In a country with 20 million Muslims, two million in Moscow alone, that sort of attention has had divergent effects on Russian foreign policy. It has reinforced Moscow’s support of Palestinian statehood, which dates to cold war jockeying between the Soviet Union and the United States. Kremlin news releases typically refer to “Palestine,” and Russia supports United Nations membership for the Palestinian government. On Friday, Sheik Gainutdin led a national day of prayer in support of a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital, which has become an annual tradition.

Russia’s leaders have also adopted a nuanced view of Hamas, regarding it as a social service organization and a legitimate political player in the region and dismissing allegations of hypocrisy from Israel, which has equated Hamas with the Chechen militants whom Mr. Putin routinely denounces as terrorists.

While these positions are in concert with the views of the Muslim community back home, the Russian government has also strongly favored state sovereignty, even if exercised by dictators, over self-determination in Libya, Egypt and most pointedly in Syria, where it has described the anti-Assad rebels as lawbreakers. It is a stance that could alienate young, more fervent Muslims already suspicious of Moscow’s efforts to limit their religiosity, but it also leaves no doubt how the Kremlin will react to any hint of rebellion within its own borders.

In an interview, Sheik Gainutdin said that Mr. Putin and other leaders had been largely supportive of the Muslim community, but he said that Moscow city officials were risking a conflagration by not doing more to address an acute shortage of mosques. He has often noted that Beijing has 70 mosques for 250,000 Muslims while Moscow has just 4 for two million.

Privately, many Muslim officials blame the Russian Orthodox Church, which is increasingly close to the Kremlin, for blocking efforts to acquire property for new mosques in the capital.

Sheik Gainutdin also went out of his way to praise the United States State Department for defending religious freedom around the world including in Russia, hardly a talking point endorsed by the Kremlin. He attributed the attacks in Kazan in part to a failure of leadership on the part of the wounded chief mufti, who he said had failed to adapt to the rising demands from younger, more fervent Muslim believers.

Still, he condemned the violence and said that rising extremism posed a real challenge.

“Unfortunately such radical groups do exist,” he said. “Thus, the politicians, authorities, official Muslim clergy face a question: What is to be done with these ideologically versed Muslims?”