The history of Ahmad and Ramzan Kadyrov, the successive presidents of Russia’s Chechen Republic since 2003, is not merely a family chronicle of Chechen power. It is also a telling case of how a state seeks to turn religion into a technology of governance—and how, over time, that very technology begins to work against it. In Chechnya, the Russian state institutionalized “traditional Islam” as a stabilizing political force: It was supposed to neutralize competing religious networks and furnish the Kremlin with a controllable form of Islamic legitimacy. But this very project, when pushed to its limits, has also revealed the boundaries of state-co-opted Islam.
The Soviet and Post-Soviet Models of Governing Islam
This article focuses on the Kadyrovs, two of the leading figures in Chechen politics since the 1990s. Ahmad Kadyrov was a former mufti who switched sides during the second Chechen war and became Moscow’s main ally in Chechnya. After his assassination in 2004, his son Ramzan Kadyrov took over and built a system centered on personal loyalty, security control, and public religion. For that reason, the Chechen case matters not only as a regional story but as a way of explaining how the Russian state has tried to manage Islam by supporting “approved” religious actors and using religion as part of political control.
It is impossible to understand the trajectory of the Kadyrovs without the basic framework into which they were embedded. In Russia, Islam has historically been not simply a religion but a domain of politics. It has been part of the history of the Russian state for centuries since large Muslim populations lived within its borders long before the Soviet period. This Muslim presence grew even further as the Russian Empire expanded into the Caucasus and Central Asia.
Chechens usually associate “traditional Islam” with Sufi brotherhoods (above all the Qadiriyya and the Naqshbandiyya), the cult of religious sheikhs, and practices deeply intertwined with adat, the system of local customs, behavioral norms, and patriarchal prescriptions. In this form, religion becomes not only a spiritual practice but also a social regulator—a language of morality, status, and the “proper” way of life, which the state easily integrates into a policy of order.
During the Soviet period, the state constructed a system that permitted religious life only in forms that it strictly limited through official structures, personnel selection, and constant surveillance. This system was a technology of governance that combined three tasks: minimizing independent religious mobilization inside the country, controlling contacts with the wider Islamic world, and using “official Islam” as an instrument of foreign-policy representation.
Institutionally, this model rested on official spiritual administrations and a limited set of educational channels.[1] The state preferred to create a small number of authorized religious figures who could serve as intermediaries, transmitting loyalty, disciplining communities, and signaling to the state the mood within the religious milieu. At the same time, supervision did not necessarily take the form of direct interference in doctrine. More important were registration, approval of personnel, control over public religiosity, and monitoring of contacts.
Official Islam also functioned as a foreign-policy showcase. The state could display Soviet Muslims and religious organizations externally as proof of “religious freedom” and as a channel of communication with countries of the Islamic world. Yet this external dimension almost always coexisted with an internal dimension of control: Participation in international contacts and religious diplomacy presupposed selection and surveillance. In the language of governance, this was a combination of “asset abroad / monitored at home,” a useful resource in foreign policy and a potentially risky resource inside the country.
After the collapse of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), the underlying logic did not disappear but adapted instead. The state’s monopoly over the religious field broke down; transnational preaching, funding, and educational networks expanded; competition among interpretations within Islam intensified; and, in the North Caucasus, religion became closely bound up with post-conflict politics and the question of political legitimacy. Yet the state’s response largely continued the Soviet reflex: to expand the space of official/traditional Islam as a manageable partner while narrowing the space of autonomous religious networks, now in the language of security.
The key distinction of the post-Soviet phase was the dominance of securitization. Islam ceased to be merely one of many controlled spheres of (what would otherwise be) civil society and became part of a counterterrorist and anti-extremist architecture. Umbrella labels such as “Wahhabism” and “Salafism” entered political language; in practical politics, however, these were often used not as theological categories but as convenient labels for undesirable practices and autonomous groups. This does not mean the Russian state invented the phenomenon of radicalism, as it did indeed exist in certain circles. Rather, it was inclined to translate a broad spectrum of religious differences into the category of threat and govern through coercive and administrative instruments.
This model operates through three linkages. The first is institutional: support for the “correct” muftiates, personnel policy, and the symbolic recognition of traditional Islam as the norm. The second is coercive: law enforcement and security service filtering of the religious field, including practices of prevention, pressure, and persecution under the umbrella of anti-extremism. The third is patronal: financial and symbolic investments, such as mosques and public religious ceremonies, that bind the religious establishment to the political.
