IWPR
- 12 April 2002
Posted 16 April 2002 on RELIGIOSCOPE
The
Azerbaijani government, apparently concerned over religious
extremism and corruption, is cracking down on the country's
main Muslim organisation.
When
the government set up a special body to deal with religious
groups last year, its founders said it had limited ambitions.
But
over the last few months, the new office, State Committee
for Relations with Religious Organisations, has begun to undermine
the main semi-official Islamic authority in the country, the
Board of Muslims of the Caucasus, putting the two in open
conflict.
The
head of the board is Sheikh ul-Islam Haji Allahshukur Pashazade,
the main official cleric in Azerbaijan since Communist times,
who welcomed the foundation of the government's new "mediating
structure" in June 2001, on the grounds that it would
not interfere with his duties.
But
the new committee, which first of all said it would concentrate
on monitoring radical religious groups, soon began to ask
difficult questions about the board as well.
It
started to investigate the funding of Azerbaijan's mosque
building programmes, trips to Muslim holy places and religious
education, all the responsibility of Pashazade's department.
Since
February, the head of the new committee, the orientalist,
Rafik Aliev, has frequently appeared on television alleging
that the board committed financial abuses. "The financial
operations for building mosques generally occur outside the
banking system in the form of personal payments, which creates
a fertile soil for appropriating money that is not counted
for," he said.
The
majority of Azerbaijan's eight million inhabitants are Muslim,
most of them Shiite. Despite the proximity of another Shiite
state, the Islamic Republic of Iran, Azerbaijan has adopted
a Turkish secular model of statehood since independence.
However,
in the last few years, there has been a growth in Islamist
groups and an increase in mosque building. The government
has taken a greater interest in the former since the attacks
of September 11, when Azerbaijan strongly supported the United
States.
Although
the board has no links with extremism, it has been the main
victim of the government's new interest in religion. Encouraged
by the authorities, the Azerbaijani press recently revealed
that the department had signed an agreement in 1992 for the
building of ten mosques with the Turkish ministry responsible
for religious activities. They claimed that much of the money
earmarked for the project had been misappropriated.
"We
respect people's religious convictions and we are not interfering
in religious or ceremonial issues, but when it comes to the
building of houses and mosques, the state has to possess the
necessary information on the funds that have been spent," said Aliev.
Aliev's
new committee then proposed that the tax ministry should be
brought in to investigate the activities of the mosques -
which brought a sharp reaction from their main patrons. "Mosques
are not commercial organisations, which pay taxes to the government," said Haji Salman Musayev, first deputy chairman of the board.
Musayev
accused the government of breaking the principle of the separation
of religion and state and interfering in a sphere of activity
which was not its responsibility.
However,
the authorities' offensive continued. Aliev joined forces
with the education ministry to announce a plan to begin teaching
the "moral and cultural aspects of Islam",
promising to give the country's schoolchildren a new state-sponsored
religious education.
Aliev
also prevailed in another fight over the timing of Novruz,
the traditional New Year festival. Last month, it coincided
with the sacred Shiite ceremony of mourning, Ashura, dedicated
to the memory of the third Shiite imam, Hussein. The government
resisted appeals for Novruz to be postponed, with the result
that devout Shiites were in mourning, while the rest of the
country celebrated.
The
Azerbaijani media has been following the dispute with interest.
Some commentators praise the government's "reforms",
while others regard it as the state interfering with citizens'
religious lives.
Aliev
has defended his campaign, saying, "When the interests
of people who go beyond what the law allows are infringed,
the attacks grow on the representatives of the state committee."
"Unfortunately
religion was dealt a heavy blow back in Soviet times, when
holy books were burned and educated clerics were sent into
exile," responded Pashazade. "Bureaucrats
stood behind all the attacks on mosques and Islam. That is
what is happening now."
Nariman
Gasymoglu, a well-known theologian who is deputy head of the
opposition party the Popular Front of Azerbaijan, sees the
quarrel more in terms of power.
"Over
time, the outline of the conflict is becoming clear," he said. "The state's increasing control over religion
is hurting the Board of Muslims of the Caucasus, because it
is reducing its powers. The board feels wounded and that is
creating a negative reaction amongst believers as well. The
main reasons for the disagreements are deep and are political
in nature."
Gasymoglu
predicted that the board, which has traditionally been loyal
to the government, would face yet more pressure and gradually
bow to the new religious policy launched by the state.
Gulnara
Mamedzade
