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June 14, 2006

Russia: Have Figures for the Muslim Population Been Inflated?

Over the past several years, Muslim leaders in Russia have claimed that Muslims are a sizable minority in the country, with estimates varying from 10% to as high as 20% of the population. In number-terms that is between 15 million and 30 million people. Their goal is clearly political power and influence in the world's largest country, and one with thousands of nuclear warheads.

Just exactly how do these Muslim leaders determine who is a Muslim? Their answer--- anyone born in a Muslim region.

Let's look closer at the data. According to a survey in 2002 by the polling agency, VTsIOM, 58% of Russia's (then) apprxomiate 147 million populaton said they were Christian Orthodox, and only 5 percent claimed to be Muslim.

According to the 2002 Russian census (as reported on Wikipedia), we see the following populations of so-called `Muslim' nations (below), and they all add up to just over 13.3 million, which is 11 percent of the population. BUT... not only do most of these `Muslims' not consider themselves Muslim, some of them actually consider themselves Christians. This is the case for many Tatars, who are the most populous `Muslim' nation. The muftis ignore this fact.

Tajiks 120,136 (0.08%)
Tatars 5,554,601 (3.83%)
Bashkirs 1,673,389 (1.15%)
Kazakhs 653,962 (0.45%)
Azerbaijani 621,840 (0.43%)
Karachays 192,182 (0.13%)
Uzbeks 122,916 (0.08%)
Balkars 108426 (0.07%)
Turks 95,672 (0.06%)
Nogais 90,666 (0.06%)
Circassians 60,517 (0.04%)
Turkmens 33,053 (0.02%)
Kirghiz 31,808 (0.02%)
Crimean Tatars 4,131 (0.00%)
Chechens 1,360,253 (0.94%)
Avars 814,473 (0.56%)
Kabardians 519,958 (0.36%)
Ingush 413,016 (0.28%)
Lezgins 411,535 (0.28%)
Laks 156,545 (0.11%)
Adyghe 128,528 (0.09%)
Abazas 37,942 (0.03%)
Rutuls 29,929 (0.02%)
Aguls 28,297 (0.02%)

So, out of 11 percent of the population that could in theory be Muslim, only less than half of this amount is actually interested in this violent cult. Even then, it's most likely these `Muslims' are cultural Muslims, with little understanding of the violent teachings of the 7th century Arabian warlord Mohammed.

Now, let's look at a very insightful example to prove my point. Last week, there were celebrations for the 1,117th anniversary of the conversion of the Tatar Bulgars to Islam. Volga Bulgaria was a medieval state on the upper reaches of the Volga River from the 7th to the 13th centuries, and is considered the ancestor to modern-day Tatarstan, the most populous `Muslim' republic.

How many Muslims came to celebrate what should be a very important event, in the very center of a `Muslim' republic --- only 10,000 came! Even more interesting, Russian media reported that it was 10,000 people who came from across Russia and the entire Commonwealth of Independent States. This is a total of 12 countries, many of which are the `Muslim' republics of Central Asia, and all they could gather was 10,000 devout Muslims!

The muftis can claim as many Muslims as they want in order to try to wield political power. And Power is clearly their goal. They want to scare the political establishment in Moscow. ``You must do what we say, do what we want, you must take Islam into consideration when deciding internal and foreign policy; We have sway over one-fifth of the population,'' is basically what the muftis are saying. But their Muslim population estimates are total lies.

Let's listen carefully to the `Muslim' population. They are clearly voting with their feet. They don't go to Muslim festivals, they don't go to mosques, they don't read the Koran, and they certainly don't care about the violent teachings of a 7th century Arab warlord and pedophile.

In conclusion, the muftis have no real power base, and there's no reason to take Muslims seriously as a political force in Russia. The Russian government should not take their interests into consideration when formulating policy.

Posted by at June 14, 2006 4:48 PM

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