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On 11th of December 2013 in Azerbaijani town of Sumgait skirmishes took place between two religious groupings “Khawarij and Salafis”. As Azerbaijani news agencies report the clashes burst out on the ground of religious ideology. Another shooting occurred in mid- October of the same year between the police and an armed group whom media named as Wahhabis (otherwise called Salafis, branch of Sunni Islam). In December of 2013 Azerbaijani police stated that it is necessary to take the mosques of the country under the control as some clashes are taking place between members of different religious sects in Azerbaijan.

Nevertheless, Azerbaijan considers itself to be one of the most secular and tolerant Muslim states in the world. Just recently the Azerbaijani analysts speaking about social tensions in Azerbaijan excluded the fact that religion can play any prominent role in Azerbaijani social and political life in the near future. A professor of Baku State University confirmed that “Azerbaijan is one of the most secular Muslim states in the world”. However, the Western analysts don’t exclude the fact of Azerbaijan’s Islamization and claim that Azerbaijan has the potential characteristics to become the next hotspot after Syria.

Like in Syria, the population of Azerbaijan is divided into two dominating branches of Islam: Shia and Sunni. According to 2013 Pew Research Report in Azerbaijan the 65 % to 75% are Shias and only 15% to 35% are Sunnis (Sufis and Wahabbis –branches of Sunni Islam). In Syria the majority are Sunnis, almost 60% of the population, while the power is in the hands of Alawites, the branch of Shia Islam. Bashar-Al Assad, the Alawite president of Syria tried to defend the secular nature of Syria, trying to eliminate religious divisions that could have jeopardized his power and stability of the country. However, social unrest in 2011 in Syria and Assad’s harsh approach to it gradually boosted the tensions between sectarian divisions, drawing the country into religious war.

Similar to Assad, the Azerbaijani government launched the policy of secularism in the country: complete separation of religion from politics and economy. Under the rule of Heydar Aliyev, the third president of Azerbaijan, Islam in the country was stabilized and organized, that is the government put all legal and administrative measures to take Islam under its control. The key tool in that consolidation is keeping the balance between Sunnis and Shias.

Any interpretation of Islam that would pose a threat to authorities has been forbidden in Syria as well as in Azerbaijan, but a space was created for implementation of official Islam, which would provide legitimacy to the regime. It was claimed that Bashar-Al-Assad found the formula of how to maintain multilayer Islamic society. He didn’t press the society instead granted some “controlled” freedom. The same phenomenon is observed in Azerbaijan, there is quite a liberal Constitution where everyone in the state has the right of freedom of religion, but in practice they are not allowed to excise that right.

These two countries similarly constructed the “culture of fear” in their societies and maintained it carefully. However, socioeconomic processes and social hardships had their direct impact on Syrian society’s upheaval. Widespread corruption and unsound economic practices increased in 2011 in Syria. There is an opinion that the crackdowns in Syria were the direct results of these developments. In Azerbaijan increasing corruption, nepotism and economic hardships are common phenomena as well. As one of Azerbaijani analysts observed direct to the point, just few steps away from Baku’s center one would encounter “poverty, ruins and disappointment.”

Recent events showed that Asad’s harsh approach to the protests and an escalated violence against the protestors contributed to the uprising, while in Azerbaijan the society still endures economic hardships and violent repressions, where “still” is a key word.

Nevertheless, according to different articles published in Carnegie think tank and Foreign Policy journal the breakthrough of Syrian civil war into sectarian one creates different concerns in Azerbaijan, which as observed above has high potential of becoming the next melting pot. As reported by Bayram Balci, a scholar specialized in Middle East, the dominant position occupied by Sunnis during Syrian sectarian war created some concerns in Shia community of Azerbaijan. The Sunnis of Azerbaijan were so much radicalized that went to take part in the Syrian war. It is reported that as many as 200 jihadists of Azerbaijan still fight in Syria. There have also been cases when Shia Azerbaijanis through Iran went to Syria and joined Syrian army and Shia Hezbollah. The return of sectarian fighters with escalated tensions and ambitious could be potential creator of a similar situation in Azerbaijan like it is witnessed in Syria.

As Balci claims “Azerbaijan policy of maintaining secular peace is the only alternative to sectarian chaos.” The comparison of CRRC yearly data supports the arguments posed above. The data revealed that people in Azerbaijan have become more religious and that religion plays prominent role in their lives. In 2010 only 71% of Azerbaijani respondents considered religion to be an important factor of their everyday life, while in 2012 the number of those who think of religion as important aspect of everyday life reached to 81%. Similarly in 2010 only 25% thought of themselves as people devoted to religion while in 2012 the number grew to 32 %. Finally, the data illustrates that more than half of Shia as well as Sunni agreed with the statement that people should participate to the protests to change something in the country. Implications are the following; though religion still is separated from politics in Azerbaijan there is an increase in religiosity of Azerbaijani society. Who knows, maybe the Western Analysts have a point and Azerbaijan can be the next hub of religious war...