The multi-faceted practical relevance has made Islamic studies one of the most" fashionable "branches of social sciences and exposed many serious difficulties and problems associated with an adequate scientific response to the"Islamic challenge". Excessive politicization of the study of such a phenomenon as Islamic radicalism harms scientific knowledge and prevents Russian and foreign specialists from understanding this complex phenomenon. This paper aims to address some conceptual issues related to the study of the phenomenon of Islamic radicalism in general and in the former Soviet republics, in particular, where there are four main areas of Islam spread - Central Asia, the South Caucasus (Azerbaijan), the North Caucasus, and the Volga region. Naturally, it is necessary to first touch on the general tools for studying radical trends in Islam.

THE PROBLEM OF DEFINITIONS

Successful scientific development of the existing trends, doctrines and movements in modern Islam is complicated by the unresolved issue of definitions necessary for conceptualization. For example, both Western and Russian researchers of Islam misuse the term "fundamentalism", which they tend to refer to a wide range of known phenomena. As some experts have already noted, this term, originally applied to Christianity, usually refers to those trends and movements that are otherwise called renewal (if we further expand the boundaries of the judgment by analogy, then in the same sense we can use the term revisionism), or Salafism, which most adequately explains the phenomenon. As already explained in a considerable number of Islamic studies works, the main one for Salafism is from Arab. salaf " ancestors "(which, in fact, makes it" fundamentalism"), is the idea that over the centuries Islam has been distorted, new elements have been introduced into it all the time, including those that contradict the original Islamic teaching. And in order to "purify" the Muslim religion, it is necessary to return it to the state in which it was in the era of the Prophet Muhammad and the four " righteous caliphs "(al-khulafa ' ar-rashidun). - Abu Bakr, 'Umar,' Uthman and ' Ali. This era is a source of constant inspiration for Salafis.

However, one should not equate all Salafism with political Islam (the term "political Islam" was coined after the victory of the anti-Shah revolution in Iran in 1979) . Until relatively recently, Saudi Salafis, or Wahhabis, were followers of Muhammad ' Abd al-Wahhab (1703/4-1797/8), an Arabian preacher those whose concepts became the official Saudi brand of Islam were very little politicized. Only in the 60s of the XX century. Wahhabis launched an active activity outside the kingdom. Created page

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The Saudi-led Muslim World League has given them a handy tool for deep penetration into the Islamic world. Other transnational Islamic organizations, including charitable organizations, also contributed to this process (ideologues of the Egyptian and then Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, being constantly persecuted in their countries, moved to Saudi Arabia, where they began teaching at universities and actively contributing to the politicization of Wahhabism). The 1973 oil embargo gave Islamic organizations and foundations such huge financial resources that it was possible to conduct a fairly powerful expansion. Wahhabi ideologues could perfectly coexist with the ruling Saudi dynasty if it implemented the Wahhabi ideas of the" primordial " Islamic order: in this case, their actual lack of political ambitions would not raise the question of removing the ruling regime from power. The Wahhabis of our time, including such prominent Saudi clerics as Sheikh 'Abd al -' Aziz bin Baz (d. 1999) and Sheikh Ibn ' Uthaymin (d. 2001), pay a lot of attention to ritual issues (such as the mandatory wearing of the full hijab for women, etc.P.) and sharia law. Some Western scholars even describe this "quiet" Wahhabism as apolitical.

However, in the same Saudi environment, especially after the introduction of Soviet troops into Afghanistan, militant, jihadist Salafism has grown, the most odious representative of which is Osama bin Laden. These are precisely the Salafists who have made it their goal to overthrow the Saudi regime and replace it with a purely Islamic one. Nevertheless, according to French researcher Olivier Roy, in fact, the West, and not the Arab regimes, are the main target of the "Osamists" attack (however, after this observation was made two or three years ago, namely, some time after the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq, the jihadists increased terrorist actions against a number of Arab regimes). But in any case, both versions of Salafism - jihadist and non-jihadist-are united by the doctrinal concept of takfir-the accusation of godlessness (kufr), an anathema that justifies harsh punitive actions against apostate Muslims who, even to a small extent, deviated from the practice prescribed by Sharia.

The term jihadists is also often used by radical Islamic groups themselves. Dr Mohammed Masari, head of the London-based Saudi opposition group Committee for the Defense of Legal Rights (CDLR), which advocates the establishment of an Islamic state in Saudi Arabia, says: "The term Wahhabi is misapplied. The United States, for example, uses it to refer to jihadists " [A Saudi Oppositionist's View, 2003, p. 1]. In this regard, it should be noted that not only Salafis can be jihadists, i.e. supporters of armed jihad (the holy war for Islam). In particular, Palestinian groups waging an armed struggle against Israel under the slogans of jihad, including using terrorist methods, cannot be classified as Salafists.

The term integrism emphasizes the indivisibility of the secular and spiritual in Salafi concepts. The term Islamism indicates a commitment to the idea of introducing Sharia law as a law that defines the life of modern Islamic societies, and the term Islamic activism primarily notes the radicalism of Salafi actions to translate their ideals into reality. The term political Islam, which is especially often used, means that in the phenomenon it denotes, religion is not separable from politics, and this is reflected in the concept of the Islamic state.

The founder of Wahhabism, Muhammad ' Abd al-Wahhab, was not the creator of the new madhhab, partly remaining within the framework of Hanbalism, the most strict of all the religious and legal schools of Sunnism, and partly trying to stand above all four Sunni madhhabs. 'Abd al-Wahhab and his modern followers were largely preceded by the famous Hanbali bo'-

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goslov Ibn Taymiyyah (XIII c.). Wahhabis are scripturalists who recognize as the basis of knowledge only the sacred texts - the Koran, the Sunnah, and, perhaps, of all the interpreters and commentators of these texts, allow themselves to quote only this scholar. Saudi Wahhabis have been called Puritans both for their lifestyle and, perhaps most notably, for their literalistic understanding of sacred texts, which they are not allowed to interpret (except in the context of Hanbalism).

It is not quite correct to apply the term Wahhabism to other Salafi movements that are not related to the teachings of 'Abd al-Wahhab, although all Salafi groups have a lot in common. It is no accident that the term neo-Wahhabism was introduced, which is increasingly used by researchers of Islam in order to distinguish between groups influenced by Wahhabi ideas, as well as groups of fundamentalists close to them (not excluding the Arabian Wahhabis themselves). The creator and most consistent proponent of the use of this term, O. Roy, writes: "I have come to the conclusion that Islamist movements have become exhausted as a revolutionary force and are faced with a choice: either to start political normalization within the framework of a modern nation-state, or to turn into what I call the term 'neo-fundamentalism', namely a closed, scripturalist and conservative vision of Islam that rejects the national and statist dimension in favor of the state. The Ummah is a universal community of all Muslims based on Sharia (Muslim law)" [Roy, 2004, p. 1].

The term jihadism is quite justified to refer to such militant Islamic groups that declare a holy war against infidels who threaten Islam and Muslims, including Muslim rulers who violate (again in their opinion) the principles of the Islamic religion. Jihadists advocate the overthrow of Governments and resort to violent methods, including terrorist ones.

Salafism, in our opinion, should be used as a general term to refer to all fundamentalist trends in Islam (unlike the term fundamentalism, this word refers to a phenomenon specific to Islam). Naturally, within the framework of Salafism, there can be other, fractional divisions, and certain oppositions can be distinguished (jihadist - non - jihadist, conservative-renovationist, etc.).

