Some Soviet works on Muslim solidarity

The title is a book review by Jacob M. Landau published in " Middle Eastern Studies”, (1989) Vol. 25: 1, 95-98 . The following is an excerpt of the review.

Czarist Empire and Pan-Islam and Pan-Turkism

In the last decades of the Czarist Empire, the Russians were concerned about the politics of such movements as Pan-Islam and Pan-Turkism. The Soviet government has paid no less attention to these, believing that all pan-movements were liable to clash with official state ideology. In practical terms, this means that the movements were capable of fostering alternative ideologies - by definition cosmopolitan and international and therefore evil and subversive. Pan-Islam has played a central role in a Soviet politics, due to the large and steadily-growing Muslim minorities in the Soviet Union. Much of the official support for atheism and attacks on religion focused on Islam, especially on aspects which state doctrine considered retrograde and outmoded. To a foreign observer, the vehemence of this anti-Pan-Islamic propaganda appears exaggerated, indeed, considering the movement's relative weakness, especially in the Soviet bloc.

Pan-Islamism and Muslim solidarity

Over the past thirty years, Pan-Islamic sentiment has been manifested primarily in activities intended to bolster Muslim solidarity, chiefly .through the establishment of an increasing number of organizations encouraging co-operation and co-ordination among Islamic states and peoples. The growing importance of these organizations, based on oil power and revenues, as well as an increasing involvement in missionary work and intemational activities, was noted by other universal institutions, such as the Catholic Church. 1

The Soviets appear to have had special reasons for concern over potential impact of Muslim solidarity, particularly since their direct involvement in Afghanistan in late 1979. Soviet authorities were able to o cope with isolated expressions of sympathy for the Afghans among Soviet Muslims, but found the reaction of foreign Muslims far more embarrass ing. Soon after Soviet troops had entered Afghanistan, Islamabad "'2 served as the venue of an international Muslim assembly, convened by the Organization of the Islamic Conference, the largest and wealthiest contemporary Muslim association (more than 40 states are currently affiliated). Although the conference could not agree on a unanimous condemnation of the Soviet action - owing to the reservations of Syria and other Soviet allies - the harsh criticism expressed must have been unpalatable to the Soviets, as was Muslim voting on the issue at the United Nations.

The above developments were apparently conducive to intensified Soviet research on Muslim international organizations in recent years. Since the early 1980s, a growing number of Soviet works on these organizations have been published, frequently based on Russian and non-Russian (chiefly Arabic) materials. This review will attempt to point out some of the major characteristics of these works.

Supra-national Muslim organizations

Of course, some interest in supra-national Muslim organizations was evinced in earlier Soviet publications as well. One example is the book by V.L. Bodyanskiy and M.S. Lazaryev, Saudovskaya Araviya poslye Sauda: osnovniye tyendyentsii vnyeshnyey politiki (1964--1966 gg.) [Saudi Arabia After Saud: Basic Foreign Policy Trends, 1964--1966] (Moscow: Nauka Press, 1967; 116 pp.). An entire chapter deals with 'Eastern policies' (pp.57-75), emphasizing King Faysal's premature efforts to establish an organizational framework for Muslim co-operation.

By the early 1980s, however, the efforts of both King Saud and King Faysal had borne fruit. Following the Soviet involvement in Afghanistan, many Russian publications began to devote increasing attention to the above supra-national Muslim organizations. For example, one chapter of Islam kratkiy spravochink [Islam: a Short Guide] (Moscow: Nauka Press, 1983; 160 pp.) deals with international Muslim organizations (pp. 127-33). The various contributors to this chapter list no fewer than 24 associations and affiliated bodies, with brief histories, names of principal officers, locations and domains of activity. In the same year, A. Ionova, an economic historian, analysed Islamic economic solidarity in an article entitled 'Islam i myedzhdunarodnoye ckonomichycskoye sotrudnichyestvo' ['Islam and International Economic Co-operation') (Aziya i Afrika Syegodnya, Moscow, pant 3, March 1983, pp.15-17). This was a penetrating examination of Pan-Islamic joint economic activities, leading to an attack on Muslim business ethics and an oft-repeated accusation that these activities were integrated in the global capitalist system.

Muslim solidarity in recently published books in the Soviet Union

Most of the books about Islam, recently published in the Soviet Union, have discussed, at various lengths, both Muslim solidarity and the organisations created to aid in its achievement. For example, consider the study by A. Akhmyedov, Islam v sovryemyennoy idyeyno-politichyeskoy borb' ye [Islam in the Contemporary Ideological-Political Struggle] (Moscow: Political Literature Press, 1985; 240 pp.). Early in his book, the author discusses the Organization of the Islamic Conference, the Muslim World League and the Muslim World Congress (pp. 11-24). The first and second were established and subsequently financed by the Saudis in 1969 and 1962, rcspectivcly. The third had been set up earlier, soon after the end of the Second World War, in Pakistan, as a kind of successor to an association established between the two world wars. Akhmyedov fails to emphasize that the first was an official organization of Islamic states, while the others were groupings initiated by individuals and associations.

