Religious Revival and Secularism in Post-Soviet Azerbaijan

by Dobrosława Wiktor-Mach

  Secular tradition was indeed a new and unique ideological option for the Azerbaijani society in the end of the 19th and early 20th century. It was shaped by the Azerbaijani elites as an alternative to religion, and the most characteristic of its features was radical anti-clericalism. The secular outlook was developed in the encounter with the ideas of Russian enlightened absolutism, which stood in sharp contrast with traditionalism of Muslim societies. Russian culture also turned out to be more inspiring to the emerging nationalist elites than the scholastic culture of Shiite Islam. New secular intelligentsia quickly succeeded in gaining support of the masses and in diminishing the influence of the Shiite religious establishment.15 The success of secularists was so evident that they managed to take over the leadership positions. It enabled them to carry out reforms, which further decreased the position of religious institutions. One of the most significant was the organizational reform of the Muslim Spiritual Board. Azerbaijani secularists combined two Boards that represented two parts of the Muslim community: Shiite and Sunni. The outcome of that move was an increase in the level of control the state had over religion. Religious doctrines and practices were no longer independent of the needs of the state. Such moves, reinforced by the political climate of the communist era, made the secular tradition the most influential in Azerbaijani society, although challenged at present by Islamic revivalist movements.

  Currently, secular attitude to Islam is still very strong. However, the most common understanding of secular values does not stand in contrast with Islamic identity. Secularism in contemporary Azerbaijan is not interpreted as a synonym of anti-religiousness, which was a dream of some communist activists and leaders. This concept signifies a basic knowledge in religion, a decrease in the level of influence that religious professionals and organizations have in the public life. Roles of the clergy, in this perspective, are limited; instead of providing a general guidance to the faithful, religious leaders are widely expected to provide some basic religious services, such as weddings, funerals, and prayers. People who identify themselves with this ideological perspective in many cases perceive themselves as Muslims. However, the term “Muslim” is understood by them largely as an ethnic marker, not as a synonym of a regularly practicing person fulfilling or trying to fulfil religious duties. Such an understanding of Muslimness existed already in the early 20th century, as noted by a representative of the pre-Bolshevik Azerbaijani intelligentsia (Goyushov, 2008), and continues to be a prominent approach among contemporary Azerbaijani Muslims. Although the combination of “secular” and “Muslims” may seem contradictory, it points to the particular pattern of self-identified Muslims, who uphold some religious practices and some kind of religious beliefs (even though it is not usually possible to refer them to mainstream Islam), but altogether religion does not occupy a significant place in their daily lives. The majority of secular Muslims never set foot in a mosque, even during Ramadan or Kurban Bayram. But from time to time they engage in religious practices of various kinds and hold some religious beliefs. This topic will be raised later.

  To sum up, secularism in the Caucasus and Central Asia means a predominantly ethnic understanding of “being a Muslim” with limited religious engagement. In many cases, it includes two aspects: anti-clericalism (indicated not only by a contemptuous attitude towards the class of official clergy, but also by the lack of trust in the official religious leaders) and the “privatization of religion.” The latter refers to a perception that religion’s functions should be limited to the religious sphere. In other words, religion shall not interfere with politics, nor with any other sphere of public life. Its realm is confined to the narrow private section of individual lives and should not be exposed too strong to the public view. Ethnographers have observed the shift of religious rituals into private spaces and an increase in women’s engagement in religious matters, a process Tamara Dragadze (1993) called “domestication” of religion in the Soviet Union.

  Finally, during the Tsarist rule the Orthodox Christian church gained some popularity among Muslims. Its influence was possible due to the active support of Russian state authorities. The process of Christianization of the Caucasian peoples began with the strengthening of the religious infrastructure. New churches were built and a significant number of mosques were passed over to Christian believers. Another Russian strategy involved some settlement actions of Christians on Muslim lands. Religious propaganda was also encouraged. The data available from the Russian statistical sources from the 19th and early 20th centuries show how the religious market was changed. It is evident that the Christian niche gradually managed to take over a significant part of the market. According to the results of the first census from the 1830s, around eighty percent of males inhabiting the territory of modern Azerbaijan were Muslims. In 1886, Muslims made up only 74 percent of the population (Yunusov, 2004, pp. 104–107). One of the long-lasting effects of such policies, reinforced by the years of atheism, is still visible in the symbolic structures of contemporary Muslims in Azerbaijan. It is not uncommon to meet Muslim people in Orthodox churches. Many Azerbaijani Muslims underline similarities of Islam and Christianity and express respect towards Orthodox saints.

