ISIS is already an advertised brand, which people use at the last minute to "to leave beautifully from the dead life into a living immortality." Such people are difficult and almost impossible to find, they are not components of the Islamic structures and institutions, they do not follow Islamic web sites all the time. What is happening now, we can determine by Olivier Roy's term - "radical Islamization." On June 21, 2016, the Valdai Discussion Club held a presentation of the Valdai Paper "Russian Islam and the Situation in the Middle East."
The main purpose of the Paper was the analysis of mutual interference of Russian Islamic regions and the Middle East region. The author of the report, Ahmet Yarlykapov, Senior Researcher, Center for the Regional Security and Caucasus Studies at the MGIMO University, pointed out that we should stop to underestimate the influence of the Middle East on the Russian Ummah. On the other hand, we should not overestimate the negative features of this influence.
Contrary to widespread opinion, the Russian Ummah proved to be extremely resistant to radicalization, and the number of people who became members of the destructive organizations still remains small. The interaction of the Russian Muslim community with Middle Eastern brothers in faith are in general positive, meaning the invitation of foreign missionaries to Russia, education in Islamic schools abroad, mainly in the Middle East and North Africa.
At the moment, the Russian Islamic community is experiencing a period of deep reforms. The primary issue is to integrate the entire spectrum of traditionalist branches and to organize a dialogue between them. This is an important step in order to avoid the radicalization of religious communities, rejected for their recognition as "non-traditional". No less crucial is the problem of polyjuridism due to the lack of secular legal mechanisms to resolve problems of the population.
As noted by the participants, the very notion of traditional Islam is controversial, and now, perhaps, it would be necessary to abandon it. Ahmet Yarlykapov believes that the only two criteria which could lead to a better interpretation of the traditional Islam concept should be the loyalty to the government and lack of radicalism. Ilshat Saetov, scientific director of the Center for Islamic Studies, Marjani Foundation, pointed to the gap between the reality and the government policy, which imposes bans. Many of them are not only unnecessary, but also harmful and lead to misunderstandings and initially peaceful communities go underground. Evgeny Bakhrevsky, Deputy Director of the D. S. Likhachev Russian Research Institute for Cultural and Natural Heritage, recommended to pay attention to possible occurrence of new hotbeds of extremism.
Experts pointed out to the need to establish a dialogue between government officials and experts in the field of Caucasian studies - anthropologists, psychologists, sociologists, political scientists – to understand better present processes.
One of the main limiting factors for joining the radical organizations is education. It was noted that in Russia among the radicals escaped to Syria there was not a single person with a humanitarian education. According to Saetov, closed nature of Islamic educational institutions in Russia, which is observed today, may have the most disastrous consequences. Countries with Muslim population, with a mandatory minimum of knowledge about the religion basics, show positive results in term of reducing number of radicals. For example, in Turkey, where there is such a practice, for the introduction of Sharia as state law is only 7% of the population, while in the Islamic regions of Russia - 35%.
The experts who participated in the debate, paid attention to the analysis of the ISIS structure (forbidden radical organization in Russia). Recently, the organization began to work on the franchising principles, giving authority to act on its behalf to many radical organizations, which is for ISIS a profitable way of interaction. One example is "Vilayat Caucasus", which emerged in the North Caucasus and exists on money sent from the Middle East. It declared itself a part of ISIS.
The sad trend, according to speakers, is the exaggeration of the role of Islam in the terrorist acts taking place throughout the world. In many and even most cases, Islam becomes the only accused for a variety of non-obvious reasons. People are radicalized by the poor economic situation, inability to integrate into society, lack of social mobility, excessively rigid management, search for justice, inability to influence political processes, mental illness and many other problems.
ISIS is already an advertised brand, which people use at the last minute to "to leave beautifully from the dead life into a living immortality." Such people are difficult and almost impossible to find, they are not components of the Islamic structures and institutions, they do not follow Islamic web sites all the time. What is happening now, we can determine by Olivier Roy's term - "radical Islamization." Stanislav Ivanov, senior fellow at IMEMO, proposed to consider radical Islam in the framework of the ideology, which will allow a deeper analysis of the problem and to expand a wider counter-propaganda against it.
