A call by a Chechen lawyer for creating Shari`ah courts in Russia is inviting a strong opposition from Muslim religious leaders in the European country.
“According to the Constitution, religion is separated from the state in Russia,” Talgat Tajuddin, the head of the Central Spiritual Muslim Board, told Interfax news agency.
“Our country has its own judicial system and Muslims use it as equal citizens of Russia.”
Chechen lawyer Dagir Hasavov has earlier called for creating Shari`ah courts in Russia.
In an interview with REN-TV, the lawyer argued that Muslims can not resort to secular courts.
“You think that we come here to Russia as if it was some alien place to us. But we think that we are at home here. Maybe you are aliens here and we are at home,” he said.
“And we will impose the rules that suit us, whether you want it or not. Any attempts to stop us will end in blood,” the lawyer said.
But Russian Muslim leaders rejected the lawyer’s argument.
Tajuddin said muftis already intervene to settle disputes between Muslims and non-Muslim Russians.
He said Muslims contact their religious bodies if they have questions about religion, family, or inheritance issues.
“Unlike 30-40 years ago,” Muslims can freely practice their religion in Russia today, Tajuddin said.
The Russian Federation is home to some 23 million Muslims in the north of the Caucasus and southern republics of Chechnya, Ingushetia and Dagestan.
Islam is Russia’s second-largest religion representing roughly 15 percent of its 145 million predominantly Orthodox population.
‘Unfit’ Courts
The Moscow Muslim Board also rejected the call, saying that Shari`ah courts do not fit secular countries as Russia.
“Russia is a secular state and our theologian ancestors found a way to unite the religious and secular legal systems,” chairman Albir Krganov told Interfax.
“For example, the Central Spiritual Muslim Board has had the institution of qadis, who answer people’s questions about faith, for more than a century.”
Krganov argued that Shari`ah courts better fit religious countries as Iran, Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
The Muslim leader said that Shari`ah courts have negative perceptions among Russians.
“We all remember when people were publicly executed in the Caucasus in the name of religion, despite the fact that they had absolutely no right to do that.”
Mikhail Fedotov, the head of Russia’s Presidential Council on Human Rights, described the lawyer’s call for Shari`ah courts in Russia as “unacceptable”.
No civil state can have two coexisting court systems as it would undermine the rule of law, he told Interfax.
However, Vsevolod Chaplin, a spokesman for Russia’s Orthodox Church, said Russian Muslims should not be deprived of their customs and that Shari`ah courts could be established under the law.