  3.3Soviet Influences

  Secular and modernist traditions were strongly reinforced during Soviet times.16 On one hand, anti-religious campaigns struggled with Islamic leaders and painted them as an old-fashioned and backward group, belonging to the past. They were treated as a synonym of regress, which did not fit well with the communist projects of building a new, “rational” world, where science was to play the major role. Communists worked hard on replacing religious rituals with socialist rites and ceremonies, but with limited success. On the other hand, during more liberal periods, communist strategy consisted in co-opting Islamic clergy to make them serve the communist ideology and tasks. In both cases, religious leaders lost much of their authority. Such a trend was in line with anti-clerical efforts of some members of Azerbaijani reformist intelligentsia.

  For communists, the main obstacle was not religion itself, but its mobilizing functions that might potentially contribute to the weakening of the Soviet Union. Therefore, the struggle focused on the outward manifestations of Islamic religion. Public functions of religion were restrained by law. The decree about separation of the state and schools from religion became one of the main Soviet tools referring to religious policy. Such an attitude enabled the privatised religion to flourish. The religious sphere became clearly separated from other spheres of social life, even though Islamic scriptures underline the wholeness of religion and forbid such divisions. The Muslim Spiritual Board re-established in 1944 supervised the implementation of this policy. Its basic task was defined as organizing and controlling the religious sphere. All mosques were forced to register at the Board and had to follow instructions regarding, e. g., the content of preaching. Board’s officials had to take control of mosques and prevent them from engaging in any kind of non-religious activity. Under Soviet legislation social services were forbidden, as well as educational or commercial activities. The restrictions upon economic activities affected the material base of religious institutions. Not only were they prohibited from doing any kind of business, but also from having their own property (Saroyan, 1997, p. 45–46; Yunusov, 2004, p. 134).

  Secular tradition gained additional impulse from the events that were taking place in neighbouring Turkey. In 1924 the caliphate came to an end and was replaced by a secular state hostile to religion and its symbols. As in the Soviet Union, the new Turkish state, under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (1881–1938) and his followers, set out anti-religious actions and propaganda. Another similarity was the establishment of instruments of control in the form of religious boards. In Turkey, the Board on Religion and Religious Organizations was created in 1924. The Arabic alphabet was changed to Latin. Suddenly, the ideology of pan-Islamism lost its main supporter and was replaced by nationalist ideologies. Finally, in 1928 religion became legally separated
from the state.

  The loss of religion’s impact on social life intertwined with the gradual loss of religious knowledge among population. Azerbaijani Muslims under Soviet power were cut off from the centres of Islam. For decades their religious culture was functioning in relative isolation from the Islamic world. Official leaders, cooperating with the communist state, lost their authority among average people. This pattern remained unchanged even a decade after the fall of the Soviet Union. Moreover, some forms of Islamic practice, described in the literature as belonging to “parallel,” “alternative” or “popular” Islam, were all the time vivid, but limited in scope to a purely religious sphere.17

