On Sunday, March 16, ethnic-Russian dominated Crimea voted to join the Russian Federation in a highly controversial referendum. On Tuesday, March 18, Russian strongman, Vladimir Putin accepted the referendum, stating that the peninsula “has always been Russian territory”. The West has slapped sanctions against Russia in the wake of l’affaire Crimea, but most are calling them ‘toothless’.
With Crimea again a part of Russia, international focus will now shift to the eastern part of mainland Ukraine, which, like Crimea, is also Russian-dominated.
As for the peninsula, analysts and common people alike are watching events unfold with bated breath. In recent days, a dreaded word, which was being whispered at first, is now being spoken loudly in the context of Crimea: Jihad.
Almost 600 years of history has shaped the Tatars’ existence in Crimea and beyond. They trace their origins to Haci Giray, the founder and first ruler of the Crimean Khanate (1441–1774). Haci (Probably a Turkic pronunciation of the Arabic ‘Haji’) Giray traced his roots to a Mongol clan which was kin to the clan of Genghis, the greatest ‘Kagan’/Khan of them all. Indeed, the Crimean Khanate was itself one of a number of Turkic ‘Khanates’ that succeeded the Golden Horde, which in turn was one of the 4 sections that the Mongol Empire split into upon the death of Genghis (The other three being the Ilkhanate, the Chagatai Khanate and the Yuan Dynasty).
Having established itself as independent of the Golden Horde, the Crimean Khanate remained sovereign for sometime. In 1475, however, the Khanate became a protectorate of the mighty Ottoman Empire that lay to its south, just across the Black Sea.
The next big development in the Crimean Tatar saga happened in the 1700s. Two wars between the Ottomans and the ever-expanding Tsardom of Russia (Russo-Turkish War of 1735-1739 and Russo-Turkish War of 1768-1774), effectively sealed Crimea’s fate. The Russians defeated the Turks and made the Crimea ‘independent’ (like Putin has done today). In 1783, Tsarina Catherine the Great of Russia formally annexed the peninsula to the Russian Empire.
It was under Catherine that the Tatars of Crimea faced their first great exodus from their native land. They fled to the lands of the Ottoman Sultan. Many were also forcibly expelled by Catherine’s forces to remote Siberia. Their lands in turn, were made available to ethnic Russian settlers from Russia proper. That is how ethnic Russians became the majority on the peninsula.
But the Tatars nevertheless returned to Crimea in the years ahead. In 1917, with Tsar Nicholas II’s abdication, the Tatars of Crimea proclaimed the first republic in the Muslim world, that of Crimea. But it was all going to be short-lived. In one great surge, Lenin’s Bolsheviks swept into Crimea and incorporated it into the newly-established USSR after the Russian Civil War that followed the October Revolution.
With Lenin’s death, Josef Dzhugashvili Stalin, an ethnic Georgian himself, became the leader of the Soviet Union. It was during his reign that the Tatars were again uprooted and transported, this time to the ‘stans’ of Central Asia, on the mere suspicion (which turned out to be false) that they had collaborated with Hitler’s invading Nazi troops during Operation Barbarossa in the Second World War.
It was not until Mikhail Gorbachev launched his ‘perestroika’ and ‘glasnost’ that the Tatars finally returned to Crimea. In the years following the demise of the USSR, they have become the third largest ethnic group in Crimea, after ethnic Russians and Ukrainians, constituting 12 per cent of the population. In sharp contrast to the ethnic Russians of Crimea, the Tatars have always supported Kiev. They supported the ‘Orange Revolution’ (2004-2005), have always been pro-European and have opposed Viktor Yanukovitch, the now-exiled pro-Russian leader of Ukraine.
Their pro-Ukrainian and pro-western loyalties have made the Tatars prime targets for the ethnic Russians of Crimea as well as Russian nationalists in the Russian Federation. In the countdown to the current annexation of Crimea, Tatars have complained of threats, intimidation and even violence from Russians in Crimea. They boycotted the Sunday referendum, saying they could not vote in a sham exercise that was being held in the shadow of the gun.
