Caucaz.com, Georgia
Aug 6 2005
Is there a place for Islam in Mikhael Saakashvili’s Christian Georgia? [INVESTIGATION]
By Bayram BALCI in Tbilisi, Batumi, Marneuli, Pankisi
(Translated by Sophie LANCASTER, Cristina PROIETTI and Victoria BRYAN)
Whatever their denomination, Georgian Muslims are finding it harder
and harder to recognise the new national ideology, put into place
by the Saakashvili regime. Over the coming years, their lack of
identification with a State which has clearly affirmed its attachment
to Christian values is likely to weaken further the understanding
between the strongly Muslim provinces and districts and the capital,
which has already had problems establishing itself.
A three-part investigation
© Bayram Balci
Should Islam in Georgia fear being marginalised? [ 1/3 ] At the
centre of the new national ideology in Georgia, whether in Tbilisi,
in the Kvemo Kartli region, where the majority of the population is
Shiite Azeri, and in Ajaria, despite the ‘Christianisation’ which
has taken place since independence, the Georgian Church has existed
alongside a Georgian variant of Islam that has been present in the
country since the start of the Muslim Conquest.
The day after his accession to power, Georgian President Mikhael
Saakashvili adopted a new national flag, clearly demonstrating the
commitment of the political regime to Christian values. The Five
Crosses (of King David) on this new flag are there to signify that
the country wants to resume links with its Christian past and that
it wants to put Christian spirituality in the centre of its national
construction. The crucial role of the Church in the history of Georgia,
which was one of the first States to adopt Christianity as an official
religion after Armenia, explains for the most part why, after 70 years
of militant atheism under the USSR, and since its independence, the
State has reintroduced Christianity. In the 19th century, after all
did not the Georgian nationalists centre themselves round the motto
“Language, fatherland and (Christian) faith”?
However, Islam is well-established in Georgia today. This Georgian
variety is also present in the Kvemo Kartli region, where the
population is mainly Shiite Azeri and also in Ajaria where Islam still
exists, despite the imposition of Christianity since independence.
Georgia also has other Muslim regions: a small minority in Abkhazia,
as well as 12,000 Kistins (related to the Chechens) in the Pankisi
valley, practice Georgian Islam, but their lack of numbers has not
allowed them any influence, as was true for the Meskhet Muslims, of
whom only a small minority could return the country after many years
of forced migrations between central Asia and the Russian federation.
The Islamisation of the country
Islam came to what is now known as Georgia at the start of the Arab
Conquest. From the 8th century the country became an Arab Emirate.
However, in 1122 things changed when King David IV seized Tbilisi to
make the capital into a Christian State.
The development of Islam in the country is the work of two regional
Muslim powers, the Safavid Empire of Iran and the Ottomans, which
established themselves somewhat successively, somewhat simultaneously,
on the current territory of Georgia. The Safavid domination caused
the migration of Turkish tribes in the region, leading to an in-depth
Islamisation of certain areas, in particular Kvemo Kartli and it’s
surrounding villages. The implementation of Islam in Ajaria was
carried out differently – it started later and was more superficial.
>>From the 19th century the obliteration of the two Muslim powers,
Safavid and Ottoman, in the face of Christian Russia of the Tsars
weakened Islam throughout Georgia without totally eradicating it.
Imperial Russian Politics in the Caucasus, as in other regions
populated with Muslims, oscillated between tolerance and orthodox
proselytism.
Perestroika and the winds of religious freedom
In the Soviet era, the ideological atheism of the national power
worked to crush all the religions present in the USSR, Islam in
particular. However, from 1944 onwards this anti-religious policy
was relaxed.
One of the four Departments for Spiritual Affairs for the Soviet
Union was founded at Baku. All of the Muslims of Georgia, both Sunni
and Shiite, depend on it. The perestroika allows greater religious
freedom which benefits not only the Church, but also all other
elements of Georgian Islam. Since the break-up of the Soviet Union,
links have developed between Islam at a local level and foreign
Islamic organisations, particularly those of Iran and Turkey.
