Slain Islamic religious leader given Russian Orthodox Church award
MOSCOW. Dec 24 (Interfax) - Valiulla Yakupov, a Muslim religious scholar and a fierce opponent of radical Islam, has been awarded the Russian Orthodox Church's Glory and Honor Order (1st Degree) posthumously in recognition of his efforts to maintain peaceful relations between different faiths and combat terrorism.
Yakupov's widow received the order from Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, head of the Moscow Patriarchate's Department for External Church Relations, at a session of the human rights center of the World Russian People's Assembly in Moscow on Monday.
On July 19, 2012, on the eve of the start of the holy Muslim month of Ramadan, the mufti of Russia's Republic of Tatarstan, Ildus Faizov, was injured in a car bombing attack. Yakupov was shot dead in the lobby of his apartment building an hour earlier.
Russian President Vladimir Putin then awarded The Order for Courage to Yakupov posthumously.
