Introduction

This cluster explores the birth of Islam in Arctic conditions by looking at several regional cases. The presence of Muslim populations in Russia’s subarctic regions is part of a centuries-long trend; yet it was the collapse of the Soviet regime and the subsequent huge socioeconomic transformations that really gave birth to Polar Islam. Soviet patterns of migration and labor (Azeri engineers in Siberian industries) are now combined with post-Soviet patterns (young Tajiks and Dagestanis looking for unskilled jobs). This introduction briefly discusses the labor migration context that has been given rise to the new phenomenon of Polar Islam.