Muslims celebrate Eid al-Adha in St Petersburg. (c) Roma Yandolin / Demotix.The Ummah, the worldwide community of Muslims, comprises millions of members across the post-Soviet space. The inhabitants of five republics in Central Asia—Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan—have enthusiastically embraced their ancestral faith (a mean feat following seventy years of state socialism). Azerbaijan and several regions in Russia, notably the North Caucasus and Volga regions, have seen similar trends. A Pew poll in 2011 estimated Russia's Muslim population at just over 16 million people, or 11.7 per cent of Russia’s total population. By 2030, this figure is expected to rise by 13 per cent.
Russia's capital alone is home to over two million Muslims, and labour migration from the periphery of the former Soviet Union has led to large Muslim communities in many of the country's regional cities. Designated as one of Russia's four 'traditional religions', Islam matters.
Yet so does the post-Soviet legacy. For many Muslims in the region, Islam can often serve as a marker of ethnic difference—as in Bashkortostan or Tatarstan—rather than a guide to daily life. The state atheism of the Soviet Union severed many links to the religious practices of the past, though certain customs and festivals such as circumcision and Muslim-origin given names persisted. Meanwhile, the post-war introduction of 'spiritual management' in the Soviet Union paved the way for institutionalised Islam.
