C.J. Chivers | The New York Times | May 24, 2006
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/05/23/news/grozny.php
Three circles of bare-footed men, one ring inside another, sway to
the cadence of chant.
The men stomp in time as they sway, and grunt from the abdomen and
throat, filling the room with a primal sound. One voice rises over
the rest, singing variants of the names of Allah.
The men stop, face right and walk in a counterclockwise rotation,
slowly at first, then fast. As they gain speed they begin to hop on
their outside feet and draw closer. The three circles merge into a
spinning ball.
The ball stops. It opens back up. The stomping resumes, softly at
first, then louder. Many of the men are entranced. The air around
them hums. The wooden floor shakes. The men turn left and accelerate
the other way.
This is a zikr, the mystical Sufi dance of the Caucasus, and a
ritual near the center of Chechen Islam.
Here inside Chechnya, where Russia has spent six years trying to
contain the second Chechen war since the Soviet Union collapsed,
traditional forms of religious _expression_ are returning to public
life. It is a revival laden with meaning, and with implications that
are unclear.
The Kremlin has worried for generations over Islam's influence in
the Caucasus, long attacking local Sufi traditions and, in the
1990s, attacking the roles of small numbers of foreign Wahhabists,
proponents of an Arab interpretation of Islam often blamed for
encouraging terror attacks.
But Chechnya's Sufi brotherhoods have never been vanquished - not by
repression, bans or exile by either the czars or Stalin, and not by
the Kremlin of late.
Now they are reclaiming a place in public life. What makes the
resurgence so unusual is that Sufi practices have become an element
of policy for pro- Russian Chechens. Zikr ceremonies are embraced by
the kadyrovsky, the Kremlin-backed Chechen force that is assuming
much of the administration of this shattered land.
Post-Soviet Russia tried to make zikr celebrations a symbol of
Chechen aggression, portraying zikr as the dance and trance of the
rebels, the ritual of the untamed. Now zikr is held by the men the
Kremlin is counting on to keep Chechnya in check.
The occasion for ceremony on this day was the blessing of the
foundation of a mosque that will be named for Akhmad Kadyrov, the
Russian-backed Chechen president who was assassinated in 2004.
The mosque, whose foundation rests on the grounds of the former
headquarters of the Communist Party's regional committee, is meant
to replace older associations. Not only is it an implicit rebuke of
state socialism, it is located beside the ruins of another mosque -
much smaller - that was being constructed by the separatists in the
1990s.
Its scale and grandeur are intended as public statement. At a cost
of $20 million, it will be a sprawling complex, with room for a
religious school and a residence for the mufti, said Amradin
Adilgeriyev, an adviser to Ramzan Kadyrov, Chechnya's pro-Kremlin
premier and son of the slain president.
The mosque will hold 10,000 worshippers, making it the largest in
the republic. Its minarets will rise 54.5 meters, or 179 feet, into
the air. It will speak not just of faith, but of power.
And so on this day the men dance. And dance. Tassels on their
skullcaps bounce and swing. Sweat darkens their shirts. There are
perhaps 90 men in all, mostly young. They look strong. But zikr is
demanding. As some of them tire, they step aside. Others take their
place.
Their stomps can be heard two city blocks away.
The entrance to the construction site is controlled by gunmen who
make sure none of the separatists enter with a bomb.
Other young men boil brick-sized chunks of beef in cauldrons of
garlic broth, stirring the meat with a wooden slab.
Zikr has several forms. This form traces its origins to Kunta-Haji
Kishiyev, a shepherd who traveled the Middle East in the 19th
century and returned to Chechnya and found converts to Sufism.
Initially, his followers pledged peace, but in time many joined the
resistance to Russia, and their leader was exiled. They fought on,
becoming a reservoir of Chechen traditionalism and rebellious spirit.
In 1991, when Chechnya declared independence from Russia, the Kunta-
Haji brotherhoods, long underground, fought again. The author
Sebastian Smith, who covered the Chechen wars and wrote "Allah's
Mountains: Politics and War in the Russian Caucasus," noted how they
became a source of rebel resolve.
At one zikr ceremony he observed, the men were dancing, he wrote,
until, a Russian bomber screamed low overhead, buzzing the village.
Smith watched their reaction: "No one even looks up. The whooping
grows louder." The Sufis also resisted the influx of Wahhabists who
came to fight Russia beside them, but whose version of Islam aligned
more closely with the Taliban.
Kadyrov said in an interview that he hoped to help restore Chechen
Sufi traditions, as part of a way of preserving Chechen culture. He
has reopened the roads to Ertan, a village in the mountains, where
Kunta-Haji Kishiyev's mother is buried.
Her grave is a shrine and a place for pilgrimages, which for years
had not been made. This spring the roads to Ertan are crowded with
walkers, who visit the grave to circle it and pray.
Still, efforts to incorporate Sufi brotherhoods into a government
closely identified with the Kremlin contain contradictions.
Some see manipulation on Kadyrov's part, noting that Chechen self-
identity has never been suppressed, even by some of the most
repressive forces the world has ever known.
Whether Kadyrov can control the forces he taps into is also unknown.
The zikrists dance on this day with state approval. But for whom?
"Kadyrov wants to show that he is a supporter of Chechen traditional
Islam," said Aslan Doukaev, a native of Chechnya who is director of
the North Caucasus service for Radio Free Europe-Radio Liberty. "But
Sufis always wanted Chechen independence, and that signal is being
sent here, too."