The conservative type of Salafism unites such trends in Salafism that want to protect Islam from the influences of modern life, especially non-Islamic societies, by adopting the concept of bid'a (innovation, innovation) as an absolutely unacceptable addition to the "original" Islam. Conservatives extend the concept of bid'a to the attributes of modern life, as well as to a huge number of norms, rituals and actions, many of which were Islamized a long time ago and became an integral part of Muslim religious life. The extremely strict monotheism of the Salafi Tawhid (especially important for the Arabian Wahhabis and acquired an extreme form in the neo-Wahhabis-Taliban) - leads, for example, to a partial or even complete rejection of such a familiar attribute of modern life as photographic images of people or the use of children's toys shaped like animals or people. The concept of tawhid is so significant for Wahhabis that it can be considered as the main constituent idea of this teaching.

Saudi Wahhabis even prefer to call themselves "people of monotheism" (muwahidun) rather than Salafis (and certainly not Wahhabis). In the Puritan understanding of monotheism, the image of a living being is equated with shirk, which can be relatively translated as an encroachment on the omnipotence of Allah, equating one's abilities with the power of the Almighty, who is the only one with the ability to create life. According to the most radical part of the conservative Salafists, such shirk entails takfir. According to their views, when takfir is applied to a Muslim, he is subjected to su-

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to a certain level of punishment, up to and including deprivation of life. Thus, a return to the ideal Islamic order requires violence.

Within conservative Salafism, uncompromising, rigid forms coexist with moderate, soft ones (in which the rigor of conservatives is diluted with compromise judgments). For example, a Saudi Wahhabi ' alim interviewed by the author of this work allowed photos of his parents or other relatives to be hung at home, as this encourages pious thoughts and can contribute to greater piety among believers. Despite all the dilapidation of such judgments and prohibitions, conservatives in Saudi Arabia and other countries manage to recruit many young followers to their ranks. In a letter to a Western newspaper, a former follower of radical Wahhabis, Mansour al-Nuk'idan, writes: "Starting at the age of 16, I was a Wahhabi extremist. Together with like-minded people, we set fire to shops selling cassettes of Western films, and even burned down a charity society to help widows in our village, because we were convinced that this would lead to the liberation of women "[Mansour al-Nogaidan, 2003, p. 8]. The implacable brutality of such actions is obvious, but the underlying positions are focused on culture rather than politics.

Here it is advisable to raise again the question of the terms that experts use to denote various trends in modern Saudi Salafism. Politicized Wahhabism (or neo-Wahhabism) is also called "sahvism". This term is derived from the expression al-Sahwa al-Islamiyya ("Islamic awakening"), which became widespread in the 1970s in opposition, on the one hand, to the traditional, official Wahhabi religious establishment and, on the other, to the more militant, jihadist current in Salafism, which is also called neo-Salafism.

An example of this trend is the ideas and activities of Juhayman al - ' Utaibi and his followers, who seized the holy mosque in Mecca in 1979. However, there are also some Salafists who strongly reject the very idea of jihad as a violent action based on the concept of takfir. To give an example of such a discourse, we can quote one of the critics of jihadism - the Saudi author Khalid al-Duhail. First, he argues that the idea of jihad in Wahhabism can only be implemented within the borders of the centralized state that its founders built in the Arabian Peninsula, and secondly, because of their commitment to the Hanbali Madhhab, Wahhabis cannot accept jihad without the approval of the Waliyyah al-amr (head of the religious community).), issued in the form of an official statement (Khalid al-Dukhayl, 2004).

It is quite acceptable to characterize renovationist Salafism as reformism, since this term explains the main meaning of this doctrine. Islamic reformism, however, is diverse and has a wider range of manifestations, always keeping in touch with renewal and enlightenment. Supporters of this type of Salafism also call for a return to the original Islam, but they direct their criticism only against the prejudices and customs that have penetrated Islam from the traditional (pre-Islamic) beliefs and rituals of Islamic peoples. Rejecting norms that are incompatible with the true values of Islam, these reformers simultaneously call on Muslims to use modern scientific and technological achievements of the West in the interests of the Islamic Ummah, to borrow everything that can be useful for the progress of Muslim societies, and to modernize the school system.

Both conservatives and renovationist reformers in Salafism stand together against Islamic traditionalists (including Sufis). In this confrontation, the differences between the two directions are erased, despite the fact that among traditionalists there are also conservatives and renovationists. On some issues of dogma and ritual, Salafists and traditionalists of different schools may agree, while on others the antagonism between them reaches the highest intensity, but no less hostility divides different trends within both Salafism and traditionalism.

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Arab Wahhabis, for example, are irreconcilable opponents of the cult of saints in Islam and making pilgrimage to their graves (which is important for Sufis), considering it a sin. At the same time, when Jadidism emerged in the Russian Empire in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a renovationist reformist movement that aimed to create a modern education system for Muslims, it met with resistance from both Salafi (Wahhabi - type) conservatives and traditionalist (Kadimite) conservatives. The arguments of the Jadids against the Kadimites concerned the content of the faith. They opposed the principle of taqlid (literally "imitation"), which requires blindly following spiritual authorities, and conservative Salafis also disagree.

A modern Saudi manual, translated into Russian and widely distributed among Muslims in Russia and other CIS countries, states that anyone who performs an act of worship (prayer, fasting, sacrifice or prayer for salvation) to anyone other than Allah can be considered a polytheist, which is one of the most terrible sins for a Muslim. Such a person, it is alleged, can be killed and his property confiscated [Abdullah bin Ahmad al-Zayd].

Such a call expresses the essence of the concept of takfir. It is no coincidence that his supporters have recently been increasingly called Takfiri, extending this name to all Salafi jihadists. This term, in particular, is used by an Arabic author who took refuge behind the pseudonym Muhammad Hassan, whose bright work was translated into Russian. The author justifiably calls for the separation of Wahhabis-Salafis and a small minority within the broad Salafi movement-Salafis-Takfiri. According to Hassan, there are six main features of the Wahhabi-Salafi ideology: 1) literalism; 2) contradiction to common sense and philosophy; 3) orientation against culture, at least - high culture; 4) refusal to recognize traditional attitudes; 5) internal instability (lack of internal security mechanisms or a system of "checks and balances"); 6) ignorance and intolerance. At the same time, as the author notes, "Wahhabism-Salafism cannot be recognized as deadly" [Muhammad Hasan, 2005, pp. 60-61]. But it is precisely on the basis of this teaching that Takfiriism, Takfiri Osama bin Laden, Al - Qaeda and all those who commit acts of terror against innocent people in the West and East grow up.

It is often difficult to draw a clear dividing line between fundamentalists and traditionalists, conservatives and reformists, due to the complex and multifaceted nature of the theological and legal arguments in the Islamic faith and the interweaving of schools and trends (which have also undergone a long historical evolution). But it is not always necessary to draw such lines, and for an adequate understanding of the diverse phenomena of modern Islamic life, it is important to study a specific Islamic trend in a specific place and at a specific time.

APPROACHES AND EXPLANATIONS

It is extremely important to understand the roots and causes of Islamic radicalism. Among the existing theories and approaches to this issue, it is possible to distinguish in the most general form economic, political, ideological, behavioral, psychological, functionalist, based on the concepts of security, on the role of the individual or institutions.

Economic approaches, or explanations, are based on the importance of socio-economic conditions as the cause of Islamic extremism. It is assumed that poverty, backwardness, unemployment and other similar phenomena lead to its decline.

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occurrence. Economic explanations, in turn, are divided into static and dynamic ones.

