Islam in the Soviet Union

Overview of the country's Muslim demographic (1922–1991)

After it was established on most of the territory of the Russian Empire, the Soviet Union remained the world's largest country until it collapsed in 1991. It covered a large part of Eastern Europe while also spanning the entirety of the Caucasus, Central Asia, and Northern Asia. During this time, Islam was the country's second largest religion; 90% of Muslims in the Soviet Union were adherents of Sunni Islam, with only around 10% adhering to Shia Islam. Excluding the Azerbaijan SSR, which had a Shia majority population, all of the Muslim majority Union Republics had Sunni majority populations. In total, six Union Republics had Muslim majority populations: the Azerbaijan SSR, the Kazakh SSR, the Kyrgyz SSR, the Tajik SSR, the Turkmen SSR, and the Uzbek SSR. There was also a large Muslim population across Volga–Ural and in the northern Caucasian regions of the Russian SFSR. Across Siberia, Muslims accounted for a significant proportion of the population, predominantly through the presence of Tatars. Mosques operated in most large cities within these territories, though their numbers decreased dramatically; there were 25,000 mosques across the Russian Empire at the time of the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, and only 500 mosques across the Soviet Union in the 1970s. In 1989, as part of new Soviet policies that relaxed religious restrictions throughout the country, a number of new Muslim associations were formed and many of the mosques that had been closed by the government were reopened. The Soviet government also announced plans to permit the education of a limited number of imams in the cities of Ufa and Baku. In the years leading up to the dissolution of the Soviet Union, between 45 and 50 million Soviet citizens identified as Muslims, though only around 500 mosques were in operation across the country. Islam was prosecuted and Soviet law forbade all Islamic religious activities outside of mosques and madrasas. All Islamic religious facilities were supervised by four "Spiritual Directorates" established by the Soviet government in order to provide oversight. Sunni Muslims were overseen by the Spiritual Directorate for Central Asia and Kazakhstan, the Spiritual Directorate for the European Soviet Union and Siberia, and the Spiritual Directorate for the Northern Caucasus and Dagestan. Shia Muslims were overseen by the Spiritual Directorate for Transcaucasia, though this establishment served Sunni Muslims as well.

In 1917, Bolshevik revolutionary Vladimir Lenin published Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, a highly influential text that shaped communist attitudes towards anti capitalist struggles, and led to a policy of cultivating left wing nationalists within the Muslim communities of the Russian Empire and in foreign colonies. Before the Bolshevik Revolution, the first Muslim All Russian Congress was held in Moscow in May 1917, celebrating the end of Tsarism. Compared to the Christians (who comprised the state majority), Muslims in the Soviet Union were initially given more religious autonomy. This was in contrast to life under the tsars, when Muslims were suppressed and the Eastern Orthodox Church served in an official capacity in the Russian Empire, an erstwhile Christian state. On 24 November 1917, weeks after the Bolshevik Revolution, the Bolsheviks issued an appeal to "All the Muslim Workers of Russia and the East" under Lenin: Furthermore, some principles of Islamic law were instituted alongside the communist legal system,

In 1928, a large scale purging of the Muslim majority Union Republics' leadership began with the execution of Veli İbraimov of the Tatar Communist Party and Milliy Firqa, which sought to push a nationalist ideology in favour of the Crimean Tatars. These were followed by the elimination of the leaders of the Muslim Social Democratic Party, the Tatar Communist Party, the Tatar Union of the Godless, and the Young Bukharans.

When Joseph Stalin consolidated power in the second half of the 1920s, his policies regarding religion had changed. Mosques began to be closed or turned into warehouses throughout Central Asia, religious leaders were persecuted, religious schools were closed down, and waqfs were outlawed. The Soviet government interpreted the paranja (a traditional Central Asian female robe) as an embodiment of Muslim oppression against women; Stalin's policies led to the initiation of Hujum, a Soviet campaign that sought to strong arm Islamic systems in Central Asia in order to eliminate practices that were seen as perpetuating male–female inequality, particularly the practice of pardah, which directed the large scale seclusion of women from society. However, the campaign was unsuccessful, and Islamic veiling practices became more popular than ever among Muslim workers, whereas it had formerly been worn only by Muslim bourgeoisie. In the 1930s, during the period of Stalin's Great Purge, thousands of Muslim religious clerics were arrested and executed. Between 1929 and 1941, the vast majority of the country's mosques were shut down. In addition to his anti religion policies, Stalin's cult of personality effectively shut out Soviet citizens' freedom to practice Islam, Christianity, or any other religions. the Chechens, the Ingush, the Balkars, the Karachays, and the Meskhetian Turks. The Soviet deportation campaign resulted in a massive loss of life, in addition to widespread displacement. Formally, the mass deportation of Crimean Tatars began on 17 May 1944. More than 32,000 officers of the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD) participated in displacing over 193,865 Crimean Tatars; 151,136 were sent to the Uzbek SSR, 8,597 were sent to the Mari ASSR, 4,286 were sent to the Kazakh SSR, and the remaining 29,846 were sent to various regions within the Russian SFSR. According to official NKVD figures, nearly 20% of the deportees died over the following year and a half, while Crimean Tatar activists have instead placed the casualty rate at around 46%.