystical trend in Islam, was in some historical periods intertwined with local culture and influenced peoples’ world views. In such perspective, the form and content of religion, the ideas and symbols are deeply linked with political and social changes, geopolitical situation and economic factors.
There are five distinct phases which shaped the religious and cultural history in the Caucasus. The first of the turning points was the introduction of Islam and the subsequent competition with Christianity, Zoroastrianism and other religions. During the next phase, which commenced around the ninth century, new players entered the ethnic landscape of the territory known as Azerbaijan nowadays and changed the demographic and cultural situation. Turkic and Mongol tribes brought with them their own models of Islamic practice, beliefs, knowledge production and religious authority. The establishment of Shiism as an official religion of the Safavid empire in 1501 marked the beginning of a new episode in the Azerbaijani history. That event linked Shia Islam with the power of the state, with all privileges and threats such an alliance offers to religion. During the fourth phase, characterised by the Russian conquests in the Caucasus, secular ideas were successfully and permanently introduced into the spectrum of Azerbaijani ideological worldviews. That was the time of reformist movements that raised ferment among Azeri elites and made them rethink the relation between Islam and modernity. Secularized Azerbaijani elites either tended to downplay religion, offering nationalist alternatives to solely religious identities, or attempted to modernise religious traditions. Last but not least, the communist policies effectively prevented or restricted public manifestation of religion, with an unintended effect of pragmatic cooperation between various groups of Islam. Sunni and Shia differences ceased to be important in the context of a common communist opponent. These developments will be dealt with more deeply in this and the next chapters and will provide a background to the contemporary religious revival.
2.1Islamization of the Land of Fire
It was already in the seventh century that Islam made its way into the Caucasus. In 639 CE, the army led by Bukair ibn Abdullah invaded Azerbaijan territories for the first time. The peace agreement that followed the conquest is quoted by a Muslim historian Jarir at-Tabari (838–923) in his opus magnum The History of the Prophets and Kings:
In the name of Allah gracious merciful. That is what Utba ibn Farkad governor (amil) of the master of faithful Omar ibn Hattab grants to the inhabitants of Azerbaijan (…), inhabitants of its plains and mountains, its suburbs, inhabitants of its religious community. They all were granted life (aman), inviolability of property (mal), their faith (milla) and laws (shariʿa) with a condition of payment by them the head money (jizia) within their opportunities. But jizia was not levied on children, women and chronically ill people as well as on those who had no means for living, on hermits, devotes (…) who had no profit. That aman was granted to them as well as those who lived with them. Their responsibility was to support Muslim warriors during day and night and to show them way. If anybody of them would be called in the army then he was relieved from the tax (at-Tabari, 1963, as cited in Yunusov (2004)).
Gradually, as the caliphate was expanding and consolidating, the Arabs mixed with the local population, and the Islamic religion gradually spread in the region. At that time, the dominant religious traditions were Christianity (the Caucasian Albanian church), Zoroastrianism, Manicheism and various pagan religions (Lemercier-Quelquejey, 1984, p. 29). The new faith was spread along with Muslim successes at the battlefield.
Military successes of the Islamic army did not lead to the annihilation of opponents. Although tributes and taxes were levied from the conquered population, according to some historical accounts, non-Muslim religions under the Muslim rule enjoyed a certain degree of freedom. For example, the Arabs did agree to respect the fire temples (Shaffer, 2002, p. 18). In fact, both Zoroastrianism and Christianity, although being seriously marginalised, managed to survive up to the present. Zurab Konanchev (2003), the founder of the Albanian Research Center, claims that in contemporary Azerbaijan there is a community of Udins who are said to be the direct descendants of the Caucasian Albanians.
The scholarship on Zoroastrians in Azerbaijan is scarce and it’s hard to estimate the number of worshippers. There is a unique testimony of a Zoroastrian community residing in Baku in the first half of the nineteenth century (Shapira, 2001, p. 105). Today, Zoroastrianism has retained primarily its symbolic form. On the north of Baku, in the village of Surakhani, there is still an active fire temple— the Ātašgāh (from Persian, “h
ome of fire”). Historically, the burning natural gas, which was quite exceptional, was worshipped by Zoroastrians and Hindus alike. During my visit to the Ātašgāh in October 2009, I had an impression that the Fire Temple serves most of all as a museum and a tourist attraction. There were few Americans taking photographs of the statues depicting Zoroastrian worshippers of fire. Guides were explaining some rituals and objects related to this religion, as if they were giving lecture on an ancient, buried history. For them, Zoroastrianism seemed to be an element of a folk culture than of a living religion. This is not surprising given that hardly any Azeri identifies himself with Zoroastrianism. Most statistics on religion in the Caucasus omit this religion. However, once a year the Ātašgāh changes its functions. According to my guide, few worshipers of fire from Azerbaijan and from other countries gather every year at this temple during the Zoroastrian New Year (Novruz).
Figure 2.1 Zoroastrian Fire Temple near Baku Why was Islamization so successful? The answer is not straightforward and still under debate. At the beginning of the seventh century AD, during the life of the Prophet Muhammad, nobody imagined the new religion would conquer vast areas stretching from the Iberian Peninsula till the steppes of Central Asia. Apart from theological explanations that emphasise supernatural interventions, there are also other complementary interpretations from the perspective of social sciences. First of all, the internal and military weaknesses of the entire Middle East and the Caucasus at that time. In the seventh century the lands now known as Azerbaijan constituted the areas of wars, the most significant being the conflict between the Byzantine and Persian Sassanid empires. The bloody fighting contributed to a serious economic crisis. By the first quarter of the seventh century, the territory of Azerbaijan had completely been ruined and therefore vulnerable to attacks (Yunusov, 2004).
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