A static approach that considers certain conditions at a given moment is not convincing for a number of reasons. First, it is impossible to explain why radicalism is on the rise only in some countries where the economic situation is equally bad. Secondly, it is impossible to understand why any extremism, including Islamic radicalism, appears in societies that are much better off in socio-economic terms than others. Moreover, the available economic and statistical data show that a certain standard of living is not directly related to the dynamics of Islamic extremism. Saudi Arabia is one of the most prosperous states in the Middle East, but it is Saudi society that is the base of support for Islamic radicalism. At the same time, Mauritania is one of the poorest countries in the region, but until recently it was impossible to say that religious extremism had gained a strong position in it.

In addition, many of the leaders of the most extreme Islamist groups come from rich families at the top of the social ladder, they have received a good modern education, which allows us to draw a parallel between them and the leaders and ideologues of communist and left-wing extremist movements of the past (capitalist Engels, aristocrat Kropotkin, landowner Castro, Sorbonne graduate Pol Pot, etc.). The main ideologue of Al-Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahiri, is not only a highly educated person, a doctor, but also comes from a family of rectors of Egyptian universities. Osama bin Laden himself, as you know, belongs to one of the richest families in Saudi Arabia.

Given these inconsistencies, some researchers have proposed a more consistent explanation than one based on a static economic approach. It focuses on relative economic deprivation. In other words, extremism is generated by a significant decline in the standard of living, increasing socio-economic difficulties. This approach is certainly more convincing, but it does not explain the consistent growth of religious radicalism in a number of countries over several decades. For example, Uzbekistan has long been the scene of radical Islamic movements in Central Asia, despite the fact that the deterioration of its socio-economic situation in the early 1990s was much less noticeable than in some neighboring republics.

The idea of social justice is directly relevant to this explanation. "There is a deep - rooted sense of injustice and humiliation in the Islamic world," wrote Jason Burke, a well-known American expert on al - Qaeda." Injustice has a special religious significance in Islam, it occupies a leading place in the argument of extremists " [Burke, 2004, p.2].

The alternative hypothesis focuses not on economic, but on political deprivation. The discontent caused by the lack of opportunities for political participation in society's affairs, the dominance of repressive regimes, widespread corruption, and the dominance of clan structures feeds extremism. But even this approach is not convincing, because it does not allow us to understand why in countries with the most severely authoritarian regimes, for example in Turkmenistan, Islamic radical Islam has not taken root and has not become a shell for the formation of protest relations.

The ideological interpretation, which became particularly popular in the West after September 11, 2001, was based on the fact that Islam as a religion, and in particular some schools in Islam that are commonly characterized as fundamentalist or Salafist, contain ideas that preach intolerance and hatred of both non-Muslims and Muslims who allegedly commit crimes laws

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of Islam. There is concern about the efforts made by some schools of Islam to spread their influence beyond their traditional range, and especially in countries where the Muslim population is not a majority. As an example demonstrating the results of such influence, we can cite the statements of one Islamic cleric from Tatarstan, Nurulla Muflikhunov: "Kafirs (infidels) who are friendly to Muslims do not acquire the Islamic faith, but Muslims who are friendly to kafirs lose their faith, appear before Allah as kafirs themselves and therefore will be punished accordingly.". He also states: "Those who do not accept Islam are enemies of Allah and Muslims" [Muflikhunov, 1998, p. 143-144; Makarov and Mukhametshin, 2003, p. 123].

However, many researchers are not inclined to attribute militancy to Salafism. John Esposito, one of the leading American Islamic scholars, says: "Islamic modernists and movements like the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood or the Pakistani Jamaat-e Islami sought to combine religious reform with political mobilization "(Esposito, 2002, p. 49). It should be noted that political mobilization does not necessarily transform Islamic activists into agents or advocates of violence. According to French Islamic scholar Francois Burgat, "The Koran can no more explain Osama bin Laden than the Bible can explain the Irish Liberation Army" (Burgat, 2003, p. XV). This view is supported by the existence of non-violent organizations such as Jamaat-i Tabligh (in Pakistan), or apparently moderate movements in the post-Soviet Salafi movement (along with the militant aggressive one), such as the one headed by Akhmed-Qadi Akhtayev (died in 1998) in the North Caucasus.

In accordance with this view, the broad version of jihad that Islamic extremists present has nothing to do with the fundamental foundations of Islam on which they allegedly stood. Many Western and Russian Orientalists believe that the ideas of jihadist terrorists like Osama bin Laden are in fact nothing more than a"deviation from Islam." Esposito even claims that terrorists ignore "classical Islamic teachings about jihad" (Esposito, 2002, p. 157). Most Islamic clerics also blame jihadists from international terrorist networks for violating the basic principles of Islam. They point out that jihad as a struggle with the use of weapons against the enemies of Islam, unlike jihad in general, which is an individual effort of a Muslim aimed at strengthening his faith, can only be applied when the existence of Muslims is threatened, their rights are violated or their territory is torn away from them.

In an interview with an expert from the Jamestown Foundation in an Indonesian prison on August 13-15, 2005 (transmitted to the author by email), the leader of Jemaa Islamiyya, Abu Bakar Baasir, said: "In Islam, there are people who kill themselves out of desperation, and we just call it suicide. But if a person defends Islam and, according to his calculations, considers it necessary to die for this, although he is actively working in this life, he will go and die for Islam. His reasoning is: "If I do this, will Islam win or lose? If I have to die soon, and without that death Islam will not win, then my death is praiseworthy." If someone can avoid death in the process, that's better. But death is also allowed. We call it istimata or istijhad. Istimata (to seek death, the same as istishkhad) means that a person becomes a martyr shahid. This is equivalent to istijhad, when a person becomes a jihadi, and it is also good to die in jihad."

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It is obvious that attempts to convince people who are determined to kill themselves in order to destroy the enemies of Islam are hopeless, using arguments that such actions do not correspond to the Islamic faith, but there is no doubt that Islam does not really justify suicide attacks "in the name of Allah". Bernard Lewis argues that bloody suicide attacks are prohibited in a number of hadiths, where, for example, it is stated that "whoever kills himself in any way will be tortured in hell in the same way" [Lewis, 2003, p. 153-154].

Suicide attacks that see themselves as heroes and self-sacrificers are taking place not only in the Muslim community. Perhaps the first well-known example in history was the radical Jewish zealot movement, which fought against Roman rule (in particular, during the Jewish War of 66-73 AD). In the XI-XIII centuries. Acts of individual terror were carried out by the Ismailis of Iran, who became known as the assassins. These are Russian narodniks, partisans of the Second World War in many countries, including the USSR, Japanese kamikazes, and in our time-members of nationalist movements in India, Sri Lanka, etc. The key element in explaining this practice is the motivation, the motivating reasons that make people lose their lives in this way.

It should be noted that radical Islamic organizations in some cases fill the ideological and political vacuum. Thus, " many Arabs see a revived Islam as an alternative to the broken Arab nationalism and left-wing ideologies that have disappeared from the scene. This may explain the simplicity with which many former leftists, communists, and Arab nationalists joined Hezbollah in the 1980s "(Haddad and Khashan, 2002, p. 814). Although it is not just a vacuum, but an intellectual disillusionment that befalls many of those who were genuinely passionate about Marxism or revolutionary nationalism and believed in their imminent triumph. Not only former adherents of secular Arab nationalism (Nasserists, Baathists, members of the Arab Nationalist Movement, and others), but also former Marxists and other leftists of the Middle East, some after the defeat of Nasser in the "six - day war", others after the defeat of communism in Eastern Europe, moved to the position of radical Islamism. They were actually re-Islamized.