But what is concerning the outside world the most is the religious dispensation of the Tatars. Through the centuries, the Tatars of Crimea have been a mostly tolerant people, despite the numerous hardships that they faced at Russian hands. Crimean Tatars follow Sunni Islam and adhere to the Hanafi madhab (school of jurisprudence) founded by Imam Abu Hanifa. Since the 1990s, they have their own parliament (Qurultay), and executive body (Mejlis). Most Islamic religious organisations in the Crimea belong to the allied Spiritual Directorate of Muslims of Crimea (DUMK), which has close links to official Islam in Turkey. Radical Islam exists, but has largely been kept to the fringes by the DUMK to date.
And that is what has been worrying most people. For the Tatars of Crimea have not been untouched by global radical Islam. One of the most popular organisations among the Tatars is the Hizb-ut-Tahrir, which advocates a global Islamic Caliphate. What is more, at least 100 Crimean Tatars are presently fighting alongside Sunni rebels in Syria.
In the days leading to the referendum, international jihadi organisations like the Al Qaeda have picked up the cause of the Tatars. Last week, the hashtag #NafirforUkraine began making the rounds on Twitter. The Islamic Arabic term “Nafir” is a call to action that requires any member of a jihadi group to travel to the country Nafir is called against and participate in a holy war in the name of Allah. Nafir was declared in the early stages of the conflicts in Syria and Egypt, and it helped spark jihadi migrations into these nations.
Secular voices among the Tatars have been warning the West and especially Moscow, that should Putin go for a re-enactment of what Tsarina Catherine and Josef Stalin did, then Jihad would be the unenviable result.
It is something Moscow, and the ethnic Russians of Crimea need to seriously ponder over. Threats, intimidation, violence, desecration of monuments and graves, ethnic cleansing and forced deportation of Crimean Tatars could land Moscow in a soup. It would be an encore of what happened in the North Caucasus republics of Chechnya and Dagestan. Only this time, world opinion would not be in favour of Russia and militant, political Islam would have attained a sheen of respectability.
With Crimea again a part of Russia, international focus will now shift to the eastern part of mainland Ukraine, which, like Crimea, is also Russian-dominated.
As for the peninsula, analysts and common people alike are watching events unfold with bated breath. In recent days, a dreaded word, which was being whispered at first, is now being spoken loudly in the context of Crimea: Jihad.
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Ethnic Russians are 60 per cent of the Crimea’s population. But they are not the original inhabitants of the region. That designation belongs to the Crimean Tatars, people who are Turkic by race and Sunni Muslim by faith, and who have resided on the peninsula since the 1400s.
Almost 600 years of history has shaped the Tatars’ existence in Crimea and beyond. They trace their origins to Haci Giray, the founder and first ruler of the Crimean Khanate (1441–1774). Haci (Probably a Turkic pronunciation of the Arabic ‘Haji’) Giray traced his roots to a Mongol clan which was kin to the clan of Genghis, the greatest ‘Kagan’/Khan of them all. Indeed, the Crimean Khanate was itself one of a number of Turkic ‘Khanates’ that succeeded the Golden Horde, which in turn was one of the 4 sections that the Mongol Empire split into upon the death of Genghis (The other three being the Ilkhanate, the Chagatai Khanate and the Yuan Dynasty).
Having established itself as independent of the Golden Horde, the Crimean Khanate remained sovereign for sometime. In 1475, however, the Khanate became a protectorate of the mighty Ottoman Empire that lay to its south, just across the Black Sea.
The next big development in the Crimean Tatar saga happened in the 1700s. Two wars between the Ottomans and the ever-expanding Tsardom of Russia (Russo-Turkish War of 1735-1739 and Russo-Turkish War of 1768-1774), effectively sealed Crimea’s fate. The Russians defeated the Turks and made the Crimea ‘independent’ (like Putin has done today). In 1783, Tsarina Catherine the Great of Russia formally annexed the peninsula to the Russian Empire.
