page_title: Islam in the Arctic
section_title: Russia
hierarchical_section_title: Islam in the Arctic / Russia
caption_attribution_description: Русский: ул. Пирогова, 4
context_page_description: The history of Islam in the Arctic starts relatively late in the chronology of Islamic history, the Arctic Circle being at a great distance from traditional Muslim bastions of power and settlement. The "climatic conditions, remoteness and heavy industrial character" of northern cities have resulted in a unique cultural shift for Muslims living in the region, including a tendency towards pluralism wherein sects like Sunni and Shia Muslims do not segregate themselves. In areas where the Midnight Sun renders the five daily prayers impossible to tie to dusk and dawn, congregants typically either use the same timing as a more southern region, the holy city of Mecca or their homelands.
context_section_description: A study from 2019 described Muslim communities in Arctic Russia as "rapidly growing" in the last two decades. An early attempt to build a mosque in a major city (Yakutsk, about 450 kilometers (280 mi) south of the Arctic Circle) failed upon the outbreak of World War One and the following October Revolution. In 1996, however, it became the site of the world's largest mosque in the far north, capable of holding 3000 worshipers.
  Siberian Mullahs since the 19th century were hesitant to recognise distant authority. After the 1991 Collapse of the Soviet Union, three central Muslim directorates competed for control of the Islamic population in Siberia, the far East and the far North; one of these three was absorbed into another, leaving the CDUMR and the Council of Muftis--the latter seen as closely tied to the Russian government. In 1998, the first mosque was built for the industrial city of Norilsk, and by 2007 the Muslims in the city were estimated at 20% of the population, coming from Dagestan, Central Asia and Azerbaijan.
  Nearly every Arctic city in Russia has a Muslim presence as of 2019, and the 59 mosques and musallas spread across the Arctic exist in every region except for the  Nenets Autonomous Okrug and Chukotka. A periodical journal named "Islam in Yakutia" is printed in Neryungri. In 2014, it was noted that a large number of ethnic Russians in Tyumen, which boasts 30 northern mosques, seemed to be converting to Islam.
  Challenges to the Muslim presence are of different kinds. The Arctic city of Vorkuta had a strong skinhead and white nationalist scene in the 1990s and 2000s, and a Russian nationalist group protested against the mosque there. The Yamal Peninsula has a meat processing business run by Nyda-Resurs of halal reindeer meat, which struggles against more traditional meats like mutton. In addition, the two Muslim organizations compete with each other over control of new Muslim communities; their competition is ideological (with the Council of Muftis more vocally supporting rights of Russian Muslims), political (since the Council is closely connected to Moscow, and sometimes denounced as a state-backed organization that seeks to extend Moscow's control over Russia's Muslims), and ethnic (since North Caucasians dominate the Council, while Tatars and Bashkirs traditionally control the CDUMR).
  Percentage of Muslims in Russian Arctic regions:
caption: The mosque in Yakutsk
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