Restless Quietists: Muslim Forms of Life in Russia’s Volga Region

Restless Quietists addresses two questions at the core of the politics of Islamic ethics: How does Islamic virtue become attractive to young urbanites in predominantly secular societies? What makes religion perturbing in the eyes of temporal authorities? Matteo Benussi explores both questions by putting the vicissitudes of grassroots scripturalist Islamic milieus in Russia’s Tatarstan Republic in resonance with anthropological reflections on ethics and insights from post-Marxist and autonomist theory. Benussi provides a fine-grained ethnographic exploration into how post-Soviet pietists maneuver between imperial legacies, resurgent authoritarianism, and newfound economic opportunities, hankering for self-realization ＂in both this world and the next＂ through the pursuit of halal ways of living.

The quietist ethos that many Tatarstani Muslims embrace does not make their everyday lives any less politically fraught. Restless Quietists reveals that for Russia’s Muslim pietists, halal living offers a way to carve interstices of emancipated life in Tatarstan’s hyper-regimented order, dominated by the state’s illiberal agenda, an alienating conservativism, and a business scene rife with spiritual and ethical dangers.

Matteo Benussi is an anthropologist specializing in religion, ethics, and power. His current research interests include piety and the politics of Islamic virtue, political ontologies and theologies in Eurasia, and space-making in the post-socialist world.