Tumso* ridiculed Mezhiev's justifications before Berl Lazar

The translation of Chechen Mufti Salakh Mezhiyev's words about Jews, which the Chief Rabbi of Russia relied on, is completely correct, and the attempt to deny these statements after the post was removed from the official mouthpiece's website is ridiculous and absurd, the blogger pointed out.

As reported by the "Caucasian Knot," on October 30, Russia's Chief Rabbi Berl Lazar called on leading Muslim figures to distance themselves from the anti-Semitic statements of Chechen Mufti Salakh Mezhiyev, who called Jews "enemies of Allah." Following the rabbi's statement, the Chechen News Agency removed this portion of Mezhiyev's speech from its publication. The words that outraged Russia's Chief Rabbi Berel Lazar were incorrectly translated from Chechen and published online by "Ukrainian Satanists," Mezhiyev stated on October 31. These explanations did not satisfy the Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia.

Opposition Chechen blogger Tumso Abdurakhmanov* dedicated another video on his YouTube channel on November 3rd to the exchange of grievances between the mufti of Chechnya and the chief rabbi of Russia. He criticized Salakh Mezhiev's response to Berl Lazar's claims and provided a literal translation of Mezhiev's words on the talk show: "In this world, there is a directive from God's enemies—the Jews—who gave birth to the atheist movement."

The essence of Mezhiev's explanation regarding the alleged mistranslation of his words boils down to the fact that only a native Chechen speaker could understand the true meaning of the statement, the blogger recalled.

“I will refute this: the Chechens understood his words exactly as he said them. Exactly as Berl Lazar understood them, and exactly as they were translated. From his words in Chechen, not a single native speaker would conclude that he was talking about some Zionists, terrorists, or Nazis. He clearly says the word “zhugti” in Chechen, which is translated as “Jews” and nothing else. This word cannot be translated as either “Zionists” or “terrorists”, it can only be translated as “Jews” or “Jews,” Tumso* explained.

Abdurakhmanov* also ridiculed Mezhiyev’s reference to “Ukrainian Satanists”**, who, according to the mufti, made an incorrect translation of his words and published it online. “The funniest thing is that Berl Lazar relied on the official translation of the official text in his statement.” Kadyrov's mouthpiece, the Grozny-Inform news agency. There are no real complaints against them for this translation; they did the translation correctly," he noted.

Mufti Abdurakhmanov* called the explanations from the mufti cowardly, and the actions of the Chechen officials, who simply ordered the article edited and "pretended it never happened," absurd and unreasonable.

"Having sanitized his own propaganda and hidden the translation, he's afraid to answer for his words (...) Say something else: say, for example, that yes, there was an incorrect translation, we fired someone there, but don't say that atheists or Ukrainian Satanists** wrote it. You erased your own translation and shouldn't have any complaints against Berl Lazar. You yourself provided the translation that Berl Lazar relied on, and you did the right thing. (...) Now try to somehow get out of this situation: say that these are screenshots created with the help of AI, but in fact this did not happen,” he concluded.

Salah Mezhiyev became the mufti of Chechnya in 2014, replacing Sultan Mirzayev in this post - the latter was declared by Kadyrov the lifelong mufti of the republic, but suddenly left the post. Before his appointment, Mezhiyev was deputy mufti. In December 2019, Mezhiyev was re-elected as the mufti of Chechnya, and on September 21, 2025, he was once again re-elected. On the same day, the Coordination Center of Muslims of the North Caucasus, which has headed Mezhiyev awarded Ramzan Kadyrov the "Defender of the Sunnah" Order.

The North Caucasus Muslim Coordination Center performs primarily symbolic functions, but the fact that the head of the Chechen Muslim Spiritual Directorate is heading it is the result of Kadyrov's lobbying efforts, according to political scientists and Islamic scholars previously interviewed by the "Caucasian Knot."

* added to the register of foreign agents

** The Supreme Court of the Russian Federation recognized the "International Movement of Satanism" as extremist and banned its activities

*** Meta (owner of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp) is banned in Russia