In the absence of reliable statistics, it is difficult to give
accurate figures regarding the number of Muslims present in Georgia
today. However, a relatively impartial study suggests 640,000 were
present in 1989, equivalent to 12% of the total population. It would
seem that the trend is in decline due to a considerable migratory
phenomenon taking place among certain Muslim populations, above
all amongst the Azeris, candidates for expatriation to Russia for
financial reasons or to Azerbaijan for family reasons.
The Georgian Meskhets, an insignificant influence today
As well as the two main Muslim communities in Georgia – the Ajarians
and the Azeris – there are also other small Muslim ethnic groups. The
Meskhets, a group with hazy ethnic boundaries between ‘Turkism’ and
‘Georgianism’, constituted one of the essential elements of Islam
in Georgia up until World War II. Situated in the south-west of the
country, in the province of Meskhetia (Akhaltshikhe for the Ottomans),
this Turkist minority was subject to a massive deportation by Stalin
in 1944 (approximately 100,000 people) as he feared the possibility
that they would collaborate with the Germans or with the Turks,
their potential allies.
The Meskhets who define themselves as ‘Ahiska Turkleri’ (the Turks
from the province of Ahiska, Akhaltsia) have never stopped demanding
their re-entry to their native land from their places of deportation
(Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan). Since the perestroika, and
especially in the aftermath of ethnic confrontations between Uzbeks
and Meskhets in the town of Ferghana, the Meskhets have demanded
their right to return even more insistently.
The nationalist government of Zvia Ghamsakourdia, like that of Eduard
Shevardnadze, his successor, refused to satisfy these demands for
reasons that are, at the same time, political, nationalist and
geopolitical.
If a handful of families has been granted the right to return to
Georgia, fewer still have been authorised to reside in the historical
region of Meskhetia, whereas the great majority of these Sunni Meskhets
have been settled in Russia and in Azerbaijan. Fearing an excessively
violent reaction by the Georgians inhabiting the Meskhet villages
that were evacuated in 1944, the Georgian government has endeavoured
to block any efforts made by Meskhet associations, who are insisting
militantly on the repatriation of the historic land. It is because
of this that in Georgia the fraction of Meskhet Islam is virtually
insignificant, unlike the relatively dynamic form of Islam of the
Meskhets settled in Azerbaijan and Russia.
Abkhaz Islam hopes for a revival
Another minority Muslim group, the Abkhazians, live scattered
throughout the secessionist region of Abkhazia and in other Georgian
towns. They were in part converted to Islam throughout the 17th and
18th centuries under the Ottoman domination.
Starting in the 1860s with the Ottoman regression and faced with the
Russian progression in the Caucasus, a large part of the Abkhazian
Muslims (like Muslims from other minorities in the Caucasus) emigrated
south to the Ottoman towns.
During the Soviet period, Abkhazian Islam became weaker, but it would
seem that since the fall of the USSR, the establishment of links
between Abkhazians of Georgia and descendants of Abkhazian immigrants
in Turkey has somewhat favoured an Islamic revival.
When the Kistins of Pankisi suffer the disastrous effects of the war
in Chechnya
Another minority is Kistin Islam, an ethnic minority that belongs
to the Vainakh group and is therefore very close to the Chechens and
the Ingushetians.
Established in the Pankisi valley, in the North-East of Georgia,
for quite some time, this community of around 12,000 people has been
significantly shaped by Islamic brotherhoods, particularly that of
Qadiriyya (introduced by the famous Kunta Hadji in the 19th century)
and that of Nakshbandia (introduced into Kistin villages by an Azeri
mystic called Isa Efendi in 1909).
The Islam of the Kistins has been suffering for dozens of years from
the disastrous effects of the war which pits the Chechen freedom
fighters against the might of the Russian army. The worsening of
the Chechen conflict, which has radicalised Chechen Islam and led to
an influx of refugees into Pankisi has placed a lot of pressure on
the Kistins.
