The Convergence of Religious Legal Consciousness in the Context of Global Migration Processes

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to identify the peculiarities of religious legal consciousness and to review the conflicts, gaps, and additional specific problems arising amidst a convergence of peoples confessing Islam within the European legal-cultural domain. Approaching this question from the perspective of Russian scholarship, the authors evaluate and apply methods of inquiry such as sociological surveys and analysis of law enforcement practices, together with historical, dialectico-materialistic, interdisciplinary, and logical approaches. The given article highlights problems of cultural interaction with special reference to the role of religion in this process, including relative degrees of legal implementation of religion and the influence of religion on personality formation. Here religion is regarded both as a means of social regulation and as a reflection of the specific characteristics and cultural environment of a particular community with its concepts of justice, legality, and ethics. In general, modern secular states fail to take into account the different roots of religious legal consciousness in different cultures, instead perceiving the legality of a juridical fact through the prism of their own respective cultures. Nonetheless, understanding the mechanisms through which legal consciousness forms – including the impact of religion on such formation – represents an important tool for addressing and resolving a number of grave social problems.