Chechnya became the extreme case of this construction because here official/traditional Islam became not merely a partner of the state but an embedded part of the post–Second Chechen War regime. This is why the figure of Akhmad Kadyrov matters not only as a biography but as a function—an intermediary through whom the state could speak to society in a religious language and as the heir to a governing project in which Islam functions as an instrument of control. However, in recent years, the Chechen case shows how such an instrument can begin to acquire its own autonomy and external cost for the Russian state.
Akhmad Kadyrov
Chechnya after the collapse of the USSR, and especially under conditions of war, sharply increased demand for religious intermediaries. The religious field became competitive: Various groups claimed the right to speak in the name of “authentic” Islam, while religion became ever more tightly linked to questions of power, resistance, violence, and external support. In such an environment, the status of mufti becomes a resource that the state seeks either to neutralize or to incorporate into its own architecture.
Akhmad Kadyrov was one of the central religious and political figures in Chechnya in the late 1990s and early 2000s. He received his religious education within the official Soviet Islamic system, which the state security services closely monitored. Before the war, Chechnya was a secular state governed by secular law, and its conflict with Russia was primarily a national liberation struggle. Kadyrov changed that in a fundamental way. By officially declaring jihad against Russia, he gave the war a religious character and helped move it out of a mainly national and anti-colonial frame into a religious one. This was not just a change of language. It affected how observers understood the war both inside and outside Chechnya, deepening religious mobilization at home while pushing away part of the Western public that had been ready to sympathize with a secular struggle for self-determination. He later broke with the supporters of Chechen independence, aligned himself with Moscow, and became the head of the pro-Russian Chechen administration.
At first glance, Akhmad Kadyrov’s decision to side with Moscow in 1999 may have seemed unexpected, especially to those who remembered his earlier rhetoric, including his declaration of jihad against Russia, and his role in the Chechen struggle. But taking into account his life trajectory, and above all the trajectory of religious education within the institutions of official Islam, makes this turn appear more logical than eccentric. Much more surprising would have been the opposite, if a man formed within the system of managed religious bureaucracy had maintained to the very end a line of religious resistance.
Kadyrov’s subsequent career, his administrative rise and his transformation into the central figure of the new Chechen regime, demonstrates another mechanism of co-optation: the translation of religious authority into state power. From this moment onward, religious legitimation becomes built into the regime itself. If previously the state could manage religion from the outside—through oversight and bureaucracy—now religious symbolic capital is located within the institution of power itself.
This is precisely why Kadyrov’s assassination on May 9, 2004, at Dynamo Stadium in Moscow was more than a turning point in family history. The official narrative linked the attack to the armed underground; in particular, Russian officials made much of a statement by Shamil Basayev claiming responsibility for the explosion.[2] At the same time, the Chechen resistance was already advancing an alternative narrative: Chechen president in exile Aslan Maskhadov publicly stated that the killing may have been carried out by “those who put him in power”—that is, the Russian authorities and the FSB—and pointed to the low plausibility of successfully planting an explosive device in a heavily guarded area without internal assistance.[3]
According to the Chechen resistance’s interpretation of Kadyrov’s assassination, his influence had grown markedly by 2003–4: He increasingly appeared to be an independent figure capable of shaping his own line rather than merely executing the Kremlin’s will. According to Akhmed Zakayev, prime minister in exile of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, Akhmad Kadyrov’s relations with the Kremlin had by that point deteriorated, and Moscow may have concluded that he needed to be eliminated as a player who had become too strong and less manageable.[4] This theory has not been confirmed, but it is important as an indicator of how the state interprets risks within a system of co-opted Islam. Religious-political intermediaries whom the state initially embedded in its stabilization project, may, as they consolidate power, come to be perceived by the center as potentially autonomous actors—and therefore as objects of internal bureaucratic competition.
Akhmad Kadyrov’s death raised the question of succession in more ways than one: who would preserve the same configuration of traditional Islam with coercive stabilization and loyalty to the center? Succession became possible because the mission itself had been institutionally defined. The Russian state, together with the new Chechen authorities, had established “traditional Islam” in the Chechen variant—centered around Sufi brotherhoods and adat—as a cultural-religious platform of order. In such a system, the successor does not need to be a theologian. It is enough for him to become the holder of the apparatus of coercion and patronage to speak in a religious language on behalf of the regime.