Even more attention is devoted to Muslim solidarity in a collection of articles edited by A.I. Ionova, entitled Islam: Problyemi idyeologii, prava i ekonomiki. Sbornik statyey [Islam: Problems of Ideology, Law and Economics. A Collection of Articles] (Moscow: Nauka Press, 1985; 280 pp.). A key contribution to this volume is L. R. Polonskaya's paper on contemporary Muslim ideological trends (pp.6-25). The writer, a veteran researcher on Pan-Islam, maintains that the ideology of Muslim solidarity aims at devising conceptions to solve the issues of war and peace independently of the Superpowers. Nevertheless, she accuses its thinkers and leaders of adopting an anti-Soviet stand, as in what she considers 'Muslim support for the counter-revolution in Afghanistan' (p. 19). Three other interesting articles merit special mention: T. P. Miloslavskaya and G. V. Miloslavskiy on the theory and practice of the Organization of the Islamic Conference's financial and economic activity (pp.59--67).; R.M. Sharipova on the economic conceptions of the ideologues of the Muslim World League (pp.68-79); and A. Kh. Nakkash on the doctrine of 'Islamic economy' (pp.248--52).

Recent Soviet works on Islamic solidarity have increasingly focused on the two major international bodies, the Organization of the Islamic Conference and the Muslim World League. The former is the subject of a detailed article by L.B. Borisov, 'Organizatsiya Islamskaya Konfyeryentsiya: Politichyeskiye aspyekti dyeyatyel'nosti' ['The Organization of the Islamic Conference: Political Aspects of [Its] Activity') Narody Azii i Afriki, part 4, 1983, pp. 101--8). Emphasis on political aspects probably suggests official concern over the association's increasing political activity, transcending the religious and economic spheres. Examining the debates and resolutions of the Organization, Borisov points out its growing attention to conflicts involving Muslims Palestine, Lebanon, Iran-Iraq and Afghanistan. He then expresses concem that the forces of imperialism may attempt to direct the Organization, disparities among its member-states notwithstanding, against the Soviet Union.

Muslim World League and Soviet researchers

The Muslim World League has been of even more consuming interest to Soviet researchers. This non-govemmental organization, amply funded by the Saudi govemment and engaged in world-wide religious, missionary and educational activities, was naturally a suspect institution. An account of its activities was published by R. M. Sharipova and T.P. Tikhonova, 'Liga Islamskogo mira: Ot traditsionalizma k ryeformatorstvu' [The Muslim World League: From Traditionalism to Reformism'] (Narodi i Afriki, part 2, 1984, pp.30-39). Based on the League's publications and other sources, the article examines this organization's extensive propaganda in the 1970s and the early 1980s and its relative success. The two writers perceive a threat in the League's attempt to adopt a position between capitalism and communism, arguing that the stance constitutes pretence, founded on petit-bourgeois premises.

Sharipova subsequently wrote a full-length study of the Muslim World League, the only available book of its kind, entitled Panislamizm syegodnya. Idyeologiya i praktika Ligi Islamskogo Mira [Pan-Islamism Today: The Ideology and Praxis of the Muslim World League] (Moscow: Nauka Press, 1986; 141 pp.). The work is divided into three chapters: i) The League's basic principles - structure, goals, and methods (pp. 16-48); ii) Ideological objectives - Islamic solidarity, Islamization, theories of Islamic economy, and decolonization of the media (pp.49--103); iii) Activity guidelines - views on international problems, issues of war and peace, and the problems of Muslim minorities (pp.104-30). These are followed by a short but useful bibliography. No index is provided, but the table of contents is presented in both Russian and Eng1ish, an uncommon feature in Soviet books (although scholarly periodicals have adhered to this practice for some time). This is a well-researched study, focusing on the League's basic concepts and major activities, illustrated by amply documented cases. It is significant that the writer takes the League seriously, in considering its persistent advance towards the achievement of its ends, warning the reader against what Sharipova perceives as the League's 'counter-revolutionary stand'.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the growing number of Soviet publications on the international organizations which promote Muslim solidarity not only add substantially to our knowledge of the subject but also reflect a thinly veiled concern over the possible effects of the activities of these organizations on Soviet global interests and -by implication, at least - on Muslim minorities in the Soviet Union itself.

Notes

1. The Vatican has recently published a 121-page book on these activities, entitled Les Organisations islamiques internationales (Rome, 1984) (Etudes Arabes, Dossiers, no. 66, 1984-1).