It is thought that it is this combination of factors that has led to
a new radicalisation taking root amongst the Kistins. This strain is
often wrongly referred to as ‘wahhabism’ but it is more complex than
many people realise.
Suspecting that certain Chechen freedom fighters have taken refuge
in the Kistin villages of the Pankisi valley, the Russian federal
government regularly threatens the Georgian government with intervening
on its soil to neutralise groups of fighters. Highly isolated in
its valley, Kistin Islam has very little contact with other forms
of Islam, such as those predominant forms that can be found amongst
Ajarians and Azeris in Georgia.
Madrasas in Georgia!
Throughout the whole of the Soviet era, Islam schooling for Muslims
across the Soviet Union was possible in two towns – Bukhara and
Tashkent, which are famous for their madrasas [Islamic schools].
Today, the majority of Islamic executives who are over 40 were
schooled there.
In Georgia, under the USSR, Muslims also went to Central Asia to
benefit from an Islamic schooling. However, in parallel to these
official (and therefore monitored) places, informal establishments
existed. These were smaller and were mainly found in places of
pilgrimage and small, undeclared mosques. In this way, some religious
elders had small circles of students, often no more than 10, who they
schooled in a unofficial fashion.
Following independence, in the countries where there is a grand
tradition of Muslim culture, such as Uzbekistan, Tadjekistan or
Azerbaijan, madrasas and Islamic universities began to spring up.
In Azerbaijan, a faculty of theology aimed at Turkish Sunnis and an
Islamic university with Iranian Shiite leanings were set up after the
country had gained independence. These establishments attract students
from all over the Caucasus, including from Georgia. But this does not
necessarily mean that it is impossible to receive an Islamic education
in Georgia. Although minor and not widespread, there are small madrasas
where it is possible to receive a good quality Islamic education.
Aside from Turkish movements and Iranian bases installed in
Azeri-speaking regions, which offer basic Islamic education, there is
a small faculty of theology in Tbilisi which was founded by a charity
foundation from Iran, linked to the Iman foundation. Similarly,
in the small village of Kosali, which is on the Azeri-Georgian
border 30km from Marneuli, a small Turkish madrasa has been set up
by Nakchibendi Turks, disciples of Osman Nuri Tobpa, who are mainly
active in Azerbaijan. This madrasa with Sunni leanings also welcomes
Shiite children who are not well informed on the Sunni-Shiite division
and who, because of this, become true Sunnis once they have graduated
from this madrasa.
Sunnis and Shiites living side-by-side but without ever integrating
Although all Islam in the country is regulated by the same
administration (the central mosque of Tbilisi which is the
responsibility of Hadji Ali, who has been designated by the Sheikh ul
Islam of Baku, Allahshukur Pachazadeh), two ‘Islams’ and therefore
two Muslim communities co-exist de facto in Georgia – Azeris, which
are mainly Shiite, and Ajarians, which are mainly Sunni. Links
between these two communities are virtually non-existent, with the
exception of a few devotees who occasionally pray together in the
central mosque in Tbilisi, which has been designed to allow two
denominations to practise.
This absence of a unified Islam in Georgia means that the two schools
do not have the same demands to make of the central state.
The demands of Shiite Azeris are more economic than religious,
particularly in light of the deterioration of their situation since
the country’s independence. Religious issues are directed to Baku and
the Department of Spiritual Affairs, which in turn delegates problems
from its Azeri Shiite minority to Tbilisi.
On the other hand, Ajarian Muslims, which are not an ethnic minority
like the Azeris, have a different relationship with the Georgian state.
Muslims, but Georgian, they are in a difficult position as the central
state encourages Ajarian Muslims to convert to Christianity, which
is promoted as the “true” religion of Georgians.
The state’s policies on education and identity are obviously aimed
at diffusing Christianity, but it does not get directly involved,
preferring instead proselytism and conversions to the Church.
In a general sense, the main problem today in Georgia, where the
ideology of the new state is based on the past and the country’s
Christian values, is the marginalisation of major parts of the
population that are not Christian.
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