Russian Converts to Islam Promote Tolerance

Taras Cherniyenko looks like a typical young Russian banker: neatly dressed in a short-sleeved shirt and necktie, with a thin beard and short hair.

Sitting in a cafe on Ulitsa Sretenka, he told the story of how a spiritual discovery that began in his early teens led to his conversion to Islam and the adoption of the name Abdul Karim.

Now Cherniyenko is the vice chairman of a new organization of ethnic Russian converts to Islam, the National Organization of Russian Muslims.

The values that Islam offers as guidance, such as the restriction on alcohol consumption, are values he and his colleagues in the group wish to share with Russia as possible solutions to problems that the country faces.

"One can say that drinking vodka or wine is a significant aspect of Russian culture, yet I can be a good Russian while not drinking alcohol," Cherniyenko said. "Most of the social problems in Russia are caused by alcohol consumption.

"If we can introduce some Islamic social values to Russia, society and the country will become stronger."

When Cherniyenko tells Russians he is Muslim, they react mostly with curiosity, he said. Many ask him why he chose to convert, not out of rudeness but out of interest.

"I am not counting the hard-core nationalists, of course, but those are maybe only 5 percent," he said.

"I grew up in a rather liberal environment in St. Petersburg," he said. "My parents encouraged me in all of my studies, which included different religions and cultures.

"I learned to read the Torah in Hebrew, the Gospels in Greek. I did not study Hindu texts as much, unfortunately, but I did read them."

Cherniyenko's study of different religions led him on a search for a faith whose interpretation would coincide with his own.

"For me, to understand Jesus' passions, one had to understand them as a man's passions," he said. "I was searching for a faith that, rather than rejecting Jesus or worshipping him as a god, would recognize him as a man -- a pure, sinless man, but a man. That led me to Islam."

The number of Russians who convert to Islam is quite small, said Alexei Malashenko, an analyst at the Carnegie Moscow Center. "I would count them in the dozens, at most," he said.

Vladimir Divakhov, a spokesman for the Moscow Patriarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church, agreed, saying that the church has no stated policy on Russians converting to Islam. "The situation arises very rarely," he said. "Most often, Russian converts to Islam have been Russian women who marry Muslim men. It occurs very infrequently, however."

Cherniyenko estimated that the membership of the group stands at about 2,000, in approximately 20 of the country's regions. He cautioned, however, that since the organization has not yet applied for registration with the Justice Ministry, no formal list of members exists.

There are 19 million Muslims in Russia, making Islam the country's second-largest religion, behind Russian Orthodoxy.

Russian conversion to Islam is not always viewed neutrally. In an April 2003 interview with the web site portal-credo.ru, Gusman Iskhakov, the mufti of Tatarstan, expressed his displeasure at the idea of Russians converting.

"A person must remain himself. He was born, that is his homeland, his nation. He must not change his nation, his religion, his name every year," Iskhakov was quoted as saying. "The Russians who convert to Islam are not very reassuring. They are usually more aggressive, and their mentality is completely different."

But a spokesman for Iskhakov's office clarified the mufti's remarks, saying that the reporter made them sound more negative than they were intended to sound.

"The mufti said simply that it would make him happier to see more Tatars, Muslims, return to the practice of Islam," the spokesman said by telephone from Kazan.

Cherniyenko dismissed Iskhakov's reported concerns about the susceptibility of Russian converts to extremism. Another goal the group has is to develop discipline among Muslims, he said, and to prevent them from falling into extremist and militant groups.

Cherniyenko sees Iskhakov's statement as not merely a usurpation of spiritual authority that ultimately belongs to an individual Muslim, but also a deprivation of a constitutional right.

"The Constitution of the Russian Federation gives every citizen the right to worship according to the dictates of his conscience," he said. "When the mufti of Tatarstan says [that Russians should not convert to Islam], he is taking away a right we have under the Constitution."

Farid Asadullin, assistant to the head of the Council of Muftis of Russia, offered a more neutral position than that reported by portal-credo.ru.

"Conversion to Islam is a personal choice," he said. "Our task is to encourage a proper understanding of Islamic teachings. We will work together with such an organization as the occasion requires, because they are our spiritual brothers."

As for the group's future, "we hope that we will extend beyond Russia into all of the countries of the former Soviet Union," Cherniyenko said. At the founding meeting in Omsk in June, there were representatives of Russian Muslim communities in Kazakhstan, and the group has been in contact with potential members in Ukraine.

Fundamentally, the common thread among the organization's membership and among all Muslims is spirituality. Cherniyenko's prayers usually have two parts, he said, the first being a prescribed prayer, required of all Shiite Muslims. The second can be about anything a person might be feeling on any particular day.

"Mostly, I pray for my mother, my family, and peace and prosperity for the Muslim community," he said.