  Indeed, the “popular” forms of Islamic religion enabled the expressions of religiosity in those repressive times. Islamic rituals were surrounded by a mixture of Islamic and non-Islamic beliefs and convictions. Faith in miracles and magic was quite common. One of the most popular religious practice was ziyārat to a shrine, usually called pir, but also mazar, imam-zade (Shia) or ojaq (Sunni) (see Bennigsen & Wimbush, 1985, p. 126). The word pir comes from Persian and means “saint” or an old person. In Azerbaijan people did not make a linguistic distinction between the pir as a saint or an elder person and the pir as a sacred space. Many pirs were known as the burial sites of special people, but another meaning of this word referred to a distinctive natural feature of nature, such as a mountain, tree, rock, waterfall (Saroyan, 1997, p. 106). Imam-zade means a “descendant of an Imam,” which has a direct link with the Shia Ithnā ʿAsharī tradition. The last word ojaq is translated literally as a “hearth,” which reveals its links with Zoroastrianism. There is an Azerbaijani folk saying: “Whenever one sees a dome, one thinks it’s a shrine of an imam” (Saroyan, 1997). The guardians of this tradition were relatives, usually descendants, of Shia imams or other famous sayyids. This part of the religious sphere was to a large extent outside state’s control. In spite of it, unlike Soviet Muslim Boards in Central Asia and Northern Caucasus, the Board located in Baku never issued any fatwa that condemned the cult of pirs and saints. That exception was probably based on the prevalence of the Shiite tradition, which puts great emphasis on the respect towards Imams (Rohoziński, 2005, p. 287) and saint people in general.

  The complexity of the Islamic situation under communism is well illustrated by a surprising career of a pir that started functioning in the 1950s. The shrine of Mir Movsum Aga (1883–1950), a person renowned for his miraculous abilities, was erected in a village of Shuvalan, around 40 kilometres from Baku, soon after his death. There are testimonies that the anti-religious campaigns did not prevent people from worshiping even the new “saints.” Soon the shrine became the most important place of popular Islam and, as I have witnessed, has retained its enormous popularity till present days. Movsum Aga and the legends of his wonderful capabilities are widely known in the capital also among non-practicing Muslims.

  The lack of knowledge in religious matters had numerous consequences. The lack of knowledge implied the lack of orthodoxy, which had far-reaching consequences for the Sunni-Shia relationship. Quite surprisingly, the communists, and in a way the Turkish secular ideologists, contributed to a progress in the old pan-Islamic dream of unity between Sunnis and Shias. This trend gradually intensified, and, in effect, the differences became so negligible that the majority of Muslim population could no longer say whether they belong to the first or the other group. It was only with the rapid rise of the revivalist movements and the spread of missionary activities in Azerbaijan in the 1990s that the consciousness of the traditional divisions in Islamic religion regained significance.

  The modernist or reformist tradition was carried on during the years of communism. In its development three kinds of actors played crucial roles. First of all —the atheistic state, whose officials fought with various forms of religious expressions. Secondly—Islamic clergy that collaborated with the Soviets in the framework of the official religious institution of the Muslim Board and through mosques, whose staff had to follow the rules imposed on them. And thirdly— some Azerbaijani intellectuals, who continued the project from the 19th-century of endeavours to modernise Islamic religion and society. Among key themes undertaken by modernists were: the “backwardness” of mullas, the “barbarity” of public ceremonies and processions honouring Shiite martyrs during the ʿĀšūrāʾ, and the general “impurity” of lived Islam of the masses.18

  The struggle for a pure version of religion, which many scientists, including Mark Saroyan (1997, p. 44), call a fundamentalist orientation, and we will call the reformist Scriptural tradition, consists in efforts to change people’s religiousness and norms in society. Scriptural will mean placing the Scriptures of Islam (the Koran and the hadiths) in the centre of interest for Muslims. It implies that all inspirations and legitimization, at least in the theoretical discourse, should be derived from the words of Allah and Prophet Muhammad, as they were recorded in the holy books. Mark Saroyan, who studied Soviet Islamic organizations, argues that the Muslim Religious Boards were in the forefront of purification movements.19

  At the same time, clerical activities attempted to integrate the concept of “pure” Islam with the communist ideology and social and economic reforms that were carried out in the communist system. Merging Islam with communism resulted in some innovations, such as the reinterpretation of the form and content of Islamic culture. This process took the shape of a campaign, which was characterised in both Soviet and Western scientific literature as Islamic modernization. The changes were instituted not only in the doctrinal sphere, but also in rituals. Muslims were advised to observe Ramadan fasting but not “full time,” as orthodox Islam demands. This change was justified by the fact that the month of Ramadan often fell during the harvest time, which threatened the economic targets of the Soviet system. The ritual ablution performed by Muslims before praying gained new justification. No longer was it just a religious demand, but primarily a hygienic issue. Also, namaz was promoted as a way of ensuring a healthy life; formal body movements of the Muslim prayer, such as bowing and prostrations, were to be treated as a kind of sport activities (Saroyan, 1997, pp. 60 –69).

