Religious outbidding in Chechnya

An underexplored dynamic in the study of the conflict in Chechnya is the role of religion within Chechen society and the ideological competition that ensued between the radical Salafi insurgents and the Sufi establishment. Ahmad Kadyrov, the former grand mufti and ruler of Chechnya, played a key role in the conflict when he turned against the insurgency in part due to his concern over the pervasiveness of Salafism in the republic. His son and the current ruler, Ramzan Kadyrov, has re-Islamized Chechnya – albeit in a direction he sees fit. Religion is an important source of contention in the conflict, thus it would be beneficial for scholarship to examine more closely Ramzan Kadyrov’s Sufi alternative to radical Salafism. This paper seeks to examine the competition that took place between these two ideologies and factions. First, an overview of the relevant concepts will be discussed. Then a brief history of religion and conflict in the region, followed by an examination of the effects that the collapse of the Soviet Union had on religious networks, will be presented. Next an inspection of the Kadyrovs’ vision of Islam will be studied. Then a contextualization of Chechen Sufism and Salafism, especially the theology of the Caucasus Emirate, will be established. Finally, the theories of outbidding will be applied to the ideological conflict that has been taking place in the republic, showing how the ruling regime has successfully implemented its strategy to the detriment of the insurgency.