The Voice of Islam has never been a supporter of Alexei Navalny and has often criticized him, sometimes harshly, both on general political issues and for his repeated Islamophobic statements, which can be easily confirmed by looking at the tag at the end of this article.
However, it is important to remember what we recently wrote about Roman Silantyev: «…it is important to understand that in a legal state and civil society in which Muslims in Russia are interested in living, there will inevitably be opponents, including blatant Islamophobes. And we will have to argue with them, and sometimes litigate with them, because these are the rules of the game, based on freedom of speech and civilized conflict resolution. However — and it is important to understand this — Putin’s Russia is not such a state and society, and Roman Silantyev is not such an opponent. It is a toxic Chekist mafia state in which the constitution and laws have long been trampled, there are no independent courts, and the security forces play the role of the mafia and a repressive machine guarding the ruling junta. …. As for Silantyev, this person is an active participant in this repressive policy as an informer and justifier, as well as an active participant in a state coup to abolish the foundations of the constitutional system of the Russian Federation and replace it with the system described above».
So, in this coordinate system, Navalny is the opponent on religious issues that Muslims will have to deal with anyway. But it should be understood that this opponent has not kidnapped and killed scores of Islamic human rights activists and journalists, expelled thousands of active Russian Muslims from the country, banned hundreds of Islamic literature titles, and imprisoned prominent representatives of the Russian Muslim community. It is the power and the system that has done and continues to do all this that has now tried to kill or at least cripple and incapacitate Alexei Navalny.
Despite his unacceptable words about Islamic values, Navalny has been an ally of Muslims in many of his recent actions. Whether it was his support for Abdulmunim Gadzhiev or Tumso Abdurakhmanov, protests in Dagestan, Ingushetia, or Bashkortostan, Navalny, despite his objectively Islamophobic views, often sided with Muslims where their prominent representatives were afraid to speak out, with those who recite the Shahada, pray five times a day, fast in Ramadan, and so on. Therefore, in the situation where Navalny has become a victim of the same system that oppresses Muslims, we are on his side, just as he is on ours when this repressive machine oppresses our people.
As for our ideological differences, we will resolve them, God willing, when we live in a society where there is freedom of speech, discussion, and public activity — for Muslims and non-Muslims alike. In this, our secular goals coincide, just as we have common enemies who stand in the way of achieving them and pose a threat to Russian Muslims and Russian civil society.