This is where the key bridge to Ramzan Kadyrov emerged. He inherited not a theological tradition but a governing technology—Islam as an instrument both to suppress competitors and to produce legitimacy. In other words, Akhmad Kadyrov represented the stage at which the Russian state successfully turned Islam into a pillar of the regime and acquired a religious intermediary who helped close off the field from rivals. The next stage, Ramzan, showed that this construction has limits: An instrument embedded in the apparatus of power begins to accumulate autonomy, external connections, and reputational costs for the center. This is what turns the history of the Kadyrovs from a regional chronicle into a lesson in the limits of state-co-opted Islam.
Ramzan Kadyrov
The assassination of Akhmad Kadyrov in 2004, judging by Moscow’s subsequent actions, did not catch the Kremlin off guard. Succession occurred almost immediately, which looks more like the implementation of a prearranged scenario than improvisation in a vacuum. For the center, it was crucial to preserve the very construction that Moscow and Grozny had by then managed to build around traditional Islam. Therefore, the state resolved the question of succession not around theological authority or independent political weight but around the degree of manageability and the ability to maintain the regime’s function—to preserve order, define the “correct” religious norm, and neutralize competing networks of influence.
In this logic, the natural successor was Akhmad’s son Ramzan Kadyrov, a young leader with limited formal administrative experience and without his own autonomous institutional base, whose legitimacy and stability depended decisively on Kremlin support. This made him a convenient operator of state-co-opted Islam, not the heir to a theological tradition but the executor of a political mission aimed at preserving control in the region.
From Moscow’s perspective, succession after Akhmad was less a question of who would continue the father’s line and more of who could preserve the technology of coercive control. Ramzan Kadyrov proved to be a suitable figure precisely because his power was built not on theology but on the apparatus of coercion and patronage—that is, on those resources that in this model matter more than religious competence. He could speak in the name of “tradition” by controlling institutions, personnel, public symbolism, and the distribution of benefits and thereby turn religious language into a language of loyalty.
In such a construction, “controlled Islam” plays a dual role. First, it sustains internal mobilization. It explains to society why this particular regime is lawful, morally justified, and “protective.” Second, it provides a foreign-policy facade. The region becomes a showcase for the claim that Russian power is supposedly capable of integrating Islam and governing a Muslim space without the disintegration of the state.
From this, Ramzan Kadyrov’s early style as a leader follows logically. He appeared not as a theologian but as an administrator of correctness. His role was to service the state project, demonstrating intransigence toward “extremism,” supporting Sufi infrastructure as a foundation of legitimacy, disciplining society, and at the same time reassuring the center that the region was under control. This logic explains why, at the early stage, his public rhetoric could be extremely aggressive. It served as a signal—both within the region and upward to the Kremlin—that the mission was being fulfilled.
Yet tension was already building. The more successfully a regional leader performs the role of the guarantor of controlled Islam, the more autonomy he accumulates in institutions, symbolism, resources, and contacts. Religious legitimation, once embedded in the regime, begins to live both an internal life and an external one because Islamic correctness is judged not only by Moscow and Grozny but also by global audiences. This is where the next stage emerges: from coercion, securitization, and internal discipline to external ties, symbolic politics, and conflicts over who gets to define Sunnism.
The Anti-Wahhabi Campaign as an Instrument of the Regime
In the early stage of Ramzan Kadyrov’s rule, his key task was the consolidation of the regime through control over the religious field. Here Islam functioned as a political instrument in the direct sense. It provided coercive politics with a moral language, made it possible to label opponents as threats to the “true faith,” and gave the regime a form of legitimacy that society perceived more strongly than abstract legal arguments. In post-conflict Chechnya, this logic was especially effective, as it fused the traumatic experience of war, fear of chaos, and the demand for order into a single frame, i.e., “the defense of tradition.”
It is important to clarify the terminology from the outset. Regional and federal discourse often use the words Wahhabism and Salafism as categories that do not correspond to how members of those theological currents describe themselves. In practical politics, they are frequently synonyms for “uncontrolled religiosity,” “autonomous networks,” or “undesirable forms of Islamic practice” and hint at broader threats like “extremism” or “terrorism.” Therefore, in this article the term Wahhabism should be read as part of the official language of securitization, not as a precise theological classification.
In the public sphere, Ramzan Kadyrov’s regime constructed a “moral war” against “Wahhabism.” Although he had held such views earlier, they became an open and systematic part of his public political rhetoric only after his appointment on May 10, 2004, the day after his father’s killing, as first deputy chairman of the Government of the Chechen Republic, where he oversaw the security bloc. This approach showed the Kremlin that the Chechen authorities controlled the territory and would not allow the return of armed resistance in a religious guise. It showed society that the regime was the defender of correct Islam and traditional order. It showed elites within Chechnya that religious legitimacy belonged only to those embedded in the regime.
