Ingush officials have come to the defence of an imam who criticised male waiters for serving women, saying criticism of the imam was an attempt to destabilise the situation in the Russian republic.
Ingushetia’s Minister for External Relations, National Policy, Press, and Information, Ruslan Miziev, made the statement on Tuesday.
He told TASS that criticism of Imam Ibrahim Batyrov, the imam of the central mosque in the town of Malgobek, was a provocation, saying the video showing his sermon had been recorded about a year earlier and did not attract wide attention at the time.
‘Now some bloggers have decided to hype it, plus there are those who want to destabilise the situation in the region. In his sermon, Batyrov referred to the Ingush adat, or traditions, stating that working as a waiter does not contradict Islam, but is perceived ambiguously from the point of view of tradition. At the same time, in conditions of high unemployment, honest work is always preferable, and the right to choose a profession is enshrined in the constitution of the Russian Federation’, said Miziev.
At the same time, Miziev did not give any comments on this matter either in his personal Telegram channel or in the official channel of the ministry.
Earlier, independent Ingush media outlet Fortanga published a video of Batyrov’s sermon, where he says that Ingush men should not work as waiters and serve women. He describes such work as ‘dishonest’ and ‘shameful’. At the same time, Batyrov himself stated that this profession does not contradict Islam but is perceived ambiguously from the standpoint of traditions — adat.
Later his opinion was supported by the head of the Muslim community of Malgobek, Yakub Kurskiev, who said that women should not visit catering establishments at all, as ‘they may meet eyes with a man and accidentally touch his hand’.
‘Batyrov is right in his statements!’ he said. ‘Serving women is not a man’s business. In general, women should not be among men! They must avoid places where men may be. If it so happens that a woman and a man come to the same establishment, a woman must be served by another woman, and a man must be served by a man. There must be separation! Women should sit separately, men separately! This is Islamic law! It does not matter whether the woman is Ingush or Russian — there must be such rules. If a Russian woman comes to an establishment, it is wrong for an Ingush man to serve her. And it does not matter whether this happens in an establishment in Ingushetia or in Moscow. You must understand that if a woman is served by a man, he will look at her, they may meet eyes, start glancing at each other — this is wrong. And if they accidentally touch each other’s hands?’
The Head of Ingushetia, Mahmud-Ali Kalimatov, refrained from commenting.
Journalists from the pro-Kremlin outlet Regnum have obtained a comment from Batyrov himself, who maintained that he had expressed himself correctly, and that he indeed holds such a position and preaches it among the parishioners of his mosque. He repeated that he considers serving women a ‘dirty and shameful’ occupation, and demanded that journalists not interfere, stressing that the Ingush had their ‘own laws’.
‘This is none of your business! We have our own laws! It is not your business to comment on my sermons; they are for the Ingush, not for you! We have our own mentality, our own laws — it is not your busi1ness! Do not call me again’, the imam said.
Responding to this situation, Marina Akhmedova, a member of the Human Rights Council under the President of the Russian Federation, stated that ‘it is a disgrace for any man to be dependent on a woman and live on the benefits that a woman receives for her children from the secular state’.
‘With this approach, you might as well lock yourself away in some remote village where there are no restaurants or cafés, or move to Afghanistan. Imams need to understand that in modern society, it is impossible to live as the Caucasus did in the Middle Ages. It won’t work. They should focus on the spiritual development of their flock, not on external restrictions. The flock cannot live with one foot in the modern world and the other in the Middle Ages; this leads to schizophrenia’, Akhmedova wrote on her Telegram channel.
Other North Caucasus republics have also seen initiatives aimed at controlling the behaviour of men and women in public spaces.
Earlier in August, a group of Ingush men travelled 300 kilometres to the Daghestani city of Izberbash to ‘check’ beaches and cafes for Ingush women allegedly dating men of other nationalities. According to the participants, they found no evidence to support these rumours overnight but stated that they would continue to ‘monitor’ the behaviour of their female compatriots.
Elizaveta Chukharova
