From: MSN NicknameEagle_wng  (Original Message)    Sent: 5/25/2006 3:58 AM
Chechen Sufi revival —between Russian occupation and Wahhabis
Submitted by Bill Weinberg on Wed, 05/24/2006 - 21:57.

How interesting. In an implicit acknowledgement that their hardcore Islamophobe policies are backfiring in Chechya, the Russian authorities are embracing the indigenous peace-loving Sufi tradition as an alternative to the violently intransigent Wahhabism imported from the Arab world. But this could also backfire—as the Sufis themselves also seek independence from Russia, even if they aren't willing to blow up civilians to acheive it. The implications are "unclear" indeed. And while it is good to see the Kunta-Haji Sufis on page 4 of the New York Times, we're not sure they would appreciate the writer's depiction of their chanting as "grunts."

    A Whirling Sufi Revival With Unclear Implications
    By C. J. Chivers

    GROZNY, Russia — Three circles of barefoot men, one ring inside another, sway to the cadence of chant.

    The men stamp in time as they sway, and grunt from the abdomen and throat, filling the room with a primal sound. One voice rises over the rest, singing variants of the names of God.

    The men stop, face right and walk counterclockwise, slowly at first, then fast. As they gain speed they begin to hop on their outside feet and draw closer. The three circles merge into a spinning ball.

    The ball stops. It opens back up. The stamping resumes, softly at first, then louder. Many of the men are entranced. The air around them hums. The wooden floor shakes. The men turn left and accelerate the other way.

    This is a zikr, the mystical Sufi dance of the Caucasus and a ritual near the center of Chechen Islam.

    Here inside Chechnya, where Russia has spent six years trying to contain the second Chechen war since the Soviet Union collapsed, traditional forms of religious expression are returning to public life. It is a revival laden with meaning, and with implications that are unclear.

    The Kremlin has worried for generations about Islam's influence in the Caucasus, long attacking local Sufi traditions and, in the 1990's, attacking the role of small numbers of foreign Wahhabis, proponents of an austere Arabian interpretation of Islam whom Moscow often accuses of encouraging terrorist attacks.

    But Chechnya's Sufi brotherhoods have never been vanquished — not by repression, bans or exile by the czars or Stalin, and not by the Kremlin of late.

    Now they are reclaiming a place in public life. What makes the resurgence so unusual is that Sufi practices have become an element of policy for pro-Russian Chechens. Zikr ceremonies are embraced by the kadyrovsky, the Kremlin-backed Chechen force that is assuming much of the administration of this shattered land.

    Post-Soviet Russia tried to make zikr celebrations a symbol of Chechen aggression, portraying zikr as the dance and trance of the rebels, the ritual of the untamed. Now zikr is performed by the men the Kremlin is counting on to keep Chechnya in check.

    The occasion for ceremony on this day was the blessing of the foundation of a mosque that will be named for Akhmad Kadyrov, the Russian-backed Chechen president who was assassinated in 2004.

    The mosque, whose foundation rests on the grounds of the former headquarters of the Communist Party's regional committee, is meant to replace older associations. Not only is it an implicit rebuke of Communism, it is situated beside the ruins of another, much smaller mosque that was being constructed by the separatists in the 1990's.

    Its scale and grandeur are intended as public statement. At a cost of $20 million, it will be a sprawling complex, with room for a religious school and a residence for the mufti, said Amradin Adilgeriyev, an adviser to Ramzan Kadyrov, Chechnya's pro-Kremlin premier and son of the slain president.

    The mosque will hold 10,000 worshipers, making it the largest in the republic. Its minarets will rise 179 feet in the air. It will speak not just of faith, but of power.

    And so on this day the men dance. And dance. Tassels on their skullcaps bounce and swing. Sweat darkens their shirts. They are perhaps 90 in men in all, mostly young. They look strong. But zikr is demanding. As some of them tire, they step aside. Others take their place.