The anti-Wahhabi campaign was at the same time a campaign of social control, intervening in religious and cultural markers such as appearance, manner of behavior, and public practices. The regime, rather than theologians, assumed the right to define what is proper, which is precisely what distinguishes state-co-opted Islam from religious autonomy. Campaigns connected with women’s dress codes and with the imposition of “moral discipline” in public spaces occupied a special place in this logic. Human rights organizations documented cases of pressure and coercion in which “Islamic rules” were effectively imposed through threats, humiliation, and violence rather than through religious discourse and persuasion.[5]
The state built this system of control around a simple principle: Religious legitimacy had to be monopolized. If it declares traditional Islam the only correct form, then alternatives automatically become incorrect. This inevitably expands repression to include constant pressure, selective persecution, humiliation, and “preventive measures” aimed at dissuading any form of autonomous religious organization. Human rights organizations recorded cases of raids, detentions, and pressure on people based on outward appearance and religious practice, often describing such campaigns as struggles against “Wahhabism/Salafism” without offering any evidence that the targets of the raids were adherents to such movements.[6]
This strategy had practical meaning for the Kremlin. After the Second Chechen War, Moscow needed a symbolically convincing model of integration to show that Islam in Russia was controllable and compatible with the Russian state. In this sense, Chechnya served as a showcase: The region was supposed to demonstrate a “successful Islamic norm” within the Russian state. But a showcase requires direction. Therefore, coercive stabilization in Chechnya was accompanied by religious staging. The state sought to prevent the emergence of autonomous religious authorities capable of producing alternative meanings that might compete with the regime. At this stage, Ramzan Kadyrov appeared as the most convenient operator of the model. His mission was to demonstrate that religion is under control and order is ensured.
But the more the Kremlin used Islam as an instrument of internal control (via the Kadyrov regime), the more it was forced to rely on religious symbolism as a source of legitimacy. And any stable source of religious legitimacy inevitably has an external dimension—in this case, interstate Islamic diplomacy and symbolic politics. Here we begin to see the limits of the model.
Islam as Soft Power and the Language of External Legitimacy
The external dimension of state-co-opted Islam is especially visible where religious symbolism turns into the language of diplomacy. Once the authorities make traditional Islam part of the regime, they inevitably encounter global audiences for whom prestige, correctness, and status are not measured by Moscow. This is where a new type of capital arises—external, and specifically Middle Eastern capital—which strengthens the regional leader’s autonomy and simultaneously raises the cost of his politics for the center.
In order not to conflate different levels, it is important to clarify that by the “Islamic world” in this article, I mean above all the agency of states and interstate institutions, not the feelings of ordinary Muslims. In the 1990s and early 2000s, many Muslims around the world sincerely sympathized with the Chechens in their fight against Russia, but these Muslims did not possess the political weight to turn solidarity into decisions. In many countries, especially the Gulf monarchies, civil society is structurally weak and has almost no influence on foreign policy; therefore, sympathy “from below” is rarely converted into tangible foreign policy decisions by Middle Eastern states.
In the 1990s and early 2000s, the Chechen resistance counted on at least minimal institutional recognition and support from Islamic states and organizations. But in practice, this did not happen. The Chechen project of political representation did not receive institutional recognition in the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), and not a single Islamic state officially recognized Chechnya’s independence despite appeals by Chechen representatives to the “Muslim world.” On March 8, 2005, Aslan Maskhadov was killed in the village of Tolstoy-Yurt during a Russian special operation. Yet for many outside Russia, he remained a legitimate political figure. He had been elected president in 1997 in an internationally observed vote and had signed a peace treaty with Russian President Boris Yeltsin at the Kremlin.[7] This is why many continued to see him not as a terrorist, as Moscow later portrayed him, but as an elected leader who had represented Chechnya in formal negotiations with Russia. Yet, already at the end of June 2005, instead of accepting the Chechen side in any form, the OIC granted Russia observer status within the organization.[8]
This outcome can also be read in the context of the post-9/11 climate. After September 11, many Islamic states became more cautious about conflicts that could associate them with jihadist language or with the broader discourse of terrorism. In this sense, the Kremlin’s strategy was especially effective: By allowing the Chechen struggle to be framed in religious terms, and above all through Akhmad Kadyrov’s April 1995 declaration of jihad against Russia, Moscow helped move the conflict out of a mainly national-liberation frame and into a religious one.[9] That shift carried reputational costs for the Chechen side. It made even institutions such as the OIC more cautious and less willing to risk political or diplomatic costs by openly siding with Chechnya.
