The Muftis and the Myths: Constructing the Russian “Church for Islam”

Abstract

Over the last thirty years, Russia’s muftiates heavily invested in becoming a national “church for Islam,” an Islamic counterpart of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC), that would meet the state’s ideological needs. Three discourse clusters generated by the Muslim leadership—on loyal, liberal, and correct Islam—were meant to increase the muftiates’ authority in Russia’s domestic and foreign policy. A diachronic analysis of these discourse clusters shows that by early 2022 the muftiates, unlike the ROC, have largely failed to create political value for Putin’s regime.