Among the most notable "defectors" to Islamism are the famous Egyptian writer and statesman Tariq al-Bishri, the secretary of the Egyptian Labor Party 'Adil Husain, the leader of the Tunisian Renaissance Party (Al-Nahda) Rashid Ghannouchi and others (one can't help but draw parallels with former Marxists, "leftists" and neo-Trotskyists of the West who have become respectable politicians and politicians). scientists, part of the establishment, like Regi Debray or such brilliant political scientists and researchers of the Muslim world as the English professor Fred Halliday or his French colleague Olivier Roy, or even the founders of American neoconservatism, like the former activist of the Socialist Youth League Irving Kristol).

Behavioral and psychological explanations analyze the aforementioned motivations. Behaviorists view Islamic extremism as a specific type of behavior based on exclusion and intolerance of dissidents. However, as Ernest Gellner noted in relation to the similar ambitions underlying ethnic violence ," such motivations are characteristic of all human collectives and cannot serve as a basis for defining a particular tribe or nation" (Gellner, 1983, p.99). Consequently, these motivations cannot be found only in certain confessional groups. Of course, the line that Salafis draw between the concept of " we "(true Muslims) and "they" (bad Muslims, infidels) is psychological in nature, but this observation cannot explain why this line is drawn in this way.

Psychological theories suggest that people in these cases are guided by emotions, not reason. Emotions, feelings, as many believe, outweighed the arguments of reason among the Afghans who supported the Puritan Taliban when they captured

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power in various regions of Afghanistan. Ordinary people saw the Taliban as devout believers, sincere defenders of public order and social justice, in contrast to the corrupt Mujahideen who came to power in Kabul after the overthrow of the PDPA-led government. Another approach, also based on psychology and very close to the one already mentioned, is useful in understanding the underlying cause of the emergence of "classical" Salafism in the central Arabian region of Nejd in the XVIII century: the psychological features of the Arabian Bedouin, combined with the peculiarities of their social structure, may seem to explain why this strict and Puritanical form of Salafism was created in the The Islamic faith first appeared there and from there spread to other regions. Nevertheless, all approaches of this kind exaggerate the autonomy of motives, emotions, and impulses, underestimating the structural causes of Islamic movements that call for puritanism and violence at the same time, and trying to interpret militancy and extremism in the apparent absence of autonomous impulses in many cases. And there is a lack of adequate understanding of the nature of violence.

Functionalist explanations in this case consider Islam only as a tool for achieving political goals. Here, a parallel is usually drawn between religious and ethnic violence. As Randal Galvert has observed, " Under the right conditions, ethnic violence can be very effectively enforced through the efforts of political leaders who are most cynically seeking to occupy or retain leadership positions. And under the appropriate conditions, ethnic conflict can be suppressed or stopped through the actions of politicians who want to preserve peace, democracy and economic development" [Galvert, 2002, p.592].

A special line of argument in this approach is based on the connections that unite religion and ethnicity. Islamic radicalism, it is argued, is only an expression of ethnic aspirations. According to Gellner and a number of other authors who have expressed similar ideas, nationalism emerged as a reaction to industrialization and the uprooting of individuals displaced from their local communities, because kinship ties can no longer organize people [Gellner, 1983]. Similar "rootlessness" took place in many regions of the former Soviet Union. The communist government tried to suppress nationalism with the help of a doctrine imposed from above, because it considered its current extremely dangerous, undermining the foundations of the order being built. Islam and Islamic structures survived, partly because the Communist authorities did not believe that Islam could be as dangerous as nationalism. After the fall of communism, Central Asian, North Caucasian and, to a lesser extent, Volga Muslims experienced an identity crisis, and Islam became one of the most important components of the new identity that is being formed among Muslim ethnic groups. The rise of Islamic extremism in some of these regions, according to proponents of such theories, goes back to the self-assertion of nations seeking to acquire a collective identity.

A group of researchers considers this problem through the prism of social movement theory. American author Quintan Viktorowitz defines the main task of research in the framework of this theory as follows: "propose a theory of social movement as a unifying core and blueprint that can provide effective ways to study Islamic activism that would push the boundaries of knowledge" (Wiktorowicz, 2004, p. 14). While much of the work on Islamic activism assumes that mobilization is generated by "a combination of deprivation translated into religious idioms and symbols," several generations of adherents of another theory, social movement, "have demonstrated that quite different factors are inextricably linked to the processes of mobilization, including the availability of resources, framing resonance, and change." in the structure of opportunities" [Wiktorowicz, 2004, p. 14].

The close connection between radical Islam and ethno-nationalism has various forms. In Palestine and Iraq, groups that fight exclusively for

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They turn to Islamism not because of their devotion to Islamist dogmas, but for the sake of expanding and strengthening mobilization. This, of course, does not exclude the existence of groups with a national agenda, but with a truly Salafist tinge. Groups acting in the name of ethno-national goals and transnational movements can interact with each other (this can be seen in the example of Central Asian states).

A number of researchers deny the possibility that international jihadists may be seriously concerned with national goals. The aforementioned Olivier Roy believes that " the goals of international jihadist terrorism are almost exclusively in the West, and although jihadist groups may call for support for various goals, such as the liberation of Iraq or Palestine, they mostly avoid becoming too deeply involved in such a strategy, because they lack the enthusiasm to follow national interests." tasks" [Expert: US Failure.., 2004, p. 2].

Some of the conclusions and generalizations that have been made about ethnic movements may also apply to religious movements. Ted Robert Gur's protest catalog, which includes violent protests that last for more than five years, refers to ethnically defined minorities, but it can also be applied to inter-and intra-confessional violence. Gur distinguishes between (1) political banditry, sporadic terrorism, and failed coups by or on behalf of groups of people; (2) terrorist campaigns, successful coups by or on behalf of terrorist groups; (3) limited-scale partisan actions or any similar acts of small-scale violence; and (4) actions of partisan detachments consisting of more than one group. thousands of armed fighters who carry out frequent armed attacks over a fairly large area, or groups involved in a war that is not directly related to the interests of the groups; 5) a prolonged civil war involving military units and units with their own bases [Gurr, 1993; Peoples Versus States, 2000]. If we apply the categories of this catalog to the Islamist mobilization in Central Asia, we can say that the events that unfolded in Tajikistan in 1992-1997 quite fall under categories 4 and 5, while the activities of the first radical Islamic groups in Uzbekistan in the early 1990s fit into category 1, and the first radical Islamic groups in Uzbekistan in the early 1990s fit into Subsequent armed raids by Islamists in Central Asia are covered by category 2. Similarly, parallels can be drawn between the composition of Islamist and nationalist movements. Among Islamists, one can find the same categories of people that Alexander Motyl identified in nationalist movements: "martyrs", "fanatics"," sincere believers "and" believing pragmatists " (Motyl, 1990, p. 37-39).

Explanations based on security concepts come from the vulnerability and insecurity that generate social discontent in Islamic societies, which are facing the technological and cultural penetration of secularist and transnational Western civilization, Westernization and modernization. The demonstration effect of the rapid growth of mass media increases the feeling of insecurity and inferiority. The "clash of civilizations" thesis, coined and coined in 1959 by Bernard Lewis (its "invention" is unfairly attributed to Samuel Huntington, who later adopted this thesis and turned it into a theory), is a subspecies of this explanation. Rejection of Western culture, or at least some of its components, unites many Islamic societies, and the desire to protect the identity of Islamic culture, order, and way of life can lead to extremist thinking and behavior. But some researchers, such as O. Roy, have suggested that many members of extremist Islamic groups and terrorist networks are well-connected.-

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They were integrated into Western societies, educated at Western universities, and "re-Islamized" in the West. This observation supports an explanation based on the concept of security. But it also fails to adequately interpret cases where extremists were not in direct contact with the West.

