The businessman was arrested August 30 after he had handed out at a book market eight copies of an Arab Language Textbook by Bagauddin Muhammed, an influential Muslim cleric in Russia's North Caucasus republic of Daghestan who is known for criticizing the local government for its purported disrespect for Muslim traditions.
"The Interior Ministry of the Republic of Tatarstan [a predominantly Muslim republic in Russia] has said in its findings that the author of the book emphasizes the preeminence of Islam over other religions and calls for a renunciation of the current form of government, as well as for a struggle to establish a Muslim state as all non-Muslim systems, including democracy, are totally unacceptable," police said.
Prosecutors said they would soon charge the businessman with attempting to incite ethnic, racial or religious discord.
St. Petersburg has seen a wave of apparently racially motivated attacks on non-Russians recently, which include the beating of a Chinese student, and the stabbing of a nine-year-old girl of mixed Russian-African origin in early 2006.
But the authorities have dismissed the city's image as a race-hate center saying the attacks were attempts to deliberately discredit the city ahead of a Group of Eight summit in mid-July.
