The Talking Dead: Everyday Muslim Practice in Russia

Abstract

This article focusses on the issue of “traditional Islam” in Russia and the practices associated with it. Employing an approach that combines the concepts of lived religion and everyday nationalism, those practices are taken into consideration that are often interpreted in terms of vernacular Islam and regarded skeptically, if not outright rejected, by proponents of a more global Islam. Discussed in detail are commemoration ceremonies for the dead, prayers in the cemetery, saint veneration and local pilgrimage, the mawlid celebration and the use of prayer beads. These practices indicate an outlook on life, where Muslim believers cultivate a close connection to their environment and maintain personal relations to various human and more-than-human beings, thus creating the space for an exchange crossing the boundary between life and death. The article contributes to the anthropological study of Islam in Russia and—by focusing on religious practice—specifically attempts to capture the main characteristics of “traditional Islam.”

Pietaskscapes of halal living: subjectivity, striving, and space-making in Muslim Russia

“…Discussions of Islamic spaces have often given centre stage to places of worship and devotionmosques, shrines, pilgrimage sites, and so forth (Harris and Dawut 2002;Harris 2015;Walton 2015;Fatima 2016; Di Puppo and Schmoller 2019Schmoller , 2020. Such landscape features, thanks to their concreteness and their clear ("objective") function, make for a relatively comfortable subject of social-scientific treatment.…”

“…Many of my observant respondents, especially those with some engagement with Salafi theology, exclude such places from their pietaskscapes. On the other hand, there are currents in Islam that tolerate or encourage local pilgrimages (Schmoller 2020). For those religionists, visits to holy sites might well be a high-intensity performance of pietas: the answer can only be subjective.…”

Vernacular Entanglements: Islam and Communism in a Bulgarian Village

“…It is nonetheless important to acknowledge that the local people themselves distinguish some practices not as "Muslim" in a universal way, but as "usual," "ours," "traditional," or "our ways" -and they do so irrespective of whether they approve of such practices or question their correctness. 21 Moreover, over the past three decades of religious liberalization, in Belan, claims to the (in)correctness of "usual" and "new" forms of Islam have referred regularly to vernacular notions of communism.…”