Muslim history in Russia is radically different from the influx recent immigrant Muslims in Europe and the United States after the end of WWII. Muslims have been in Russia for more than 1000 years. I have been to Europe, North America and Russia and only in Russia do I feel completely at home as a Muslim. In Russia, being a Muslim is normal. Of course, during the Soviet era, all religious feelings were ruthlessly suppressed. However, with the end of the Cold War, Muslims of Russia were encouraged by foreign powers to turn against Russia. This anti Russia campaign took many forms and terrorism has been one of the tools used to create a wedge between Russia and its Muslim population. Also, xenophobic fear that Muslims will "demographically take over Slavic Christian Russia" has been disseminated in the Western media. But all that has changed with the arrival of Putin. Putin took a firm stance against terrorism but also economic development and inter-faith dialogues started to play significant roles in the process of healing the wound created by those who want destabilize Russia. I urge Robert Bridge to visit RT's own WWI archives including the May 9, 20101 Moscow Parade of the Patriotic Victory to see how many nations of the former Soviet States- which marched as CIS countries, marched under banner of Islamic Crescent! Better, yet, he can visit any of thousands of memorials to the heroes of WWII to see how many of them have Muslim names. Muslims are part of the present and the historic Great Russia. Muslims are not recent immigrant to Russia. As for the business of Qur’an burning in the U.S. we need to look at the roots of culture of xenophobia in the U.S and Europe in the liberal press [Eurbia, coined by Economist planted the seeds of anti-Muslim hysteria in the U.S and Europe]. No similar xenophobic anti-Muslim widespread culture exists in Russia.

Because what is important is abiding by the Law of the nation. The overwhelming majority of Muslims abide by the Law of the Russian Federation. In fact, on average, they have an strong sense of the family and low alcohol consumption. So the answer is easy: if anybody (atheist, christian, muslim, jew, buddhist or whatever) breaks the Criminal Law he/she is a criminal who can end in jail, but if he/she abides by the Law of the Russian Federation he/she should be respected. Religion is a private matter which normative cannot be applied as common law to the community. First always comes the Law and normative of the Russian Federation.

I suppose you're right PR101, Americans and Europeans are not used to Muslims while Russians are. What I always find very interesting is that Jews living in Iran are not persecuted at all, they can practice their religion without fear and are protected by the law. It just goes to show that the East is far more tolerant than the 'democratic' West.

Also, I came across the following link and I thought to pass it along. http://en.rian.ru/analysis/20050505/39887224.html

Great article. However, there was one factual error in this article. You said that Russia has the world's largest muslim population of a non-islamic country. Actually, India has the world's largest muslim minority (it has more muslims than Russia has people).

I'm Russian. Unfortunately, there is a growing Islamophobia in Russia, not caused by Tatars or Bashkirs but a big influx of migrant workers from Central Asia The Russia government should do more to fix this problem.

When will the world grow up. Religion is a CANCER that makes men evil murdering delusional maniacs. Its a form of drunken dellusional retardation , yes if your into any religion now days , your just A deluted fool who has a mental disorder. simply : your a retard

Russia has had Muslims in their midst for centuries. Where western Europe is today regarding its Muslim populations,  Russia was back in the 17th century.