It was under Catherine that the Tatars of Crimea faced their first great exodus from their native land. They fled to the lands of the Ottoman Sultan. Many were also forcibly expelled by Catherine’s forces to remote Siberia. Their lands in turn, were made available to ethnic Russian settlers from Russia proper. That is how ethnic Russians became the majority on the peninsula.
But the Tatars nevertheless returned to Crimea in the years ahead. In 1917, with Tsar Nicholas II’s abdication, the Tatars of Crimea proclaimed the first republic in the Muslim world, that of Crimea. But it was all going to be short-lived. In one great surge, Lenin’s Bolsheviks swept into Crimea and incorporated it into the newly-established USSR after the Russian Civil War that followed the October Revolution.
With Lenin’s death, Josef Dzhugashvili Stalin, an ethnic Georgian himself, became the leader of the Soviet Union. It was during his reign that the Tatars were again uprooted and transported, this time to the ‘stans’ of Central Asia, on the mere suspicion (which turned out to be false) that they had collaborated with Hitler’s invading Nazi troops during Operation Barbarossa in the Second World War.
It was not until Mikhail Gorbachev launched his ‘perestroika’ and ‘glasnost’ that the Tatars finally returned to Crimea. In the years following the demise of the USSR, they have become the third largest ethnic group in Crimea, after ethnic Russians and Ukrainians, constituting 12 per cent of the population. In sharp contrast to the ethnic Russians of Crimea, the Tatars have always supported Kiev. They supported the ‘Orange Revolution’ (2004-2005), have always been pro-European and have opposed Viktor Yanukovitch, the now-exiled pro-Russian leader of Ukraine.
Their pro-Ukrainian and pro-western loyalties have made the Tatars prime targets for the ethnic Russians of Crimea as well as Russian nationalists in the Russian Federation. In the countdown to the current annexation of Crimea, Tatars have complained of threats, intimidation and even violence from Russians in Crimea. They boycotted the Sunday referendum, saying they could not vote in a sham exercise that was being held in the shadow of the gun.
But what is concerning the outside world the most is the religious dispensation of the Tatars. Through the centuries, the Tatars of Crimea have been a mostly tolerant people, despite the numerous hardships that they faced at Russian hands. Crimean Tatars follow Sunni Islam and adhere to the Hanafi madhab (school of jurisprudence) founded by Imam Abu Hanifa. Since the 1990s, they have their own parliament (Qurultay), and executive body (Mejlis). Most Islamic religious organisations in the Crimea belong to the allied Spiritual Directorate of Muslims of Crimea (DUMK), which has close links to official Islam in Turkey. Radical Islam exists, but has largely been kept to the fringes by the DUMK to date.
And that is what has been worrying most people. For the Tatars of Crimea have not been untouched by global radical Islam. One of the most popular organisations among the Tatars is the Hizb-ut-Tahrir, which advocates a global Islamic Caliphate. What is more, at least 100 Crimean Tatars are presently fighting alongside Sunni rebels in Syria.
In the days leading to the referendum, international jihadi organisations like the Al Qaeda have picked up the cause of the Tatars. Last week, the hashtag #NafirforUkraine began making the rounds on Twitter. The Islamic Arabic term “Nafir” is a call to action that requires any member of a jihadi group to travel to the country Nafir is called against and participate in a holy war in the name of Allah. Nafir was declared in the early stages of the conflicts in Syria and Egypt, and it helped spark jihadi migrations into these nations.
Secular voices among the Tatars have been warning the West and especially Moscow, that should Putin go for a re-enactment of what Tsarina Catherine and Josef Stalin did, then Jihad would be the unenviable result.
It is something Moscow, and the ethnic Russians of Crimea need to seriously ponder over. Threats, intimidation, violence, desecration of monuments and graves, ethnic cleansing and forced deportation of Crimean Tatars could land Moscow in a soup. It would be an encore of what happened in the North Caucasus republics of Chechnya and Dagestan. Only this time, world opinion would not be in favour of Russia and militant, political Islam would have attained a sheen of respectability.