From the perspective of those holding idealistic expectations of “Islamic solidarity,” this looks like inverted justice. At the moment of the Chechens’ greatest need for substantive support from Islamic institutions, none was forthcoming, whereas Moscow gained institutional access to the platform of the Islamic world. But if one reads the OIC and “Islamic agency” as an extension of geopolitics, the situation is clearer. For most governments, it is more important to have a channel of communication and potential influence over Moscow than to support projects that would lead to direct confrontation with the Russian Federation and potentially produce instability. This is especially so when within Russia there exists a complex Muslim region that can become an object of negotiation and leverage—provided that external channels of influence exist, including through religious symbolism.[10]
The clearest form of this external capital that the Kadyrov dynasty was able to secure was not ordinary diplomatic meetings but symbolic religious recognition connected with the hajj (pilgrimage to Mecca) and with sacred objects. For many years, the Gulf monarchies have used Islam as a form of soft power through high-level receptions, religious ceremonies, hajj-related privileges, and favorable media coverage. These gestures help create status in the Islamic world and provide a language through which to build and reinforce political relationships.
Thus, during Ramzan Kadyrov’s official visit to Saudi Arabia in August 2007, King Abdullah received him and included him in a highly symbolic ritual setting: the ceremony of washing the Ka’aba and received a fragment of the kiswah, the cloth covering the Ka’aba, as a gift, which in Saudi practice is understood as a special mark of honor.[11] Chechen state media presented these episodes as proof that Kadyrov enjoyed special access and recognition in the wider Muslim world. This is important because it showed that religious legitimacy had become a kind of political currency and that this currency had important issuers outside Russia. To international audiences, such gestures suggested that Kadyrov had a recognized place in the symbolic hierarchy of the Islamic world. They showed audiences inside Chechnya that his authority extended beyond Russia. And they demonstrated to Moscow that Kadyrov possessed external religious and political connections that could be useful but not always fully controllable.
Another telling case study emerges during the years of the Syrian civil war in the 2010s. Russian official statements and Kremlin readouts pointed to high-level contacts between Moscow and Riyadh during the Syrian crisis, in particular Vladimir Putin’s meeting with Prince Bandar bin Sultan in August 2013.[12] A number of publications suggested they were discussing a deal: The Saudi government would tolerate Russia’s position on Syria in return for Russian promises to help reduce threats associated with jihadist networks in the North Caucasus, especially regarding any jihadists from there who had traveled to Syria and Iraq. (Russian officials denied or distanced the Kremlin from such reports.[13]) The reported talks are notable as they underscore the extent to which, for external actors such as the Gulf States, Islam in the North Caucasus is not just an internal Russian matter but also a point of pressure and bargaining in relations with Moscow. Once the Kremlin turned Islam inside Russia into an instrument of governance, it also exposed that instrument to external Islamic diplomacy, in which Russia no longer shaped the rules alone. Put differently, if Putin presented the Kadyrov model as evidence of his ability to manage Islam in the North Caucasus and contain radicalism there, then external actors such as Saudi Arabia would develop their expectations accordingly, putting new demands on the Putin regime.
Grozny 2016 and the Transformation of a Religious Definition into an International Conflict
In August 2016, the Kadyrov government hosted a major Islamic conference in Grozny titled “Who Are Ahl al-Sunna wa’l-Jama‘a?” It brought together religious scholars and officials from Russia and abroad. The Chechen authorities presented it as an effort to define the boundaries of legitimate Sunni Islam.
The Kadyrov government clearly intended the conference to act as a form of norm-setting, to fix the boundaries of correct Sunnism and thereby strengthen traditional Islam as a state norm. But because the question of who can define true Sunnism goes far beyond Chechnya itself, the conference quickly drew attention across the wider Islamic world.[14]
In substantive terms, this episode is important for two reasons. First, it demonstrates that state-co-opted Islam inevitably strives for a monopoly not only over institutions and practices but also over the very definition of Islam. Second, it reveals the limit of that ambition. Religious definition does not belong to a single region and cannot be insulated from global audiences and external actors with sufficient influence to contest those definitions.
The conference proposed a definition of ahl al-Sunna (people of the Sunna, i.e., Sunnis) built around three elements: theological schools (Ash‘arism and Maturidism); the four madhhabs (schools of thought) of Islamic jurisprudence, Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi‘i, and Hanbali; and “Sufism” as a normative spiritual practice. At the same time, those at the conference emphasized excluding Wahhabism from the normative category of Sunnism, triggering an international reaction.[15]
From the point of view of the Kadyrov regime, it seemed logical to remove Wahhabism from the boundaries of acceptable Sunni Islam. If the task was to suppress autonomous religious networks and entrench traditional Islam as a state norm, then it had to delegitimize competing identities not only administratively but also theologically. Hence the effort to label the enemy not merely as a “security threat” but as an ideological deviation from the true Sunni tradition.
