Cannot find 'armmenu' template with page ''
տպել
06.11.2008

ISLAMIC FACTOR IN AZERBAIJAN (In the period of presidential elections)

   

Araks Pashayan

islamic factor (medium)The victory at the presidential elections held on October 15 was won by the candidate of the ruling party “Yeni Azerbaijan,” the ruling president Ilham Aliev, who was ahead of the polling list gathering 89% of votes. It is noteworthy that almost all the opposition parties, none of which was at all an influential oppositionist in Azerbaijan, boycotted the elections.

The pre-election process in Azerbaijan was comparatively quiet. Perhaps the only exclusion was the explosion set off on August 17 during the evening prayer in the Sunni mosque Abu Bakir (Baku) as a result of which were killed and wounded many people. There was also wounded the mosque’s Imam Haji Hamet Suleymanov. The incident was unprecedented and was much voiced about. It is not by chance that the control of the case’s investigation was undertaken by Ilham Aliev in person. Later on, while congratulating the Islamic population of Azerbaijan on the occasion of the holiday to follow Ramadan, he was making attempts to announce that in Azerbaijan – an example of religious and ethnic tolerance – there aren’t any religious contradictions and there never were.

Some opinions were voiced in Azerbaijan in connection with terrorist acts performed in the mosque of certain Wahhabi orientation. According to the official version, the explosion was aiming at destabilizing social-political situation in the country on the threshold of presidential elections. Such an opinion was expressed by Deputy Chairman of the Parliamentary Commission on Defense and Security of Azerbaijan Aydin Mirzazade. In the explanation of Presidential Administration head Ramiz Mehtiyev there was a clear hint that the state would not put up with radicalization of Islamic religious-political streams. “We are not going to forbid Vakhabizm in the country, however, if the representatives of this or that religion… undertake radical stapes, their activity is sure to be limited in the framework of legislation.”

According to Azerbaijan’s spiritual leader Sheikh Allah Shukur Pasha Zade, the explosion was a result of contradictions between the two parties. According to another version, the terrorist act could have been organized by the adherents of radical Islam, who, in spite of their too little number in the country, struggle for making Azerbaijan an Islamic state. Besides, Hamet Suleymanov is known by its negative approaches to radical groupings, accordingly, the terrorist act could also be personified.

It is not excluded that contradictions among different flows in Azerbaijan are quite advantageous for the state itself which, as a rule, is expecting a proper time to suppress their activities. It is known that representatives of different Islamic flows (Including Wahhabists) are periodically persecuted and arrested. The activity of religious community, organizations and religious-political powers is under strict control of the state, which, at the same time, spares no efforts to hinder formation of political culture of Islam in the country.

According to the human rights advocate, former imam of Shiite Juma mosque (Baku) Ilghar Ibrahimoghlu, the Azerbaijani society is to consider the incident a strike at Azerbaijan’s spiritual and moral security, and, accordingly, it is a result of wrong interpretation of Islam in Azerbaijan and a threat to its security.

Islamologist Elmir Kuliev supposes that the incident in Abu Bakir mosque was an alarm making reconsider approaches to religious culture in Azerbaijan. He thinks that moral-ethical values are to be contrasted with radical religious and religious-political ideas and a conception about the state and ethno-religious and confessional attitudes is to be worked out as soon as possible as well as put the basis of multilevel system of religious education.

It was also voiced an opinion about intervention of foreign powers: this opinion was expressed by the Islamic party of Azerbaijan which was closed by the state in 1995, motivating its decision by the fact that it was also financed from Iran. At present the party is working half-legally.

In spite of the fact that Azerbaijan’s population and, in particular, Baku as a whole is the carrier of secular traditions, however the regions are to the certain extent religious. It is not by chance that some candidates for presidency were aspiring to attract attention of these very circles.

The leader of “Party of Great Creation” Fazil Ghasanfaroghlu suggested canceling quite a painful issue of prohibiting wearing headscarves in Universities and making special uniform for Muslim students without any Iranian, Turkish and Arabic elements. According to him, the state must display maximum patience to religious people and not only let them pray in mosques but also allow the sound of azan to be heard out of them. Another candidate for presidency, Gulamhusein Alibeyli, considered the lack of Islamic factor in presidential elections quite strange. According to him, human rights in Azerbaijan are violated, which is proved by the fact that police make people shave or forbid to pray.

Meanwhile, the director of the Institute for Peace and Democracy in Baku, the author of the monograph “Islam and Azerbaijan” Arif Yunsov is sure that the role of Islamic factor in the Azerbaijani society and the country’s political life rises day by day. He thinks that in reality there is a struggle between two ideologies in the country – heidarism and Islamism. Meantime, the government doesn’t have any special policy towards religion: It just applies methodology adherent to Soviet epoch.

Conclusions

  • Azerbaijani authorities constantly try to weaken the role of religion in the country’s social-political life being quite aware that Islam may become a non-controllable political factor in internal political life, especially on the eve of elections. This circumstance makes a ground to suppose that the explosion which happened in Abu Bakir Mosque was quite advantageous for the state and, it is not by chance that during the whole pre-election period the mosque, as a matter of fact, remained closed.
  • It is not by chance that a few days after the explosion, people living in the neighborhood with the mosque turned to local authorities with the claim to close the mosque with a view of security.
  • In spite of the authorities repeated announcements about their aspiration to form a healthy and constructive opposition in Azerbaijan, in reality they will hardly be dissatisfied with the fact that there are not any viable political powers (among the adherents of political Islam as well) in the country.
  • It is noteworthy that on the eve of presidential elections in Azerbaijan in November 2005 the authorities again began social discourse about Wahhabism. At that time it was much spoken about Wahhabism posing threat to Azerbaijan’s political stability. A day before the elections the authorities prohibited religious figures to be engaged in politics.
  • The explosion in the mosque may make a certain precedent for suchlike terrorist acts which may be resorted not only by internal but also external powers: aiming at destabilizing Azerbaijan’s internal political life they may use the Islamic factor as a trump-card.
  • At present many Azerbaijani social-political figures call for the authorities to expand the religious discourse in the country, to work out conceptions about the role of Islam in social life, make relations between the state and religious circles more flexible, contrast religious radicalism with other ethnic and moral values which will make a ground to avoid threats connected with the Islamic factor.
  • The political vacuum in Azerbaijan, inaction of oppositionists as well as social problems have a serious perspective to politicize Islam in the country. Islam has a considerable potential to become an ideological basis for social-political movements.

Return
Another materials of author


©  "Noravank" Foundation, 2010