The news of the first Muslim congresswoman in the United States taking an oath on the Quran while wearing a hijab has been discussed not only by Muslims. «Oh wow! Muslim women elected to the US Congress will take oath on the Koran,» said a post by Alexey Venediktov, the editor-in-chief of Echo of Moscow, which received thousands of replies and was read by hundreds of thousands of people. About the first Muslim women elected to Congress — Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar, the latter of whom also wears a hijab — «Voice of Islam» has already written extensively, including the problems that seriously overshadow the joy of being representatives of Muslims in the highest governing body of the leading country in the world.
No, we do not consider the mere participation of Muslims in non-Islamic governing bodies to be such a problem. Provided that they do so with the intention of representing the interests of Islam and Muslims, and that they themselves follow Islamic principles in making decisions in matters that specifically depend on them. In the case of these congresswomen, the first condition is likely to be partially met — their intention to represent Islam may of course raise questions, but they are probably genuinely willing to represent the interests of Muslims. The second condition is much more difficult — adhering to Islamic principles in decision-making, because many of the statements and actions of these congresswomen clearly contradict them, such as support for LGBT rights, abortion, solidarity with feminists, and so on.
However, this is a problem for the Muslim community in the United States — what political views represent their interests. Muslims in Russia are far from that, because their interests are not represented by anyone in the highest representative bodies of Russia, at least no one claims to represent them or positions himself as such.
At the same time, Muslims in the United States make up 1.1% of the population. They are neither indigenous people like Native Americans, nor part of the settler community (white Americans, WASPs) who actually founded the American republic. Many black slaves who were forcibly brought to the United States were Muslims, which is a certain argument in disputes about the roots of Islam and is used by some African-American Muslim preachers and activists. However, this argument does not apply to the situation of these congresswomen — they represent the most recent waves of immigration to America. That is, these people have only been in the country for a short time, and already they have their representatives at the highest level.
For comparison, Muslims in Russia make up no less than 10% of the country’s population and are the absolute or relative majority in about a dozen subjects and administrative-territorial entities of the Russian Federation. The overwhelming majority of Muslims in Russia live in their ancestral lands, which they have become part of, in some cases, as officially declared, «voluntarily». That is, both from the historical and legal point of view, taking into account the (again, declared) federal character of the Russian Federation, they are co-founders of its statehood.
And what — how many Muslim women in hijab or Muslim men sworn on the Koran are there today in the State Duma or the Federation Council? The question is rhetorical. But the obvious answer to it perfectly illustrates the real political weight of Muslims in Russia, even compared to a country where they make up only 1.1% of the total population, consisting mainly of recent immigrants.
Of course, it is possible to argue against this by citing numerous officials — federal and regional — with Muslim surnames. And we can leave aside the question of what percentage of them are practicing Muslims and which are «automatic converts». The problem is that these people are civil servants. That is, they do without question what the Russian government tells them to do. And they represent the interests of this government, not the Muslims who did not elect them.
This applies today to the deputies of the State Duma and the Federation Council with Muslim surnames, who in the reality of Putin’s Russia are also officials who have passed through the lists approved in the Kremlin and the same approved parties. While all attempts to create parties, even at the regional level, representing the interests of Muslims, even the most loyal to the authorities, have been repeatedly and consistently suppressed.
So, of course, it is possible to scrutinize the newly elected representatives of American Muslims and make various claims about them — fair and not so fair. But at least American Muslims have their own representatives in politics and power. Unlike the Russians.