iMulla: Tatarstan citizens were offered to invite imam by one click
A mullah to order, confessions online and an unsurpassed e-batyushka
The Ozerov-Yarovaya package of laws adopted last week prescribes to conduct religious ceremonies only within the walls of special institutions. However, until today the clerics conducted them not only at homes but also offered their services via the Internet. For example, the Tatarstan media is actively discussing the prohibited in Moscow Internet project iMulla – the service, where the Muslim clerics publish their profiles and the users order them to conduct online ceremonies. Realnoe Vremya decided to find out what Internet resources exist that allow an ordinary person to communicate with the clergy.
Mullah online
The clergy representatives, who were long considered to be the educated part of the population, are trying to keep up with the times and actively use the possibilities of the Internet. For example, the Internet recourse iMulla started to work in Moscow. It allows the users to choose and invite a mullah at home by one click for conducting a rite.
In general, iMulla is very simple to use. On the home page of the website there are two big buttons — 'Invite a mullah' and 'Find a mullah'. Clicking on the 'Find a mullah', we found a list of 21 profiles, where it is specified what rites and where they are ready to hold them, their work schedule, age, place of work and place of study, additional data. In the case if a user decides to invite a mullah, he or she can order a call or fill in the form on the website with information about themselves, the rite they want, place and time of the meeting. If a person does not know whom to choose, the system can do it for him. The majority of profiles belongs to the Moscow clergy, and the project is mostly focused on the Muscovites yet.
As Rinat Alyautdinov told Realnoe Vremya, he began thinking about the creation of such project long ago, in 2009, working as imam in the mosque on Poklonnaya Hill. The need was dictated by the fact that people often can't find a mullah, to whom they turned to, only because they did not save a phone number.
'For an ordinary person who honours the traditions but not practising Muslim, it is easier to order a mullah from a mosque. But it happens that a mullah takes the order, but does not go there and sends someone instead. Thus, there were many situations associated with the lack of qualified imams. Sometimes they send students who perform rites, and people remain unsatisfied. Thus, there is dissatisfaction with the official clergy. By offering such service, we are raising the quality and level of service of the official clergy,' says Rinat Alyautdinov.
On the website there is a section 'Rights and obligations of the mullahs', which specifies how a mullah must behave, read prayers, communicate with people. It is noted that it is prohibited to set the tariffs for the services and take the money. The customer should reward a mullah by himself, based on his or her material welfare.
Likes for mullah
Rinat Alyautdinov is the author of another project: imedrese – Internet-madrasa, where the users can get the primary religious education. According to Alyautdinov, about 3.5 thousand people get an education in this resource not only from Russia but also from Europe, the USA and the former Soviet Republics. It is planned that in future the projects imedrese and iMulla will be united under one brand iM. In particular, the graduates of imedrese will be able to claim about themselves and their services on the pages of iMulla.
According to the author of the project, in addition to the services the clerics can offer tutoring. That way the young specialists can become known and to get the invitations to conduct the rites, for example, in Moscow. However, not every cleric can register on iMulla – he must have recommendations from the registered ones.
Alyautdinov says that iMulla was created on pure enthusiasm without help from sponsors. However, Alaudinov did not disclose the names of the developers of the website. He said only that the project is implemented by young imams. It is planned that in November they will start the process of developing mobile applications for iPhone, Android and Microsoft.
'This is a very convenient service for mullahs, as well as for customers because they know exactly who will come to them. Moreover, he can like or, conversely, leave a comment, which the mullah can see in his personal cabinet. He will know that a customer made a remark, and accordingly, the administration will know this, and he can be excluded from the service. We have created a competition site to improve the quality of services for the population,' says Alyautdinov.
