Informal religiosity of central Volga area and Ural area «Muslim» peoples in 1960–1970

Abstract

In recent years there has been an increased interest in Islam and Islamic law. Islam plays a very significant role in the modern world. Close interaction between legal and religious prescriptions of Islam, the religious basis of Muslim law, Muslim character is not in doubt. The article analyses informal religiosity of Muslim peoples of the Middle Volga and Urals in the 19601970. This time for relations between the authorities and Islamic institutions is relatively liberal. The restoration and development of official, allowed in the Soviet Union, as well as quite nontraditional for the Soviet time Islamic practices are noted by the authorities in the Middle Volga and the Urals. The reports name such informal forms of religiosity as neo-paganism, wandering mullahs, unofficial Muslim groups, worship, places of burial of saints and Sufi sources. The authorities, the party authorities, the official Muslim clergy stopped all forms of unofficial religiosity. For the Muslim peoples Islam has often been the subject of interest as a cultural component of their traditional worldview rather than a religious system. The authors believe that the Islamic religion has moved from ethno-cultural to the personal, informal level.