Adoption of Islam by volunteers emphasized Chechnya's role in training special operation fighters

Forcing to convert to Islam or deciding to convert to Islam for money would be the height of cynicism, the Caucasian scholars interviewed by the "Caucasian Knot" have pointed out, not ruling out the fact that volunteers themselves have decided to convert to Islam in Chechnya before departing to Ukraine. In their opinion, such volunteers' initiative has stressed the Chechnya's special role in training fighters for the special military operation.

Seven volunteers who decided to take part in the military operation in Ukraine have converted to Islam in the building of the Spiritual Administration of Muslims (SAM) of Chechnya, the "Grozny-Inform" News Agency reported on August 1. In particular, Victor Shiyanov, a resident of the Stavropol Territory, who took the name of Saifulla, said that he "had long wanted to convert to Islam." "I made this decision even before joining the ranks of volunteers. Well, somehow it didn't work out," the republic's news agency quoted him as saying. Some volunteers arriving in Chechnya from other Russia regions adopt Islam just before being sent to Ukraine, the report notes.

The adoption of Islam could be the volunteers' own decision, said Akhmet Yarlykapov, a senior researcher at the Centre for Eurasian Studies at the MGIMO (Moscow State Institute of International Relations). "There are always people who voluntarily convert to Islam even under normal conditions, and not just [before being sent] to the special operation zone," he told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent, adding that forcing one into Islam "is forbidden by the Islamic religion itself."

If a monetary reward was promised for converting to Islam, then "it would be the height of cynicism both on the part of those who had offered this kind of reward, and on the part of those who had just adopted Islam," Mr Yarlykapov has concluded.

There is nothing surprising in the fact that before departing to the military operation in Ukraine, some volunteers have adopted Islam, says Alexei Malashenko, a chief researcher at the Institute of World Economy and International Relations of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS). In his opinion, if these people were "offered something" in exchange for accepting Islam, then "this fact is completely un-provable, and it's impossible to discuss it."

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on August 3, 2022 at 05:48 pm MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.