Geydar Dzhemal
Geydar Dzhahidovich Dzhemal was a Russian-Azerbaijani Islamic public figure, philosopher and political activist. Most notable for founding and leading the Islamic Committee of Russia, he was a Marxist and championed non-sectarian pan-Islamism, though formally identifying as a Twelver Shia Muslim. He wrote extensive apologetics in support of Wahhabism and the Salafi movement.
He was also the Co-chairman and member of the Presidium of the Russian Social Movement "Russian Islamic Heritage", permanent member of the Popular Arab and Islamic Congress, as well as one of the founders and a member of the Coordinating Council of the Left Front, part of The Other Russia. He took part in the Dissenters' March.
Early life and education
Dzhemal was born on 6 November 1947 in Moscow. His father was the Azerbaijani artist Dzakhid Dzemal, who is believed to be a descendant of Hulagu Khan. His mother was Irina Shapovalova, a well-known equestrian and horse trainer descended from the noble Shepelev family. His parents divorced when he was very young and he was raised by his maternal grandparents. Dzhemal's maternal grandfather, Igor Shapovalov, was a professor of German philosophy, as well as the director of the Maly Theatre and First Deputy Minister of Culture of the Soviet Union.In 1965, after graduation from school, Dzhemal entered the Institute of Oriental Languages at Moscow State University, but a year later was expelled for "bourgeois nationalism". He later took a job as an editor at the "Medicine" Publishing House, where he met a Moscow State University graduate, Ilya Moskvin.
Activist history
In the 1960s and 1970s, Dzhemal joined a number of loosely-affiliated bohemian underground organisations associated with Yuri Mamleev. Some members of these groups had access to secret collections of the All-Russia State Library for Foreign Literature and brought works by a number of mystics and philosophers to these discussions. Through Mameleev, these works became popular among an intellectual strain of Russian neo-Nazism.Under KGB pressure, the organisation disbanded; to escape compulsory military service, Dzhemal claimed to be schizophrenic and was sent to a psychiatric institution. In 1974, after Mameleev emigrated to the United States, Dzhemal and political analyst Aleksandr Dugin met with philosopher Evgeniy V. Golovin, who established the "Black Order of the SS". In the late 1980s, both were members of the nationalist Pamyat society, but were excluded for alleged occultism.
Foray into Islam
From 1980, he was a member of the Islamic movement of Tajikistan, and in 1990, joined members of the underground organizations of the Caucasus and Volga regions of Russia in the formation of an umbrella Islamic Revival Party that was active throughout the Soviet Union and whose leadership came from various Islamic traditions. The party alleged that only Soviet Muslims would allow the Soviet Union to meaningfully oppose the West. During the Civil War in Tajikistan, Dzhemal worked as an advisor to Davlat Usmon, one of the founders of the Islamic Revival Party of Tajikistan.In the Islamic Renaissance Party in Astrakhan, he became a deputy chairman of the party. In the same year, he established an information center Tawḥīd and launched the Islamic Russian-language newspaper Al-Waḥdat.
During the Tajik Civil War of 1992, he was appointed as a political advisor to Vice Premier of the Islamic Democratic Coalition Government led by Davlat Usmon. He was a participant in the Popular Arab and Islamic Conference in Khartoum and consecutively became a member of its permanent council.
Since 1995, the Islamic Council became affiliated with the Union of Muslims of Russia. From 1996 he became advisor to Alexander Lebed and cooperated with him and the Union of Patriotic and National Organisations of Russia to support a block on General Lebedev's presidential campaign.
While being a member of the Central Council СПНОР Djemal was an intermediary between Lebedev and Maskhadov during the First Chechen War. He established connections with Muslim organizations in Europe.
In 1993, Djemal got acquainted with the son of the deceased Ayatollah Khomeini, Ahmad. In the early 1990s, Dzhemal put on a few TV shows on Islamic issues. In May 1994, Djemal's documentary, Islamic Republic of Iran, was broadcast by the Russian channels Pervij and The First creating a political scandal which resonated with anti-Iran sentiments in Russia.
In 2010 Dzhemal commented on the Armenian-Azerbaijani Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. He was also among the 34 first signatories of an online anti-Vladimir Putin manifesto, "Putin Must Go", published on 10 March 2010.
Djemal died on 5 December 2016 in Almaty.
On 30 July 2018, his son, journalist, was killed along with film director and cameraman while filming a documentary about the activities of a Russian paramilitary organization Wagner Group in the Central African Republic.
Religious views
Shi'ism
The Islamic scholar Roman Silantyev and the journalist Yulia Latynina said that Jamal professed Shia Islam and that he was a Jafari in Fiqh. He also expressed positive views about Khomeinism and Wilayat al-Faqih during his exchanges with Ahmad Khomeini.The Internet portal "Voice of Islam" said:
Statement on Theology
Regarding responses to a lecture he gave in Almaty in 2008, he made a statement saying:Recently, many people have asked me about my belonging to one direction or another within Islam. Some people say, “We agree with you in many ways, but you are Shia. Oh, if you weren’t Shia!” To once and for all remove any questions that arise in the brothers, I officially declare the following:
- I follow myself and support all who follow the Quran and the authentic Sunnah of the Prophet.
- I stand for the complete and inseparable theological and political unity of all Muslims on the platform of Jihad in the path of Allah until all religion on The Earth belongs to Him Alone.
- I do not follow any of the living Shi'ite Maraji'.
- I categorically reject pantheism and the Sufi Aqidah based on it and the teachings of Muhammad Ibn Arabi, which is the basis of the Irfan of the Qom Seminary.
- I do not curse any of the Rashidun and may Allah be pleased with them.
- I believe that in all directions of Islam, created by sincere Muslims making efforts in the way of Allah, except for misconceptions, there is also a grain of truth, which will be reprimanded in the 73 Sects, designed to carry out the complete victory of Muslims over Dajjal under the leadership of the expected Mahdi.