Lacunas in the Study of Islam in Russia (based on the dictionary “Islam in the Russian Federation”)

Abstract

This article is devoted to the intermediate results of the project of the series of encyclopedic dictionaries “Islam in the Russian Federation” (at the stage of publication of all regional volumes, but before the release of the consolidated edition). This project, for the first time in the history of Russian Islamic studies, set the goal of covering the entire territory of the country with the research grid. A number of difficulties and problems arose in achieving this goal. One of them was the lack of works on this subject in a number of regions of the country, and even the absence of researchers who would deal with this issue. Since the previous research and encyclopedic projects did not even aim at universal coverage, they could not describe the “white spots” (spatial and temporal lacunas). In addition, one of the reasons for this project was the involvement of about 600 specialists of different profiles, including historians, archaeologists, sociologists, source specialists, ethnologists, numismatists, local historians and others. This multidisciplinarity and the large number of specialists with different points of view created certain difficulties in the work on the project, but they also made it possible to achieve the goal of creating a holistic picture of the history of Islam in Russia. It is only now that it is possible to define and outline these very “white spots” that have been identified and “mapped” in the course of this project.