From the perspective of key actors in the Islamic world, however, the matter looked different. The exclusion of Wahhabism from the definition of Sunnism appeared as a blow to Saudi religious symbolism and the status that Riyadh had enjoyed for decades as a central source of religious legitimation.[16] Hence the reaction from major Arab Islamic scholars quickly took the form of a politically charged warning: Do not allow a schism, and do not turn intra-Sunni disagreements into an instrument of delegitimation. In particular, Saudi scholars warned that such definitions “do not serve the unity of the ummah” and create a dangerous precedent of “dividing the Sunnis.”[17] Some Salafi preachers in Saudi Arabia went so far as to use inflammatory if not inciteful language about Kadyrov on social media.[18] While the official state-backed Council of Senior Scholars did not go this far, the fact that the Saudi authorities (who do not typically refrain from arresting or threatening religious figures[19]) allowed borderline inciteful rhetoric from Salafi scholars indicates the official frustration with the Grozny conference in Riyadh.
This episode illuminates the power dynamics inherent in state-co-opted Islam. Inside Chechnya, the definition of Sunnism was a continuation of politics, helping consolidate the Sufi infrastructure and traditional Islam as the only legitimate norm while presenting competitors as a threat. But outside Chechnya, the definition was read as an international gesture that touched on the interests of major geopolitical actors and their religious prestige. The Russian-Chechen instrument of control became, externally, an act of positioning, provoking a response.
Not long after the conference, Saudi media reported that during his subsequent meetings in the kingdom, Ramzan Kadyrov had sought to “defuse tensions” surrounding the consequences of the Grozny conference to the point of apologizing.[20] Chechen religious figures immediately began rejecting these claims.[21] Riyadh appears to have responded to the Grozny episode by signaling that it had alternative diplomatic channels with Russia’s North Caucasus. On November 1, 2016, King Salman, along with Crown Prince and Interior Minister Mohammed bin Nayef, received the head of the Republic of Ingushetia (another constituent republic of the Russian Federation), Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, at the royal court in Riyadh.[22] Over the next month, delegations from Ingushetia and then a Chechen delegation led by Kadyrov visited Saudi Arabia in succession.[23] Riyadh appeared to be diversifying its contacts in a classic manner, demonstrating that it was not tied to a single figure and could build relations with other North Caucasian elites. In other words, it was signaling to Kadyrov that his status as the main channel to this strategic constituent region of Russia was not guaranteed.
Conclusion: The Kadyrovs and State-Co-Opted Islam
The story of the Kadyrovs matters not simply because it tells us something about one family or one region. It matters because it shows, in a very clear form, how a state can try to use religion as part of its system of rule. In Chechnya, this strategy rested on three connected elements: support for “approved” religious institutions, the use of security language against unwanted religious currents, and the heavy use of symbols, rituals, and public displays of Islamic legitimacy. In Chechnya, with Russian encouragement and support, the Kadyrov regime combined these elements more openly and more intensely than in most other places, which is why the weaknesses of this model are also easier to see there.
The first part of this model was institutional control. The state supported the religious actors it considered loyal, presented traditional Islam as the only legitimate norm, and used this framework to narrow the space for alternative religious authority. In Chechnya, this meant strengthening the Sufi infrastructure and linking it closely to the language of order, morality, and political loyalty. But this kind of control has limits.
A government may shape religious institutions inside one territory, but it cannot fully control how religious authority is judged outside that territory. The Grozny conference of 2016 made this especially clear: Once the regime tried to define “true” Sunnism in public, it entered a much larger arena where other actors—above all Saudi Arabia and the wider Sunni world—also claimed the right to define religious legitimacy. Moreover, from the Kremlin’s perspective, there is a risk that as sub-national allies/proxies like Kadyrov begin building ties with powerful external actors like Saudi Arabia, they can become more independent of the center, i.e., Moscow, even as the center assumes greater expectations globally because it has showcased its control of the periphery via those proxies. This was seen in the reported Saudi demands on Russia vis-à-vis Syria in 2013.
