Building mosque in policeman's memory surprises residents of Chechnya

A large mosque will be built in the village of Mairtup in memory of Tamerlan Musaev, the head of the ROVD (District Police Division), the head of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, has announced. This news has surprised local residents, already accustomed to the names of Kadyrov's relatives being given to mosques.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that on July 21, Tamerlan Musaev, the head of the Shali ROVD of Chechnya, who earlier headed the security service of Magomed Daudov, the Speaker of the Chechen Parliament, perished in a road accident on a highway in the Rostov Region. He was a native of the village of Mairtup, Kurchaloi District, and was buried there on July 22.

Ramzan Kadyrov announced his decision to build a mosque named after Tamerlan Musaev in the village of Mairtup, Kurchaloi District, on July 28.

"We've decided to build a mosque that will bear the name of the deceased Tamerlan Musaev. It will be erected in the Kurchaloi District, in the village of Mairtup," Ramzan Kadyrov wrote on his page in the social network "VKontakte".

The local residents interviewed by the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent are surprised by the decision to name the mosque after a policeman. Some of them treat this decision as unethical.

“People have different attitudes to the fact that the mosque will be named after Musaev. There are those who support this, and there are opponents. After all, he (Tamerlan Musaev) was a law enforcer; and not everyone is happy with the methods our police are using in their work," said Akhmad, a local resident.

"I've heard little good about Tamerlan Musaev, same as about other law enforcers. I think it's not quite ethical to name a mosque after such a person. It's customary to name mosques after Islamic figures or theologians, or, as it's common here, after Ramzan [Kadyrov's] relatives, but not after law enforcers," said Khasan, another resident of Chechnya.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on July 30, 2019 at 08:50 pm MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.