Azerbaijan leads the line

It is possible that the Commonwealth of Independent States will become the next frontier for Islamic finance. At this point, six Muslim republics of the former Soviet Union, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kirgizstan and Tajikistan are members of the CIS. Moreover, Russia has also 20m indigenous Muslims in Russia, mostly concentrated in the semi-autonomous Caucasus provinces of Chechnya, Ingushetia, Dagestan, Tatarstan and Bashkortostan.
Although the relationship between Russia and its Muslims wasn't very good, it has started to make concerted efforts to reach out to Turkey, Iran and the Arab nations to the south and Pakistan, Malaysia and the Islamic democracies of South East Asia.