  The Shiite ʿĀšūrāʾ was also one of the first targets of the Soviets, who saw in this holiday the most expressive form of religion. However, instead of attacking this tradition from an anti-religious point of view, as it could be expected, communists acted in a different way. They introduced an anti-ʿĀšūrāʾ campaign with slogans of eliminating superstitions from the Muslim religion and making it “pure” (Goyushov, 2008). Again, some actions of the state and of Muslim leaders supported each other and overlapped in their scope.

  The opinion that Muḥarram rituals were in contradiction to the sharia, and, for some people, to good manners, contributed to the fact the controversies over that holiday lasted for many years. Two groups of religious experts took part in the struggle over this tradition: the Azerbaijani ulama and mullas. Ulama were interested in “cleansing” the mourning over imam Husayn from all non-Islamic, popular, “wild and pagan” elements (Brunner, 2009, p. 130). A government joined this struggle and eventually in 1923 it launched a campaign aiming at prohibiting theses ceremonies and especially public processions.

  The problems of a fight with pious Shiite ritual are well-depicted in the conversation the author of the Azerbaijan Diary: A Rogue Reporter’s Adventures in an Oil-Rich, War-Torn, Post-Soviet Republic (1998), Thomas Goltz, had with an akhund of a Juma Mesjid in Mashtagah (a settlement in Baku):

  Learning how to pray in secret was one thing, I thought, but learning self-mortification at the end of a steel whip from Iranian tutors was something else. Delicately, I broached the subject. His answer was strange. “The gratuitous shedding of blood is anathema in proper Islam,” Haji Asadullah said. “But however wrong, the Taziyah (“renewal” of the suffering of Husayn) has become a part of our cultural tradition—and it would be very difficult for us, the leaders of the newly liberated religious community to begin forbidding aspe
cts of expression that we disagree with so shortly after having censorship lifted on our own beliefs (Goltz, 1998).

  Even though the ulama were hostile to this element of, as they called it, cultural tradition, they did not lead direct attacks on people performing those rituals. For Islamic scholars, not only the reform of Islam was crucial but also the support of the believers. They were acutely aware of the crucial and delicate power relations.

  Another feature that distinguishes Azerbaijani Muslims from Muslims of other parts of the Caucasus and Central Asia is the status of Sufism during the Soviet era. This Islamic tradition used to be very strong among Muslim societies of North and South Caucasus, as well as in Central Asian Muslim republics with plenty of Sufi brotherhoods and Sufi sheikhs. Even sources from the 19th century confirm their vitality. Sufi expression of Islam managed to survive during communism mainly in Chechnya and Dagestan. There are scholars who suggest that the same happened in Azerbaijan and regard the cult of saints and holy sites as a proof of Sufi influences in the region. Benningsen and Wimbush (1985), for instance, argue that the Nakshbandi Sufi networks are active among Azeri Muslims, especially in northern parts of the country. In pilgrimages to local Sunni shrines they saw a sign of organized murīds’ activities (Bennigsen & Wimbush, 1985, p. 127). This interpretation of Islam has been criticised by Mark Saroyan (1997), who examined numerous sources of knowledge on Islam in the Soviet Union used by Western scholars. Since access to empirical data was limited for most of them, they had to rely on secondary sources, mostly on Soviet materials. Although this itself is not an unusual approach, the problem lies in their interpretation of the original texts. In order to “discover” the truth about Islam behind the Iron Curtain, Benningsen and Wimbush, for example, transformed the Soviet data and read them uncritically. In the Soviet attack on the masses of pilgrims who actively visited the pirs, they found proof of Sufi activism. The general absence of Sufi murīds is also characteristic of the present situation in Azerbaijan. Those Sufi sheikhs who remained active carry on their activities underground, as I have been told by people related to Sufism.