An explanation based on the role of the individual highlights the role of individual actors in the emergence of Islamic radicalism. Political actors can be divided into ideologues, teachers (mentors), organizers, field commanders, financiers, and "diplomats" (who mobilize external support). All these roles can be combined in one person, who at one moment can be mainly an organizer, and at another-an executor, a field commander. Overall, political actors of all types have played an important role in mobilizing religious extremism across the Islamic world. Abu'l-Ala al-Mawdudi was an ideologue whose role was widely recognized by other Salafi scholars and politicians, and whose works were translated from Urdu into Arabic and enthusiastically received in the Arab world. Although he established the Jamaat-i Islami in Pakistan in 1941, Maududi remained primarily an ideologue rather than an organizer. Hassan al-Banna, who founded the Muslim Brotherhood movement in Egypt in 1928, played an organizational role no less than his role as a theorist. Sayyid Qutb , a writer who inspired Egyptian Islamic radicals and was executed during the reign of Gamal Abdel Nasser, was not really a "fighter" himself, contrary to the Egyptian government's claim. Rustamov-Hindustani (d. 1989) in Central Asia was a moderate Islamic scholar and teacher who did not call for violence or the creation of an Islamic state. Nevertheless, his lessons served as the basis for indoctrinating the next generation of Islamic ideologues in the region. There were several different types of Islamic activists in post-Soviet Central Asia, including Juma Khodjiev (Namangani), the founder of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. The former head of the Tajik kaziyat, Khoja Akbar Turajonzoda, now Deputy Prime Minister of the Government of Tajikistan, was and remains primarily an experienced and skilled politician.

A number of researchers minimize the role of individuals in Central Asia, arguing that the lack of theoretical knowledge, political experience, and organizational practice makes their role irrelevant. Instead, they emphasize the importance of institutional factors. For them, human individuals cannot act independently of the social environment. Institutions weigh more than people, these experts argue, because they support a shared system of values that defines the activities of individuals.

The clash of supporters of the predominant role of people and institutions raises the question of why a significant part of the Islamic society is inclined to support the "Islamic project". Whether the reason lies in the attractiveness of the Islamic appeal itself, in the deep-rooted tradition, in the peculiarities of political culture, or in the peculiarities of a particular category of people, it is difficult to say with certainty. Perhaps Islamism has only taken the place of other protest ideologies, both those that have lost their appeal (Marxism), leaving the masses of their supporters "without an anchor", and those that have not yet penetrated the Central Asian region (anti-globalism, environmentalism, etc.)? antisystemic. On the contrary, most of these trends perform a social and regulatory function, helping the system to self-renew.

Historical memory is sometimes included in the catalog of explanations for Islamic extremism, with good reason. As stated by S. Haddad and H. Khashan, " the elimination of the Islamic caliphate 80 years ago-

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Zad, the establishment of European colonialism in Muslim and Arab countries, and Western support for the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine seem to explain the rage of political Islam better than primitive socio-economic arguments" (Haddad and Khashan, 2002, p. 814). These reflections support B. Lawrence's assumption that the long-term consequences of colonialism for Arab and Muslim peoples "remain to be seen" (Lawrence, 1989, p.201). Thus, a version of a "delayed anti-colonial uprising" under the Islamic banner is put forward. Close to this is the already mentioned version of a "civilizational rebuff", which Rejwan called a general Muslim response to the West, which intensified attempts to "impose its dominance on Muslim societies and change them with the help of economic and cultural power" (Rejwan, 2000, p. 137).

Based on the approaches of Charles Tilly, Edward Walker suggested (in his speeches at scientific conferences held in 2004) that it is possible to group the existing approaches into three categories: structural ("structural"), i.e. based on objective factors of radicalism, and relational ("relational"), focused on how radical organizations function. organizations, and ideational ("ideational"), focused on finding the ideological foundations of this phenomenon.

None of the approaches in this incomplete list provides a complete and convincing interpretation of Islamic radicalism in general in the world or in the CIS countries. A combination of several explanations may be more productive. However, without rejecting the general theory, priority should be given to a detailed analysis of each specific case, since such an analysis can provide new necessary material for general theoretical discourse.

ISLAMIC FAITH AND JIHADISM

It is necessary to touch separately on the attempts of a number of authors to assert that not only in individual schools, but also in Islam itself as a whole, there is some aggressively intolerant and extremist element. Although it is clear to an unbiased observer, even a cursory acquaintance with this religion, that Islam as a creed does not contain anything that could be interpreted as an apology for intolerance or violence, new works regularly appear that hold this religion itself responsible for the extremism that has spread in the world only in the most recent decades, resulting in the emergence of a new an integral feature of the modern world order.

A textbook example of such work is the book by the famous Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci. Speaking about the" reverse crusade " of Muslims to the West (the journalist does not feel all the deadly irony of this allusion), Fallaci writes about the "Islamic crusaders" invented by her, to which she counts all Muslims: "...there will be more and more of them. They will always demand, meddle in our affairs and dispose of us. Until they subdue us. Therefore, it is impossible to deal with them. Trying to have a dialogue with them is unthinkable. Showing them leniency and tolerance is disastrous. And anyone who thinks otherwise is a fool" [Fallaci, 2004, p. 81].

Among serious authors, including Russian ones, there has been a thesis that aggressive attitude towards non-believers is an inherent feature of the Islamic faith. Some Russian Islamic scholars, although they do not forget to make a reservation that Islam is a religion of peace, mercy and tolerance, write about endogenous radicalism in Islam, and consider banning Wahhabism and declaring it outlawed as a reliable way to counter the spread of Wahhabism in Russia and other CIS countries (such legislative acts were adopted in some regions of the Russian Federation, in particular, in Dagestan). At the same time, many influential Russian public, political and religious figures express doubts about the fruitfulness and effectiveness of such an approach. Often, the fight against Wahhabism turns into a settling of scores. Sheikh Ravil Gainutdin, Chairman of the Council of Muftis of Russia, shows a balanced approach to this problem, as befits a responsible spiritual leader. Be careful what you do.-

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Mentariah on the issue of Wahhabism is such an experienced politician and expert of the Arab and Muslim world as E. M. Primakov.

The inconsistency of the claims about the primordial, endogenous nature of Islamic radicalism is too obvious that it hardly makes sense to continue listing the arguments found in abundance in works whose authors understand that the holy books of all world religions contain only general goal-setting principles with a general humanistic orientation. They always orient a person to the highest moral values that give meaning to his life and determine his behavior. However, there are always interpreters in all religious systems who use these principles to justify intolerance.

Tolerance of Islam is noted not only by authors who belong to the followers of this religion, but also by those who are difficult to suspect of bias. Thus, Lev Polyakov, a French writer known for his fundamental works on the persecution of Jews in various historical epochs, writes:"...Islam is primarily a religion of tolerance. There is nothing more false than to consider it, in accordance with a very common approach, as destroying any resistance with fire and sword" [Polyakov, 1977, p.42]. Comparing Muslim and Christian civilizations, this author goes even further: "... the meek prescriptions of Jesus led to the birth of a militant civilization, the most irreconcilable of all known in the history of mankind, while the militant teachings of Muhammad gave rise to a much more open and tolerant society" [Polyakov, 1977, p.50].

We should add that in both cases (which would also be true for other world religions) we are not talking about religious doctrines themselves, but about the socialization of religion, about the behavior of people who commit atrocities allegedly in the name of the triumph of religion. In this respect, Wahhabi jihadists are very similar to inquisitors. In a certain sense, we can talk about Christian, Jewish or Hindu "jihadism", in any case, arguments in favor of such a metaphor are not difficult to find.

