Russia: Kremlin supports plan to form higher coordinating Muslim council
The Kremlin's chief domestic policy advisor Alexey Grishin has put his support behind plans to set up a higher Muslim coordinating council in Russia.
"This form will help deal with the Muslim community's most important problems on the basis of consensus, make joint statements and pass mufti's fatwas (edicts), and organize effective ties with the government," Grishin told the 4th congress of Tatarstan Muslims in Kazan on Saturday.
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The idea of setting up a council "with an equal representation of all Muslim boards has been backed by most of Russia's muftis and imams," Grishin said.
On the Muslim organizations' unity, he said, "our position on this issue has remained unchanged and we have always advocated unity between Russia's Muslims."
"But this process should be handled with great caution, as leaders of major Muslim organizations have said before, in order to avoid fresh conflicts and confrontation," he said.
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The head of one of Russia's leading Muslim organizations has expressed his doubts over an idea to create the post of supreme mufti to help unite the country's Muslims.
"If the Muslims do not see this person as a single, common mufti, he won't be a mufti and he won't have authority either in this country or abroad," head of Council of Muftis of Russia Ravil Gainutdin told the 4th congress of Tatarstan Muslims in Kazan on Saturday.
He also expressed doubts about setting up a higher coordinating Muslim council to be co-chaired by the heads of the three main Muslim associations: the Central Muslim Board, the Council of Muftis and the Coordinating Muslim Council of the North Caucasus. The idea was proposed about three months ago by head of the Central Muslim Board Talgat Tajuddin.
"We have tried before to set up various coordinating centers and councils. All in vain. We have gone through this and failed to become united over the past 20 years," Gainutdin said.
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Sources: Interfax 1, 2 (English)
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