For Putin and for Sharia examines what it means to support sharia in twenty-first-century Dagestan, where calls for an Islamic state coexist with nostalgia for the days of Stalin's rule and Mecca calendars hang alongside portraits of Putin. Confronting existing narratives about sharia, terrorism, and anti-terrorism through ethnographic fieldwork, Iwona Kaliszewska looks at the beliefs and practices of Dagestani Muslims, revealing that the pursuit of sharia can assume a range of forms from sweeping visions of an Islamic state imposed through violence, to minor acts of everyday resistance against injustice, to attempts to restore the security and stability once afforded by the Soviet state. In For Putin and for Sharia, Kaliszewska challenges the official dichotomy of Muslims as supporting either the political underground or state authorities and deconstructs the Salafi/Sufi division between the so-called reformists and traditional Islam.
"'A passionate 21st-century tragedy… an utterly credible, humorous yet heartbroken snapshot of a western culture in which, for some men, issues of gender, class and power can now form an utterly toxic mix of rage, resentment and desperation'"
Scotsman
"'Intelligent and compelling… rivetingly escalates in tension, bringing resentments about educational authority figures, working-class alienation and gender differences to the fore… a valuable piece'"
Telegraph
"'Explores the uncertain territory where prejudice, damage and failed intentions collide'"