Authors who tend to blame the Islamic faith for apologizing for violence often attack not so much Islam as the modern Arab or, at best, Middle Eastern world. Even such a venerable author as B. Lewis, in his book "What was wrong?", where he sets out to identify the roots of the problems of Islam, limits his analysis exclusively to the Middle East area. It is impossible not to agree with O. Roy, who notes the inconsistency of such a culturalist approach and says: "They constantly draw an equal sign between Muslims and Arabs. Most of the examples that are usually cited to prove that Islam has problems with modernization are based on the reality of the Arab Middle East, and not Malaysia and Turkey" [Roy, 2004, p. 18]. Many examples of Arabophobia, into which superficial criticism of Islamic extremism degenerates (not to mention aggressiveness, which not only contradicts logic, but also tramples on the very foundations of the tolerance so beloved by these critics), can also be found in the works of Russian political scientists and journalists. Highly respected authors, following some Western colleagues, put forward the thesis that the Arab world is supposedly averse to modernization and is doomed to lag behind. Among the most egregious examples are the escapades against the great Arab culture, which allegedly failed to create anything, by the illiterate journalist E. Krutikov, who published articles on this topic with surprising tenacity in Izvestia and Versiya.

Of course, the horrific acts of terror committed by representatives of the Islamic world cannot but cast a shadow on their co-religionists, although the vast majority of them have nothing to do with them (by the way, the majority of Muslims live in South and Southeast Asia-in Indonesia about 230 million, in India about 140 million, and this is not the case). countries that are considered democracies, in Pakistan about 150 million, in

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Malaysia has about 15 million, China has about 20 million). Chechen separatists have turned the prayer "Allahu Akbar" into a kind of battle cry, doing a disservice to all Muslims.

VIOLENT CULTURE AND DETERMINISM

To analyze the specific manifestations of radicalism in the world and, in particular, in the post-Soviet space, it is necessary to address the issue of violence as a culture - an approach that has received recognition in the literature on Islamic extremism. Suffice it to recall that among the founders and activists of radical movements in the former Soviet Union, there were many former wrestlers, boxers, officers of the armed forces and special services, and other similar specialists. The Adolat movement, which emerged in the Uzbek part of the Ferghana Valley in the early 1990s, for example, consisted mainly of martial arts specialists. The most prominent Uzbek Islamist leader, Juma Khodjiev (Namangani), served in the Soviet military contingent in Afghanistan, as did many Tajik Islamist field commanders. In Dagestan, Nadirshakh Khachilayev, a well-known activist of political Islam (killed in 2003), was a well-known fighter in the country. All of these people were what Charles Tilly called "specialists in violence" (Tilly, 2003, p. 35).

Such specialists could act on the side of the government and directly as part of the government forces, but they could also act against the government. In many cases, their primary role was not to use violence, but to threaten to use it. In the case of post-Soviet Islamist movements, demonstrative ritual acts played a particularly important role in mobilizing experts on violence. These acts also made it clear to people that disobedience on their part would result in inevitable punishment. For example, Juma Namangani captured and beheaded Islamic opposition fighters who decided to return to their villages after the government issued an amnesty to maintain their image as a fearless, determined and brutal commander, and to demonstrate to all fighters who decided to move away from the "jihadist cause" that they would be mercilessly punished for their treachery. Although violence specialists are not the only political actors in Islamic movements, they are very important in instilling a culture of violence. Rituals of violence have become an integral part of the political life of some Muslim regions of the former USSR. In this regard, a parallel can be drawn between Central Asia and the North Caucasus, where rituals of public violence were even more important for creating a "power image" of public figures, and it accordingly helps to politically mobilize people. Chechen separatists ' televised executions and flagellations between 1996 and 1999, and the beheading of a policeman by Islamic radicals in the Ferghana Valley are examples of such acts. Another of their goals is to confirm the commitment of Islamic radicals to a kind of code of honor and traditions of blood feuds. The demonstration of the enemy's ears being cut off during the Tajik Civil War is another case in point.

Violence specialists are recruited not only by Islamists, but also by secular forces. During the first phase of the civil war in Tajikistan in 1992, for example, several former racketeers sided with secular forces that opposed the Islamic Renaissance Party. By doing so, they aligned themselves with certain clan groups and regional elites. Popular Front leader Sangak Safarov, who effectively ensured the victory of the Kulyab-Leninabad-Gisar alliance over the Garm-Karategin-Pamir block of Islamists and democrats, spent 23 years in prison. After the victory over the Islamists, many former racketeers received ministerial positions as a reward. Thus, one of them, Yakub Salimov, became the Minister of Internal Affairs (in 2003, having already been stripped of all his posts, he was arrested in Moscow at the request of the Government of Tajikistan and then extradited to the Government of that country, where he was sentenced by a court to a long term of imprisonment).

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A factor that contributes to the preservation of the culture of violence in the post-Soviet space is the high degree of militarization of society-the legacy of the Soviet era. A large number of former "specialists" from the army, police, KGB and other security agencies were pre-trained and trained in the Soviet era. Many of them became involved in politics or entered the civil service. Others were left without a job at all, as a result of which they could be recruited by certain political actors.

A particular type of violence practiced by Islamic radicals in the post-Soviet space can be called opportunistic. This category usually includes hostage-taking, looting, enslavement, and so on. Thus, violence is used to settle scores, seek revenge, gain income, or intimidate people. Opportunistic violence is turning into a full-blown business. For some nationalist and Islamic movements, opportunistic violence has become so commonplace that observers describe it as a form of business transaction. This applies, for example, to some Chechen separatists and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. Participating in hostage-taking, however, does not necessarily mean that those who commit it are only criminal gangs. Perhaps it is this "business" that is particularly attractive because of the huge gap in the standard of living of people throughout the former Soviet Union.

Religious determinism, as reflected in religious doctrines, is also a factor that significantly influences individual behavior, including the use of violence. Even in medieval Islam, there was a broad debate between two movements - Qadariyya and jabriyya - on the issue of human free will. Are Muslims free to act if everything is determined by Allah? If, indeed, everything is predetermined, then can they be held accountable for their actions? Jabrits claim that individuals cannot be held accountable for their actions to Allah, who guides people in this world and determines everything that will happen in it. The Qadarites believe that Allah puts believers in a position to choose actions from a certain spectrum. Having made their choice, individuals realize their free will. They will either be rewarded or punished for their choice on the Day of Judgment. These debates continue among contemporary Islamic theologians, and they have a direct bearing on the interpretation of the behavior of individual Islamic groups, as well as the ways in which Islam is used for political mobilization of people.

We can also draw a comparison between Islam and Buddhism to illustrate the mechanism by which determinism is used for political purposes. Unlike Islam, Buddhism does not offer restrictions on individual behavior, and therefore lacks ways to justify group behavior. One might conclude that there is nothing in Buddhist teaching that allows for free will. However, this conclusion is essentially incorrect, since the concept of karma makes the attitude of Buddhists to life exclusively deterministic. N. N. Bektimirova explains that some members of the Buddhist sangha (monastic community) declared that the Polpot genocide regime is the result of Khmer karma, which is rewarded for their past sinful acts, especially for their wars with their neighbors in the era of the Angkor Empire) [Bektimirova]. Thus, the concept of pre-determined personal responsibility of the Khmer people explains the long-term suffering during Pol Pot's monstrous experiments.

Deterministic attitudes, such as human responsibility and divine retribution, are an integral part of any religious teaching and can be used in one form or another for political mobilization. Mobilization for or response to collective violence is closely linked to these motivations, and they partly help explain the emergence and evolution of radical Islamism.

