In March 2025, tens of thousands of Muslims flooded Moscow’s streets for Eid al-Fitr prayers. Loudspeakers blasted the Islamic call to prayer, echoing under the gaze of the Kremlin itself. This wasn’t simply a religious gathering. It was a state-enabled spectacle of Islamic dominance in Russia’s capital—a country once considered the stronghold of Orthodox Christianity. The government not only permitted the display but also provided infrastructure and protection.
This marks a symbolic shift in Russia’s identity. The image of Islamic prayer dominating Moscow is not a multicultural footnote; it’s a warning. Under Vladimir Putin, the lines between religious appeasement and state submission to Islamic norms are beginning to blur.
Putin: Defender of the Islamic World
What many in the West still don’t realize is that Putin has criminalized Quran desecration. Burning or disrespecting the Quran is no longer just socially condemned in Russia, it is legally punishable. But here’s where it becomes something much darker: those convicted aren’t simply jailed.
They are forcibly relocated to Muslim-majority regions like Chechnya or Dagestan to serve their sentences. These are not neutral jurisdictions. These are regions governed by de facto Sharia strongmen, where Islamic law and cultural enforcement take precedence over Russian secularism.
Sending religious dissenters to these areas is tantamount to putting them in ideological exile—if not outright danger. The message is clear: oppose Islam in Russia, and you will be handed over to those who live and rule by it.
Islamic Finance: A Parallel System Under Sharia
In 2023, Putin’s administration formally launched a pilot program for Islamic banking in four Russian republics: Tatarstan, Bashkortostan, Chechnya, and Dagestan. This system operates alongside Russia’s conventional economy but follows Sharia financial principles:
- No interest-based lending
- Risk-sharing instead of loans
- Bans on financing industries deemed “haram” (forbidden), like alcohol or pork
To be clear: this is the formal integration of Islamic religious law, Sharia, into national financial systems. These regions now operate a parallel Islamic economy that openly rejects Western financial principles.
Rather than integrate Muslims into Russian norms, Putin is restructuring Russian norms to accommodate Islamic law.
Russia and Pakistan: Allies in Censorship
Putin has openly aligned with Pakistan and other member states of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), a global Islamic bloc that pushes for Sharia blasphemy laws and the censorship of any speech critical of Islam throughout the world. While Western nations still wrestle with the balance between free expression and religious sensitivity, Russia has skipped the debate entirely, choosing instead to criminalize criticism of Islam outright, all under the banner of “religious harmony.”
The message is clear: in today’s Russia, defending Islam takes precedence over defending free speech.
The term “Islamophobia” is a weapon; it’s used to silence dissent, criminalize pro-Western voices, and enforce ideological conformity. Putin isn’t embracing it for ‘social justice’—he’s doing it to build alliances with the Islamic world, even though Russia itself offers no real model of peaceful coexistence with its Muslim population.
As he deepens ties with Pakistan, a nation notorious for enforcing blasphemy laws and persecuting religious minorities, Russia is joining an authoritarian club: one that punishes critics and rewards enforcers.
Putin’s Chechen Enforcer: Ramzan Kadyrov
To enforce this ideological shift, Putin relies heavily on Ramzan Kadyrov—the Islamic warlord who rules Chechnya as his personal Sharia kingdom. Often called “Putin’s dog” and known internationally as “The Butcher of Chechnya,” Kadyrov is both feared and fanatically loyal.
He:
- Imposes Sharia dress codes
- Persecutes non-Muslims and LGBT citizens
- Threatens to kill anyone who insults Islam
- Once declared publicly: “We will defend the Prophet’s honor… if it means killing someone, so be it.”
But Kadyrov’s brutality doesn’t stop with rhetoric. Multiple eyewitnesses and defectors have revealed that he has personally participated in the torture and murder of his own citizens. His palace reportedly contains a private prison (concentration camps) with torture chambers, where dissidents, homosexuals, and even teenagers are detained and abused.
Kadyrov’s regime also subjects critics to public humiliation on national television. Weekly broadcasts feature ordinary Chechens, social workers, teenagers, civil servants, forced to apologize for minor criticisms of the government, under the clear threat of torture or death. One social worker was called in simply for saying the roads were in poor condition.
Putin doesn’t empower Kadyrov despite these abuses; he empowers him because of them. Kadyrov ensures Islamic obedience in the Caucasus, delivers militant loyalty to the Kremlin, and publicly embodies Russia’s alliance with Islamist governance.
He is both the enforcer of Putin’s Islamic pact, and the symbol of it.
Kadyrov Pledges Military Support for Putin
Kadyrov’s loyalty to Putin isn’t just ideological, it’s militarized. In 2014, during a fiery public address in Chechnya, Kadyrov stood before thousands of Muslims and pledged full military support to Vladimir Putin, declaring the Chechen people “the combat infantry of Vladimir Putin.”
“Now, you and I—and we have tens of thousands of people, specially trained—ask the national leader of Russia to consider us a special voluntary unit of the Commander in Chief, ready to defend Russia and the stability of its borders, accomplish a combat mission of any complexity.”
Kadyrov portrayed this allegiance not just as political, but as spiritually mandated, rooted in Islam, the Quran, and the path of his father, Akhmad Haji Kadyrov. He emphasized that Chechens are ready to fight wherever the enemies of Russia may appear, asserting:
“We publicly declare this to the whole world… Long live our great motherland Russia! Long live our national leader of Russia Vladimir Putin! Allahu Akbar!”
This speech makes clear that Kadyrov’s Islamic identity and Putin’s nationalist authoritarianism are not in conflict, but fully aligned. Kadyrov’s army is both a religious militia and a personal force of loyalty to the Kremlin.
The West Needs to Wake Up
Putin isn’t fighting globalism; he’s just replacing it with another form of totalitarianism: Islam. Or worse, he’s merging the two.
While some in the West still see him as a nationalist foil to Western liberalism, the facts say otherwise. Putin is partnering with radical Islamic regimes, implementing Islamic law, and imprisoning Russian citizens under Islamic blasphemy standards.
This is not sovereignty. This is state-level Islamization.
The Orthodox churches may still stand, but it’s the mosques that are growing louder, bolder, and now protected by law.
If Russia can fall to soft Sharia, no Western nation is immune.
The post The Crescent Over the Kremlin: Putin’s Surrender to Islam appeared first on RAIR.
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Author: Amy Mek
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