The second part of the model was securitization. The Kadyrov regime increasingly described religious difference in the language of threat: extremism, Wahhabism, radicalism. It allowed the regime to justify repression, expand coercive power, and present its own version of Islam as the only safe and acceptable one. In the short term, this was effective. It helped suppress independent networks and strengthened the regime’s control over society. But this strategy also came with a cost. It deepened social division, created a permanent need for enemies, and made the regime dependent on fear as a tool of authority. A system built in this way cannot easily relax because its legitimacy comes in part from convincing society that danger is always near.
The final part was symbolic patronage. The regime invested in mosques, religious ceremonies, public piety, and visible signs of Islamic legitimacy. This helped turn loyalty into a moral performance and gave political power a religious appearance. In Chechnya, this symbolic politics did not remain local. It expanded outward through foreign visits, namely hajj-related recognition, and ties with actors in the Middle East. This, too, created new risks and vulnerabilities. Once a regime begins to rely on outside recognition, it no longer fully controls the meaning of the symbols it uses. Religious legitimacy begins to come not only from local institutions but also from external audiences, foreign states, and transnational Islamic prestige.
This is the main lesson of the Kadyrov case. Religion can be used as an instrument of rule, and in the short term it can be highly effective. It can help justify coercion, strengthen loyal institutions, and give power a moral language. But over time, religion stops being just a tool. It creates its own claims, its own audiences, and its own sources of authority. What begins as an instrument of control can become a source of outside influence, political friction, and reputational risk.
For that reason, the Chechen case should be read not only as a regional story but as a warning about the limits of state control over religion. A state may succeed in managing religious institutions for a time. It may even succeed in turning religion into part of its political machinery. But it cannot fully control the long-term consequences. The more deeply religion is built into a system of power, the more likely it is to develop a life beyond the state’s intentions. In that sense, the real question is not whether religion can help stabilize a regime. It is how long a regime can control a force that eventually begins to answer to audiences, pressures, and standards beyond its own reach.
Endnotes
- For more, see Inal Sherip, “Islam as an Instrument of Russia’s Colonial Policy,” Current Trends in Islamist Ideology 37 (December 2025): 131–52. ↑
- “Muslim Commander Owns Grozny Bombing,” UPI, May 17, 2004, https://www.upi.com/Top_News/2004/05/17/Muslim-commander-owns-Grozny-bombing/68241084809390. ↑
- “Chechen Leader Talks to RFE/RL,” responses of Aslan Maskhadov to questions submitted by RFE/RL’s North Caucasus Service, Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, June 18, 2004, https://www.rferl.org/a/1053411.html. ↑
- Elena Rudneva, “Bez uchastiia spetssluzhb Kadyrova bylo ne likvidirovat’” [Without the participation of special services, it would have been impossible to eliminate Kadyrov], interview of Akhmed Zakaev, Kavkazskii Uzel [Caucasian Knot], July 20, 2004, https://www.kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/60819. ↑
- Tanya Lokshina, “You Dress According to Their Rules”: Enforcement of an Islamic Dress Code for Women in Chechnya (Human Rights Watch, 2011), https://www.hrw.org/report/2011/03/10/you-dress-according-their-rules/enforcement-islamic-dress-code-women-chechnya; “Russia: Stop Forced Dress Code for Women in Chechnya,” press release, Human Rights Watch, August 24, 2010, https://www.hrw.org/news/2010/08/24/russia-stop-forced-dress-code-women-chechnya. ↑
- “Residents of Chechnya Report on New Raids Against Young Men with Beards,” Caucasian Knot, May 23, 2015, https://eng.kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/31816; “Residents of Chechnya Report on Mass Detentions of Young Men Wearing Beards,” Caucasian Knot, October 30, 2015, https://www.eng.kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/33495. ↑
