This is a very scary scenario:
"Russia is going through a religious transformation that will be of even greater consequence for the international community than the collapse of the Soviet Union," said Paul Goble, a specialist on Islam in Russia and research associate at the University of Tartu in Estonia.
Two decades ago, the Sobornaya Mosque was the only Islamic house of worship allowed in the Soviet Union. It stood largely empty, filling only with the occasional large foreign delegation from an Islamic country.
Today, it is one of four mosques in Moscow serving a Muslim population of about 2.5 million. On Fridays and holy days, it overflows with worshippers, leaving many to kneel on newspapers outside, their foreheads pressed against the concrete.
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Russia's overall population is dropping at a rate of 700,000 people a year, largely because of the short life spans and low birthrates of ethnic Russians. According to the CIA World Factbook, the national fertility rate is 1.28 children per woman, far below what is needed to maintain the country's population of nearly 143 million. The rate in Moscow is even lower, at 1.1 children per woman.
Russia's Muslims, however, are bucking that trend. The fertility rate for Tatars living in Moscow is six children per woman, Mr. Goble said, while the Chechen and Ingush communities are averaging 10 children per woman. At the same time, hundreds of thousands of Muslims from Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan have been flocking to Russia in search of work.
Russia's Muslim population has increased by 40 percent since 1989, to about 25 million. By 2015, Muslims will make up a majority of Russia's conscript army and by 2020 one-fifth of the population.
"If nothing changes, in 30 years, people of Muslim descent will definitely outnumber ethnic Russians," Mr. Goble said.
I've heard from some Evangelicals believing in "end of days" that during the last conflict of the mankind Israel will be attacked from some country in the North, which, as they explained, is Russia. I always dismissed it. Besides the fact that I am not religious at all, I always thought that an attack from Iran is much more likely (I believe that, theology aside, that is what's going to happen). But if Russia gets taken over by Islamists, this "end of days" scenario all of a sudden doesn't seem so unlikely. Also, if something like this happens, America will come to the rescue of those in Russia who refuse to submit to Islamo-Fascist rule. There are many people in Russia who keep blaming US for all the trouble in the world. So, perhaps it is time to remind to those people an old Russian saying: "Don't spit into a well: you might have to drink from it".
Link to FrontPage magazine.com :: Islamic Russia by Michael Mainville
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