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THE CONCEPT OF "ISLAMIC ACTIVISM"

This concept, which has become widespread in some academic circles, aims to understand the phenomenon of Islamic radicalism with the help of specific scientific tools, partly already mentioned above. The concept of "activists" does not answer the question " why?", but it gives an original, interesting answer to the question"how?" The authors of the report prepared by the International Crisis Group (ICG) also prefer to talk about Islamic activism, but in this case this name is not used as a scientific term, but rather as a synonym for Islamism. The authors propose to choose as a starting point for studying this phenomenon the thesis of distinguishing between its Sunni and Shiite variants, while emphasizing the essentially "communal" nature of Shiite activism. Since Shiites in most Muslim states are a minority (Iran, Iraq, and Azerbaijan are exceptions), their primary task is to defend the interests of the Shiite community in the face of other groups of the population or the state itself [Understanding Islam, 2005, p. 1]. At the same time, as the authors of the report note, for this reason, as well as due to the leading political role of scientists and authoritative religious leaders, Shiite activism remains a single, homogeneous trend.

Sunni activism, in contrast to Shiite activism, is fragmented, and its currents, as already noted, are in conflict with each other. It is Sunni activism, rather than Shiite activism - or rather, some of its trends - that is now considered by the West as a source of threats to global security. The authors of the CIM report identify three distinct types of Sunni Islamism, or activism, each of which has its own vision of the world, its own way of acting, and its characteristic actors.

A. Political. Examples of political movements include the Muslim Brotherhood Movement (Harakat al-Ikhwan al-Muslimin). in Egypt and its spun-off branches in other countries (Algeria, Jordan, Kuwait, Palestine, Sudan, Syria), as well as local movements such as the Justice and Development Party in Turkey or the Justice and Development Party in Morocco. These organizations aim to gain political power in the countries in which they operate. They accept the very concept of the national state, act within the framework of constitutions, avoid violence (except when fighting against foreign occupation), profess reformist rather than revolutionary doctrine, etc.

B. Missionary. These are organizations that aim to convert to Islam through missionary work (da'wa). As an example, on the one hand, the well-structured Tabligh movement (it is based in Pakistan and some other countries) is cited, on the other hand, the highly fragmented Salafi movement. For these movements, gaining political power is not a goal; the main thing for them is to protect Muslim identity, Muslim faith and morals from the influence of the"forces of unbelief".

V. Jihadistsky. This is a movement of Islamic armed struggle that functions in three types: internal (confrontation with formally Islamic, but in fact, according to its ideologists, "infidel" Islamic regimes), irredentist (struggle for the return of territories under the control of non-Muslims or under occupation) and global (opposition to the West) [Understanding Islam, 2005, p. 1].

This scheme is useful for developing a general approach to Islamic activism, but it does not exhaust the entire complex mosaic of Islamic organizations and structures, which is especially clearly seen in the example of Islamic organizations operating in the West. Many of them do not show extremist tendencies in themselves and cannot be classified as radical or, even more so, jihadist. In London, there are quite decent and loyal Muslim organizations, such as the Islamic Council of Britain (ISB) or the Assembly of Muslims of Britain (AMB). If

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although the positions of these organizations on certain issues do not coincide with the official position of the British government, firstly, it always reflects the views prevailing among Muslims and, secondly, it usually concerns issues on which the Blair government is criticized by many outside the Muslim community (for example, British Muslims noted with satisfaction that London Mayor Ken Livingstone, as well as a number of members of Parliament, opposed the US-British invasion of Iraq).

At the same time, the ideological positions of even moderate activists in the West, who not only have nothing in common with the slogans of armed struggle, but also do not set the task of gaining power, but only defend the interests of the Muslim minority and strive for its integration into Western society, are often misunderstood by the non-Muslim environment. Dr. Kamal Khelbawi, an Egyptian by birth who lived in Pakistan for many years before moving to England and becoming the first president of the Assembly of Muslims of Britain, says that the main tasks of the AMB are da'wa (conversion to Islam), teaching Fiqh (Muslim law) and Arabic, and preparing young people for the future. to become good citizens of British society. But in the past, Khelbawi was one of the founders of the Saudi-based World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMM) and a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, which gives many analysts reason to consider him a radical, since WAMM has a reputation as a Wahhabi proselytizing organization. In an interview with him, Dr. Khelbawi said that WAMM "is not a Wahhabi organization, it is a Muslim organization. As far as terrorism is concerned, this general charge cannot be levelled against an organization as large as WAMM" [Interview with Kamal Helbawy, 2005, p. 1]. Many in Britain believe otherwise, believing that this organization has contributed to the radical indoctrination of Muslims.

Looking at the causes of the terrorist attacks committed in the UK in 2005, Khelbawi argued that Islamic radicalism has already taken deep roots in the country. He explains this for several reasons. First, young Muslims do not have sufficient representation in British society. Secondly, extremist ideas are being propagated in mosques and other places. Third, there are various "Abus" (Abu Hamza, Abu Qatada, etc.) that influence Muslim youth. According to Khelbawi, injustice against Muslims in Britain and abroad also plays a role. Islamophobia in the media is another factor of radicalism. Finally, "if the United Kingdom had not participated in the invasion of Iraq and taken a more balanced position on the question of Palestine, it is very possible that the terrorist attacks would not have occurred" [Interview with Kamal Helbawy, 2005, p. 2].

In the light of these reflections, it is appropriate to turn again to O. Roy, who believes that the radicalization of Muslims in Western Europe cannot be considered as a result of the inability of Muslim immigrants to integrate into European society due to the peculiarities of their culture. In his opinion, this is the result of the" deculturization " of religion, and not the expression of culture itself. This is nothing more than the desire to "create a' pure ' religion outside of traditional or Western culture, beyond the actual concept of culture as such "[Roy, 2005, p. 6].

EXTERNAL FACTOR PROBLEM

The problem of correlation of external and internal factors of Islamic radicalism, participation of external actors in extremist actions is essential for determining the genesis of this phenomenon and identifying the driving forces of a particular jihadist movement. But this is only part of the question. Is an Islamic radika-

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Is Islam and, in a narrower sense, jihadism a global phenomenon, or does it always have an ethno-national or geographical dimension? The answer to this and some other questions also depends on the answer to another, more specific question: whether it is possible to talk about the existence of some globally unified centers of Islamism - ideological, financial, organizational.

It is necessary to separate the voluntary and mercenary types of external participation in jihadism (although victims of militant actions do not care who is responsible for them). For volunteering, ideological motivation is important, which may have a religious, ethno-national, or even personal nature. "Ideological" jihadists exist, but they also need certain financial and organizational capabilities. The same can be said about "ethno-jihadists", for whom jihad is only a shell, a cover. At the height of the second intifada, the number of young Palestinians who were willing to commit an act of jihadist self-sacrifice for the liberation of the occupied lands far exceeded the capacity to actually commit such acts. The jihad declared by Chechen separatists in the first half of the 1990s served the purpose of mobilizing the population to fight for secession, and only later, after 1996, did the movement degenerate into a purely terrorist, Islamist-motivated jihadism. Against this background, the use of the slogan of jihad by politicians in the name of creative goals that are not related to violence hardly seems justified (for example, Ramzan Kadyrov's declaration of jihad to gambling in the Chechen Republic).

