At the end of last week, the media reported that the official Russian «Mufti of Crimea,» Emirali Ablaev, on behalf of the Crimean Muftiate, «donated» 1 million rubles for the construction of an Orthodox men’s monastery in the Bakhchisaray district. This was triumphantly announced by the press service of the Crimean and Simferopol diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church.
Of course, the «mufti,» formerly associated with the Crimean Tatar Mejlis, now banned in the Russian Federation, cannot be unaware that any support of a Muslim for the spread of unbelief (kufr) is at the very least strictly forbidden, and at most an act of apostasy. We want to make it clear that we are not scholars and do not intend to pass judgment on Ablaev, and we urge simple Muslims who do not have the necessary knowledge of Sharia to refrain from doing so. Nevertheless, it is clear that what has happened is an act of public humiliation by the Russian Orthodox Church against someone who is supposed to represent the Islamic religion.
This is the situation of Muslims in the «Russian world» today, a situation that did not exist under the godless Soviet regime, when the official Muslim hierarchy controlled by it was forced to recognize a religiously neutral authority, certainly not the Russian Orthodox Church, nor even in the Orthodox Russian Empire, where Muslim structures were also obliged to maintain formal loyalty to the imperial authorities, but by no means to demonstrate conscious loyalty to the church authorities.
Today, the Muslims of Crimea are practically forced to humbly pay the «jizya» to the Russian Orthodox Church, although in reality this is much more humiliating than the jizya. After all, in an Islamic state, Christians pay the jizya not for the construction of mosques or madrassas (since Muslims do not need such offerings from non-believers), but simply as its subjects in exchange for their security, exemption from military service, and full religious autonomy in internal affairs. In the Orthodox states of Russia and Crimea (considered extremist in many countries of the world), Muslims, who have no rights or security, are demonstratively forced to pay tribute directly for the spread of non-belief on their own land.
As reported, Metropolitan of Simferopol and Crimea Lazarus presented Bishop Ablaev with a book on «St. Luke of Crimea» with the inscription «Let it shine on all!»