In the future, the developers are planning to attract the clergy of the Caucasus region. But now this question remains under discussion. The project has received the support of the official clergy of Tatarstan, Moscow and Ufa. Tatarstan clergy also are advanced in the use of the Internet. So, during last meeting of Kamil Samigullin on the iftar with the representatives of Tatarstan media, the General Director of IA Tatar-inform Shamil Sadykov called the chairperson of MRB RT i-mufti because of his love for social networks and other Internet services. However, sometimes the love to gadgets becomes the object of irony in the media: for example, the photo that was taken during the opening of the mosque in Baltasinsky rayon, depicting the clergy looking in their phones, was published with the inscription stating that the clergy is also suffering from phubbing.
Confessions to e-batyushka, or Advice from the archpriests
According to Alyautdinov, the project iMulla — exclusively his brainchild, when creating he focused on numerous religious projects, as well as orthodox ones.
'Orthodox has no such service. They have 'online batyushka', where you can ask a question. We have a similar project, it is still under development, it is called 'Imam online'. The page exists but doesn't work yet because we have not arranged the work of iMulla yet,' said Alyautdinov.
We would like to note that for those who profess Orthodox religion, there are also a lot of websites where you can get advice from priests or even to confess. For example, the service 'Batyushka online', created on the initiative of the Simbirsk Eparchy, even received the approval of the Patriarch Kiril (at least it is said on the website of the resource). In the 'Members' section there is the information about 24 priests, among whom there are the writers, musicians, lawyers. Some of them work in the USA or in Europe. These experts answer the questions from the users, most of whom ask the archpriests to make for them a difficult choice — whether they should go on a working trip to Africa or whether someone needs to do the operation. It should be noted that the responses of the clergy, if not solve all the problems of believers, at least, sound quite adequately and wisely. It is possible to download a mobile application.
However, on the Internet there are a lot of very strange and even damaging resources. Perhaps, the most popular practice of these sites is the confessions online. For example, on the website 'Молитесь.ру' you can leave your confession, which can be read by other users. However, it is hard to say how serious such confessions are, because among them there are prayers about work, for the exam in the SAI, prayers of deliverance debts and asks to return ex-girlfriend.
Another religious project that caused a stir – it is the portal E-batyushka. On the home page on the background of a blue sky it is presented the application for a confession — you just have to write the name of a sinner and tell about the essence of a sin. In conclusion, optionally you can tick the box 'I want to get the blessing'. It was later revealed that the creator of the project was a 19-year-old Krasnodar programmer Denis Nebesny (Denis Heaven). 'I haven't claimed the seriousness. The idea, which was immediately embodied in one day. I registered a domain, hosting, wrote several texts and modified the standard theme of WordPress. Nothing more. The idea originated probably from a desire to show the commercialization of the current Church, but I can't say that I am an ideological opponent or something like that — I don't need it,' commented Denis Nebesny. According to him, the majority of users realized the irony of the project, however, a programmer got two or three serious confessions.
Due to the fact that on the wave of success of E-batyushka there also appeared many of such websites, the representatives of Church even had to give explanations that, for example, you can prepare for a confession while talking on Skype but it is impossible to grant remission of sins on the Internet.
'It turns out, we do not allow performing rituals at home. Then, who will perform them at home?'
It worth noting that despite all advantages of the project, its existence may be under threat because of the adoption of the package of laws Ozerov-Yarovaya, which questiones the holding of rites at home. However, according to Rinat Alyautdinov, on the contrary, such prohibitions can lead to the fact that traditional Islam will begin to lose its influence because people will not refuse from conducting rites at home.
'We will always rely on the Constitution of our country. While the Constitution says that religion is separated from the state. Therefore, the adoption of such rules, regulations is anti-constitutional. I think so. For centuries our ancestors performed some rituals at home because there were no mosques. We think that it is impossible to monitor the implementation of rituals at home or even in the mosques. Only through the open spreading of our values it is possible to protect Islam and our government. Our service just offers an open spread of Islam in our country. It turns out, we do not allow performing rituals at home. Then, who will perform them at home? Mostly, in the villages, and also in the cities, almost all rituals are done only at home. It is rarely that nikah is carried out in the cities. We need to be everywhere — to work openly and officially, accessibly. If they say nonsense, some illegal things, a customer himself reveals it very quickly,' said Alyautdinov.