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Floriana Fossato, “Russia: Maskhadov Claims Victory in Chechen Presidential Election,” Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, January 9, 1997, https://www.rferl.org/a/1083393.html; Boris Yeltsin and Aslan Maskhadov, “Peace Treaty and Principles of Interrelation between the Russian Federation and the Chechen Republic Ichkeria,” Moscow, May 12, 1997, United Nations Peacemaker, https://peacemaker.un.org/en/node/9178;
“Yeltsin and Maskhadov Sign Peace Treaty,” North Caucasus Weekly, May 12, 1997, https://jamestown.org/ramzan-visits-saudi-arabia. ↑
- “Observer Status in OIC Reflects Russia's New Role in World Affairs, Diplomats Say,” Sputnik International, July 18, 2005, https://sputnikglobe.com/20050718/40928576.html; “Moscow Satisfied with Organization of Islamic Cooperation Observer Status, Says Diplomat,” TASS, November 12, 2018, https://tass.com/politics/1030423. ↑
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Ian Traynor, “Obituary: Akhmad Kadyrov,” The Guardian, May 9, 2004,
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2004/may/10/guardianobituaries.russia. ↑
- Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, Charter of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC, 2018), https://www.oic-oci.org/upload/documents/charter/en/oic_charter_2018_en.pdf; Mostafizur Rahman, “Growing Tensions in the OIC: A Geopolitical Perspective,” Bangladesh Institute of International and Strategic Studies Journal 43, no. 3 (July 15, 2022): 9–32, https://www.biiss.org/public/index.php/article/growing-tensions-in-the-oic-a-geopolitical-perspective. ↑
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“Ramzan Visits Saudi Arabia,” North Caucasus Weekly, August 16, 2007,
- AFP, “Moscow Rejects Saudi Offer to Drop Assad for Arms Deal,” Ahram Online, August 8, 2013, https://english.ahram.org.eg/News/78640.aspx. ↑
- AFP, “Kremlin Denies Putin Discussed Syria Deal with Saudi Spy Chief,” Ahram Online, August 9, 2013, https://english.ahram.org.eg/News/78684.aspx; Clara Weiss and Alex Lantier, “Saudi-Russian Talks Raise Questions on Syrian War Drive, Boston Bombings,” World Socialist Web Site, September 11, 2013, https://www12.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/09/11/saud-s11.html. ↑
- Kristin Smith Diwan, “Who Is Sunni?: Chechnya Islamic Conference Opens Window on Intra-Faith Rivalry,” Arab Gulf States Institute, September 16, 2016, https://agsiw.org/who-is-sunni-chechnya-islamic-conference-opens-window-on-intra-faith-rivalry. ↑
- Ahmad ‘Umar al-Zayla‘i, “Mu’tamar Ghuzni wa-al-radd al-muta‘aqil li-Hay’at Kibar al-‘Ulama’” [The Grozny Conference and the rational response of the Council of Senior Scholars], al-Watan (Saudi Arabia), September 10, 2016, https://www.alwatan.com.sa/article/31800. ↑
- Ahmed Megahid, “Grozny Conference Stirs Criticism of al-Azhar,” The Arab Weekly, September 18, 2016, https://www.thearabweekly.com/grozny-conference-stirs-criticism-al-azhar. ↑
- “Council of Senior Scholars Warn Against Dividing Ummah,” Arab News, September 4, 2016, https://www.arabnews.com/node/979821/%7B%7B. ↑
- “Saudi Theologian Calls Ramzan Kadyrov Enemy of Islam,” Caucasian Knot, September 9, 2016, https://www.eng.kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/36828. ↑
- “Saudi Arabia: Prominent Clerics Arrested,” Human Rights Watch, September 15, 2017, https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/09/15/saudi-arabia-prominent-clerics-arrested. ↑
- “Masadir: ziyarat ra’is al-Shishan ila al-Mamlaka lil-i‘tithar ‘an ‘Mu’tamar Ghuzni’” [Sources: Chechen president visits Saudi Arabia to apologize for the “Grozny Conference”], Akhbaar24, November 21, 2016, https://www.akhbaar24.com/article/detail/310967 and “Bi-al-suwar… Wali Wali al-‘Ahd yastaqbil al-ra’is al-Shishani… wa-masadir: ‘Qadyrov’ qaddama i‘titharahu ‘an Mu’tamar Ghuzni,” [In pictures: Deputy Crown Prince receives Chechen President. Sources: “Kadyrov” apologized for the Grozny conference], Akhbaar24, November 27, 2016, https://www.akhbaar24.com/article/detail/311846. ↑
- Liz Fuller, “Chechen Mufti Denies Kadyrov Had to Apologize to Saudis for Grozny Fatwa,” Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, December 1, 2016, https://www.rferl.org/a/caucasus-report-kadyrov-salafism-fatwa-saudi-apology/28150361.html. ↑
- IslamNews. “Glava Ingushetii nakhoditsia s ofitsial’nym vizitom v Saudovskoi Aravii” [The Head of Ingushetia Is on an Official Visit to Saudi Arabia], IslamNews, November 1, 2016, https://islamnews.ru/glava-ingushetii-naxoditsya-s-oficialnym-vizitom-v-saudovskoj-aravii. ↑
- Valery Dzutsati, “Chechnya’s Kadyrov Pushes for Reconciliation with Saudis,” Eurasia Daily Monitor 13, no. 187 (November 29, 2016), https://jamestown.org/chechnyas-kadyrov-pushes-reconciliation-saudis. ↑