Aina Gamzatova: The Muslim girl intelligent Putin

Moscow, Russia – Aina Gamzatova, a forty six-365 days-primitive girl from Dagestan, has made it legit. She wishes to sprint against Russian President Vladimir Putin in the March 2018 election.

A total bunch of her supporters gathered around her to celebrate in Makhachkala, Dagestan’s capital, on Saturday, two days after she confirmed her uncover in a Fb submit.

Gamzatova heads Russia’s greatest Muslim media retaining – Islam.ru – comprising television, radio and print stores, writes books on Islam, and runs a charity.

Her husband, Akhmad Abdulaev, is the Mufti of Dagestan, Russia’s scared province the establish a war of phrases between opponents, clans and federal forces has killed 1000’s.

She belongs to a Sufi repeat that has tens of 1000’s of followers and whose chief, Said-Afandi Chirkavi, used to be killed by a feminine suicide bomber in the Caucasus in 2012.

Muslim chief Said Muhammad Abubakarov, Gamzatova’s first husband, used to be blown up in his car aid in 1998. His killers have never been stumbled on, nevertheless he publicly lambasted « Wahabbis » – a term Gamzatova in most cases uses to recount the opponents she wishes to safe troublesome on.

They are « duplicitous » and « blood-thirsty », she has acknowledged in books and speeches, no matter loss of life threats and the killings of other Sufi-affiliated figures in Dagestan.

Gamzatova says her uncover ought to mute no longer be seen as a Muslim are trying to oust Putin [Alexei Druzhinin/RIA Novosti/Kremlin/Reuters]

Gamzatova’s candidacy has develop to be a sizzling topic among Russia’s Muslim team.

Whereas some bellow she ought to mute no longer step outdoors her husband’s shadow, others applaud her resolution.

« What about the lawful teachings that a woman can no longer even shuffle away her condominium without her husband? » Patimat Ibragimova, an observant Muslim mother of two from Dagestan’s Makhachkala, instructed Al Jazeera. « Or she can, and the law is for us, mere mortals? »

Aisha Anastasiya Korchagina, an ethnic Russian convert to Islam who works as a psychologist in Moscow, acknowledged: « She used to be courageous adequate to spend her correct correct, that is granted to every Russian national, to sprint for president, she is courageous adequate to sprint a first rate election marketing campaign. »

Some explore her marketing campaign – no matter its results – as a attain to take hold of the image of Muslim ladies folk in Russia and to entice attention to the wants of impoverished, overpopulated and multi-ethnic Dagestan. 

« Even though she loses, other folks will know that a woman in a hijab [a headscarf worn by many Muslim women who feel it is part of their religion] will not be any longer perfect a mother or a woman, nevertheless is moreover an trained, wise and revered girl, » oldschool Olympic champion in boxing and Dagestan’s deputy sports minister Gaidarbek Gaidarbekov wrote on Instagram.

No longer mighty, nevertheless taking fragment

It is one thing of a given that Gamzatova has no probability of mighty, even if one and all of Russia’s 20 million Muslims votes for her in a country of extra than 140 million other folks.

« Take into accout the truth that, she would possibly well maybe no longer develop to be president, or no longer it’s unimaginative to even focus on about it, » wrote Zakir Magomedov, a regular blogger from Dagestan.

Nonetheless, she would possibly well maybe moreover just receive a high collection of votes in Dagestan and the Northern Caucasus – one thing that can kill Putin’s picture in the unemployment-addled space that carefully relies on federal subsidies and the establish – per election monitors – officials mechanically resort to vote rigging and coercion of voters.

« She’s going to definitely safe a majority vote – and Putin would possibly well maybe no longer safe his feeble 146 p.c from the republic, » Magomedov wrote, referring to a comical story among Kremlin critics about the percentage of Putin’s loyalists.

There are round 20 million Muslims in Russia, a country of extra than 140 million other folks [Maxim Shemetov/Reuters]

One more professional acknowledged that Gamzatova’s candidacy diversifies the pool of mostly male presidential candidates.

« Right here is an exclusively PR step of a rather minute scale » in Russia’s political landscape, Ekaterina Sokirianskaia, a Northern Caucasus professional and director of the Warfare Analysis and Prevention Centre, a Moscow-based fully mediate-tank, instructed Al Jazeera. « The extra diversified candidates, especially ladies folk, the higher, and he or she is a Muslim girl, why no longer? »

Gamzatova, who didn’t acknowledge to Al Jazeera’s inquire of of for interview, is by some distance the most pleasing hopeful in the presidential sprint among a string of nominal rivals and a pair of opposition figures whose ratings path some distance in the aid of Putin’s.

A condominium divided

Thus some distance, Gamzatova’s statements are miniature to catchy nevertheless unsubstantial declarations.

« There’s an ethical phrase, ‘A condominium divided can no longer stand’, » she wrote on Fb Wednesday. « Our country, Russia, is our home, and if we divide ourselves into Muslims and Christians, Caucasus natives and Russians, our country’s executive will no longer exist. »

[My candidacy] ought to mute no longer be seen interior a clerical context or an are trying of Muslims to carry out a competitor to Vladimir Putin … It is a desire to publicly hiss and toughen on the federal stage a harsh anti-Wahhabism stance.

Aina Gamzatova, presidential hopeful

Nonetheless one fragment of her election marketing campaign is loud and sure: she wishes the Kremlin to safe more challenging on opponents who desire to attach a separate speak in the Northern Caucasus below Islamic law.

Her candidacy « ought to mute no longer be seen interior a clerical context or an are trying of Muslims to carry out a competitor to Vladimir Putin », she wrote in a portion printed on Friday on Islam.ru. « It is a desire to publicly hiss and toughen on the federal stage a harsh anti-Wahhabism stance that both native authorities and some federal officials in cost for the gap have tried to silence in present years. »

The rise of armed teams in Russia dates aid to the early Nineties, when a entire bunch of opponents from the Muslim world joined separatists in neighbouring Chechnya.

Many were Saudis, and their doctrine outlawed Sufis as « polytheists » who venerate « saints » and holy sites.

Sufism has deep roots in the Northern Caucasus, the establish it helped alleviate inter-ethnic tensions and cement resistance to czarist armies and Communist-skills efforts to uproot Islam.

The opponents alienated some Sufi separatists in Chechnya who most new an alliance with the Kremlin. One of them used to be Ramzan Kadyrov, Chechnya’s present pro-Kremlin strongman.

In Dagestan, the opponents started Europe’s « most violent war » sooner than the 2014 hostilities in Eastern Ukraine, the International Crisis Neighborhood mediate-tank acknowledged. In 2012, the war killed on the least seven-hundred other folks and wounded but another 525, it acknowledged.

Security forces gasoline violence with abductions, torture and extrajudicial killings of other folks merely suspected of membership in « radical » teams, Human Rights Gaze has acknowledged. Even though a individual is blacklisted by mistake, threats, constant interrogations and beatings in detention pressure him to affix the opponents, per the rights team.

Since 2013, North Caucasus opponents started pledging allegiance to the Islamic Assert and other teams in Syria and Iraq, and flocked there in droves.

Nevertheless, Gamzatova believes the downside is much from solved, no matter makes an are trying by regional authorities to originate a dialogue with opponents.