Religiously motivated movements are generally similar to ethnopolitical movements in that both types of collective action are guided by faith-based ideologies. This circumstance allowed the American researcher Edward Walker to apply the conclusions made by Stuart Kaufman in the analysis of ethnicity and ethnic movements to religious, namely, modern radical Islamic movements.1 Kaufman is an adherent of the theory of "symbolic choice" - the antithesis of "rational choice". The fundamental conclusion of symbolic choice theory is that people make choices, "choose" not by rational reasoning, but by reacting to the most emotionally powerful symbols (Kaufman, 2001, p. 28). Kaufman uses the concept of the myth-symbol complex. He is convinced that "ethnicity is a rich resource for people involved in symbolist politics, because it has such a powerful emotional load" [Kaufman, 2001, p. 29]. But why do ethnic symbols have more "emotional power" than symbols related to religion, clan, tribe, class, or political ideology, Walker asks. He "applies" Kaufman's arguments to violent religious movements, not because he wants to show their universality, but because he disputes them. History and mythology that help fuel ethnic conflict are no different from those that fuel religious conflict. Any sustained collective violence is impossible to imagine without emotions. At the same time, both ethno-national and religious ideologies can play a mobilizing role as an ideology of resistance.

The most striking examples are Palestine and Iraq, where both types of ideologies have united in a single movement of collective violence. Here the role of emotional symbols of both ethnic and religious order is equally great. Jihadists, pursuing their own goals, quickly pick up any protest of a social or ethnic nature that occurs in territories inhabited by Muslim minorities, and use emotional symbols to incite protest feelings, fill them with religious content and transform them into reality-

1 Draft article, courtesy of Walker to the author.

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passive violence. As an example, we can cite the states of Southeast Asia, where along with the "old" Muslim movement of the Philippines (Moro Liberation Front), a new conflict node has appeared - the protest movement of Muslims in the southern provinces of Thailand (although in this state Muslims make up no more than 4% of the population). In both cases, the authorities ' lack of attention to the needs of the Muslim population played the role of the main cause of the conflict, and an unnecessary appeal exclusively to brutal force - in the second case - the role of the detonator of the explosion. The jihadists were quick to list Thailand among the countries where oppressed Muslims are fighting for self-determination, and launched a mobilization campaign for solidarity. 2

JIHADISTS AND THEIR OPPONENTS

In some Muslim countries, jihadists have long been fighting against the ruling regimes (for example, Egypt or Algeria), while in others-usually where the diverse takfiri felt comfortable-they did not turn their weapons against the authorities until a certain time. So, until May 2003, Saudi jihadists, despite their rhetoric, practically did not commit terrorist attacks against the regime and its institutions, focusing their fire on Americans on the ground of the kingdom, primarily military personnel. It was not until May 2003, when the Saudi Government demonstrated that it was seriously cooperating with the anti-terrorist coalition, that the jihadists affiliated with Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (CAP) started a war with the regime. Then the authorities published three lists of jihadists: a list of 12 dead during the first suicide attack in Riyadh on May 12 of the same year, a list of 19 and a list of 26 most dangerous terrorists.

An analysis of the information available about the "people on the list" makes it possible to draw conclusions that are useful for identifying the environment in which terrorists appear and operate. Dutch researcher Roel Meijer believes that, despite the incompleteness of this information, some conclusions are still revealing. Some jihadists come from the upper middle class (their fathers are dentists, high-ranking officials, officers, politicians), while others belong to the lower middle class. Some of them had families, including those who died during the terrorist attacks in Riyadh. A significant indicator is the youth of the terrorists, their average age is 27 years. Four people belonging to the "second generation" of al-Qaeda are just over 30 years old, while most of the terrorists are younger than them, some of them are 22 years old. The average age of members of one of the KAP cells, called "al-Khalidiyya", is 19 years [Meijer, 2005, p. 16].

Along with the traditional Wahhabi religious elite, the mass of followers of traditional, non-politicized Wahhabism, neo-Wahhabis (to use the terminology of O. Roy), Takfiri jihadists and the sympathetic part of the population of the kingdom in Saudi Arabia, there is also a layer of critics of both Wahhabism in general and its individual trends. Their views are understood by a part of the population. Stephane Lacroix, a French researcher in Saudi Arabia, thinks that there are several non-Shiite groups that are critical of Wahhabism.

The first group is represented by Saudi liberals, including the well-known writer and publicist Turki al-Hamad. Al-Hamad has been fighting "domestic Wahhabism" for several decades, advocating, for example, the lifting of the ban on women driving cars or against the existence of the mutawwa'a, a religious morality police. After September 11, 2001, this group toughened its stance on Wahhabi morals and practices.

2 There are many vivid examples of mobilization through emotionally charged mythology outside the Islamic world. The Sinhalese Buddhists of modern Sri Lanka used ancient religious myths to mobilize their co-religionists against the Tamil Hindus. According to these myths, Theravada Buddhism escaped destruction by the rebellious Hindus at the beginning of the eighth century AD (Lacroix, 2005, p. 17).

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The second group consists of young intellectuals, among whom the most famous are the already mentioned Mansour al-Nuk'idan and Mishari al-Zayidi. Both of these publicists were staunch supporters of radical Wahhabism in the past, but later became equally active critics of Wahhabi teachings. Recently, they have written extensively about the "excesses of the Wahhabi doctrine" and directly associate the wave of jihadist violence that swept the world, and since May 2003, Saudi Arabia itself, with this religious doctrine.

The third group is those who criticize Wahhabism from the standpoint of Salafism. The most prominent representative of this group, Hasan al-Maliki, accuses the Wahhabi establishment of being doctrinally rigid, of blindly copying ' Abd al-Wahhab and Ibn Taymiyyah, while "true Salafism" needs to create its own ideas. Al-Maliki and ' Abdallah al-Hamid say that Wahhabism is only a caricature of "true Salafism". Thus, unlike the first two groups of liberal critics of Wahhabism, representatives of this Islamist movement only call for freeing the religion from the shackles of stagnation and scribbling, and "modernizing" Salafi puritanism.

The fourth group, according to Lacroix, is the intra-Wahhabi critics of this teaching. Among them is the Islamic lawyer and public figure 'Abd al -' Aziz al-Qasim, who claims that the authentic Wahhabi tradition is pluralistic and calls for the revival of the elements of tolerance that exist in it [Lacroix, 2005, p. 17].

For all the differences between these groups of Saudi critics of Wahhabism, they all agree on the need to revise the official Wahhabi doctrine and call for modernization and de facto democratization of religious life. It is also important that the current Islam-liberals have broken the unspoken taboo on using the term "Wahhabism" in the kingdom and call this dominant doctrine there by the name of its founder.

* * *

The reflections on Islamic radicalism presented here are not intended to offer a complete explanation for this complex phenomenon. The more new concepts and approaches to it appear in the works of leading Western researchers, the more they generate thoughts, doubts, and encourage the search for other solutions. But without taking these concepts and approaches into account, without fully mastering all the accumulated knowledge, it is already difficult to reach the level of a problem today. The "brilliance and poverty" of Russian Islamic studies consists in the fact that its undoubted advantage is a good knowledge of primary sources and continuity of scientific tradition, and its inherent disadvantage is a weak acquaintance with foreign theoretical thought. Looking at Islamic radicalism in its mirror is an attempt to fill in some of this gap.

list of literature

Abdullah bin Ahmad al-Zayed. Training in Prayer (Ministry of Waqf, Da'wy and Orientation in cooperation with the Ibrahim bin 'Abd al-'Aziz Al-Barahimi Charitable Organization, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, b. g.).

Bektimirova N. N. Participation of the Cambodian Sangha in politics: Challenges and Consequences (unpublished article).

Muflikhunov N. Book of sermons and instructions. Kazan: Kazan Iman Publ., 1998

Muhammad Hasan. The source of terror: the ideology of Wahhabism-Salafism. Moscow, 2005.

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