The day before yesterday we wrote about the meeting with Vladimir Putin devoted to the coronavirus situation in Dagestan, where the head of DUMD, Ahmed Abdulayev, who spoke about the real state of affairs in the republic, looked almost like a truth-seeking dissident. At the same time, Abdulayev himself has to fend off accusations from the Dagestani leadership, which is trying to shift the main responsibility for the spread of the pandemic in the republic to the DUMD. However, it is not Abdulayev himself who is defending himself, but his flamboyant wife, Aina Gamzatova, who plays the role of the «first lady» of DUMD. It is she who published on her Facebook account an open letter to Vasilyev in response to the accusations against the organization headed by her husband.
«You are trying to put all the responsibility on the Muftiate and say that people in the republic were infected because they attended Friday prayers at the beginning of the self-isolation period. How many times can you repeat the same thing?» asked the First Lady of DUMD. According to her, 90% of Muslims in Dagestan who attend mosques followed her husband’s «soft call» not to go to them, and as for the remaining 10% who continued to go, the authorities themselves should have acted more actively to prevent this.
«Friday prayers are the obligation (farz) of a Muslim, which cannot be recommended to refuse. This requires at least an expert decision by the chief epidemiologist. The day after the meeting with the head of Dagestan, the Mufti received an answer to his urgent request, and the head of Rospotrebnadzor of Dagestan finally came to the Muftiate with representatives of the administration and expressed his competent and important decision on this matter. After that, the Mufti’s appeal was replaced by a stricter one: ‘Don’t visit mosques,'» she writes.
At the same time, Gamzatova accused Vasilyev not only of failing to explicitly ban visits to mosques and to provide her husband with official information in a timely manner, but also of failing to take measures to prevent other mass gatherings in the republic.
«Throughout the week, cars and people moved around the region almost as usual. From the city, people went to the mountains, to their cottages, so to speak, bringing virus-infected sets as gifts to the villagers. No one stopped this movement,» the first lady of DUMD said.
There has been no official comment from Vasilyev on these allegations. Yesterday, the media reported that he had a telephone conversation with Abdulayev, without giving details.
Today, however, the DUMD head’s wife continued an online debate on her page with those who try to disturb her with comments like «Woman, what are you meddling in?» or «Hey, woman, shut up.»
Gamzatova tried to convince such people by explaining that her roots «lead directly to the uncle of the Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of the Most High be upon him), Abbas (may Allah be pleased with him),» and that her «great-grandmother on her mother’s side is the daughter of the ruler of southern Georgia,» which she concluded meant that she had «the blood of the Prophet David (peace be upon him). This information came to Gamzatova from her «grandfathers and grandmothers on her father’s and mother’s side».
It should be noted that earlier the First Lady of DUMD tried to run for the presidency of Russia, but was not registered by the Central Election Commission. Apparently, they either did not know about her roots or did not appreciate them.