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October 23, 2006

Russia: Nation Will Not Become Islamic For Centuries

At the end of last year, author and Islamic historian Roman Silanteyev caused controversy when he published a book entitled: "A Recent History of the Russian Islamic Community", in which he claimed that there were between 500,000 and 1,000,000 Islamic militants residing in Russia.

Silantayev is executive director of the Inter-Religious Council, a body which represents leaders of different faiths who are committed to dialogue. Now, according to Interfax-Religion, he has said that Russia will not become Islamic for the next 3 or 4 centuries.

He was speaking in an interview with Komsomolskaya Pravda, published on Friday. He refuted claims that Orthodox Russians were converting to Islam in droves. Citing Muslim estimates that there were little more than 3,000 converts to Islam throughout Russia, he said: "Most of the new converts are women who changed their faith when they married Muslims. While those among them who have embraced Islam for ideological reasons are no more than 800 people in Russia today."

Silanteyev states that 2 million ethnic Muslims have converted to Christianity over the past 20 years. He claims that many people listed in statistics as "Muslim" are only nominal, and do not profess their faith: "Today the proportion of Muslims in Russia must be at least 9%. However, sociological polls have shown a much smaller number, namely, from 4% to 6%, that is, from 6 to 9 million Russians, for the last decade. This paradox can be accounted for only by the fact that a considerable part of ethnic Muslims do not profess Islam."

He made reference to statistics which assert that the ethnically Muslim population of Russia, which increased from 12 million in 1989 to 14.5 million in 2002 is now at around 15 million.

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at October 23, 2006 6:59 AM

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