GROZNY, Russia Three circles of bare-footed men, one ring inside
another, sway to the cadence of chant.
The men stomp in time as they sway, and grunt from the abdomen and
throat, filling the room with a primal sound. One voice rises over
the rest, singing variants of the names of Allah.
The men stop, face right and walk in a counterclockwise rotation,
slowly at first, then fast. As they gain speed they begin to hop on
their outside feet and draw closer. The three circles merge into a
spinning ball.
The ball stops. It opens back up. The stomping resumes, softly at
first, then louder. Many of the men are entranced. The air around
them hums. The wooden floor shakes. The men turn left and accelerate
the other way.
This is a zikr, the mystical Sufi dance of the Caucasus, and a
ritual near the center of Chechen Islam.
Here inside Chechnya, where Russia has spent six years trying to
contain the second Chechen war since the Soviet Union collapsed,
traditional forms of religious _expression_ are returning to public
life. It is a revival laden with meaning, and with implications that
are unclear.
The Kremlin has worried for generations over Islam's influence in
the Caucasus, long attacking local Sufi traditions and, in the
1990s, attacking the roles of small numbers of foreign Wahhabists,
proponents of an Arab interpretation of Islam often blamed for
encouraging terror attacks.
But Chechnya's Sufi brotherhoods have never been vanquished - not by
repression, bans or exile by either the czars or Stalin, and not by
the Kremlin of late.
Now they are reclaiming a place in public life. What makes the
resurgence so unusual is that Sufi practices have become an element
of policy for pro- Russian Chechens. Zikr ceremonies are embraced by
the kadyrovsky, the Kremlin-backed Chechen force that is assuming
much of the administration of this shattered land.
Post-Soviet Russia tried to make zikr celebrations a symbol of
Chechen aggression, portraying zikr as the dance and trance of the
rebels, the ritual of the untamed. Now zikr is held by the men the
Kremlin is counting on to keep Chechnya in check.
The occasion for ceremony on this day was the blessing of the
foundation of a mosque that will be named for Akhmad Kadyrov, the
Russian-backed Chechen president who was assassinated in 2004.
The mosque, whose foundation rests on the grounds of the former
headquarters of the Communist Party's regional committee, is meant
to replace older associations. Not only is it an implicit rebuke of
state socialism, it is located beside the ruins of another mosque -
much smaller - that was being constructed by the separatists in the
1990s.
Its scale and grandeur are intended as public statement. At a cost
of $20 million, it will be a sprawling complex, with room for a
religious school and a residence for the mufti, said Amradin
Adilgeriyev, an adviser to Ramzan Kadyrov, Chechnya's pro-Kremlin
premier and son of the slain president.
The mosque will hold 10,000 worshippers, making it the largest in
the republic. Its minarets will rise 54.5 meters, or 179 feet, into
the air. It will speak not just of faith, but of power.
And so on this day the men dance. And dance. Tassels on their
skullcaps bounce and swing. Sweat darkens their shirts. There are
perhaps 90 men in all, mostly young. They look strong. But zikr is
demanding. As some of them tire, they step aside. Others take their
place.
Their stomps can be heard two city blocks away.
The entrance to the construction site is controlled by gunmen who
make sure none of the separatists enter with a bomb.
Other young men boil brick-sized chunks of beef in cauldrons of
garlic broth, stirring the meat with a wooden slab.
Zikr has several forms. This form traces its origins to Kunta-Haji
Kishiyev, a shepherd who traveled the Middle East in the 19th
century and returned to Chechnya and found converts to Sufism.
Initially, his followers pledged peace, but in time many joined the
resistance to Russia, and their leader was exiled. They fought on,
becoming a reservoir of Chechen traditionalism and rebellious spirit.
In 1991, when Chechnya declared independence from Russia, the Kunta-
Haji brotherhoods, long underground, fought again. The author
Sebastian Smith, who covered the Chechen wars and wrote "Allah's
Mountains: Politics and War in the Russian Caucasus," noted how they
became a source of rebel resolve.
At one zikr ceremony he observed, the men were dancing, he wrote,
until, a Russian bomber screamed low overhead, buzzing the village.
Smith watched their reaction: "No one even looks up. The whooping
grows louder." The Sufis also resisted the influx of Wahhabists who
came to fight Russia beside them, but whose version of Islam aligned
more closely with the Taliban.
Kadyrov said in an interview that he hoped to help restore Chechen
Sufi traditions, as part of a way of preserving Chechen culture. He
has reopened the roads to Ertan, a village in the mountains, where
Kunta-Haji Kishiyev's mother is buried.
Her grave is a shrine and a place for pilgrimages, which for years
had not been made. This spring the roads to Ertan are crowded with
walkers, who visit the grave to circle it and pray.
Still, efforts to incorporate Sufi brotherhoods into a government
closely identified with the Kremlin contain contradictions.
Some see manipulation on Kadyrov's part, noting that Chechen self-
identity has never been suppressed, even by some of the most
repressive forces the world has ever known.
Whether Kadyrov can control the forces he taps into is also unknown.
The zikrists dance on this day with state approval. But for whom?
"Kadyrov wants to show that he is a supporter of Chechen traditional
Islam," said Aslan Doukaev, a native of Chechnya who is director of
the North Caucasus service for Radio Free Europe-Radio Liberty. "But
Sufis always wanted Chechen independence, and that signal is being
sent here, too."
--
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