Arab-Muslim Culture Research Articles

Males are Toxic: A Masculine Critique of Ayad Akhtar’s Play The Who & The What

Hegemonic and toxic traits of masculinity are complex ideas that have affected personal relationships and social hierarchies for centuries. The play The Who & The What by Ayad Akhtar presents these traits through the male character Afzal, a Pakistani American citizen whose traditional culture and modern American lifestyle lead him to adopt these forms of masculinity. Therefore, the present study basically aims to focus on the impact of Afzal’s masculinity in Akhtar’s play The Who & The What over his daughters, Zarina and Mahwish, as well as Zarina’s husband, Eli. The Who & The What centers around Zarina, the female protagonist, who challenges her society by writing a novel entitled The Who & The What, exploring the personal life of the prophet Mohammed (BPUH). As the play moves, her father, Afzal, opposes her and anyone who crosses the limits set by their traditional Arab-Muslim culture. However, employing the notion of Hegemonic Masculinity by R. W. Connell and the Toxic Theory of Masculinity as proposed by Terry A. Kupers provides new lenses to analyze the text of the play. Thus, the present study found that Afzal’s actions reflect certain hegemonic and toxic assets such as authority, domination, control, superiority, and making decisions for others.

Разум, язык, культура: как сегодня прочитывать концепцию «арабского разума» ал-Джа̄бири

In his four-volume Critique of Arab Reason the late Moroccan philosopher Muḥammad ‘Ābid al-Jābirī (1935–2010) argues that human history witnessed “Greco-European” and “Arab” variants of reason, and not the single one. He challenges the confidence of philosophers in the universality of reason which disclosed itself in the course of European history. Reading al-Jābirī’s theory in Kantian optics will prove fruitful in view of significant number of observations accumulated in Arabic philosophical studies and directly related to the question of the type of rationality that grounds Arab-Muslim culture. The Arabic linguistic tradition bases itself not on the being of substance but on the flux of action. The indivisible segment of the Arabic speech is the flow of sound between the two “sides” (ḥ arf, pl. ḥ urūf). The copulative function ensures the gluing of the subject and predicate into a single statement due to the action of “leaning” (isnād) between them, which excludes the use of the “to be”-like copula and removes “being” from the list of the fundamental metaphysical categories. All Arabic words, with few exceptions, are “branches” growing from “roots” represented by names of actions. The “root – branches” (’aṣl – furū‘) model, developed by the representatives of the Arabic linguistic tradition and Islamic jurists, explains the diversity of Islamic culture which allows for direct contradictions, legitimizing them by tracing down to a single “root”, which contrasts with the law of contradiction fundamental to European rationality. Islamic ethics is concerned not with the moral perfection of a single substantial individual, but with maintaining a network of interactions between human being and God and between members of society, constituting society not as a hierarchy of strata and classes, but as multiple networks of interactions. The concept of the “Arab reason” by al-Jābirī, read in Kantian optics on the basis of the achievements of philosophical Arabic studies, allows to substantiate the hypothesis of the plurality of types of rationality developed through the history of humankind.

The Role of Islamic Beliefs in Facilitating Acceptance of Cancer Diagnosis.

Although survival rates for patients with cancer have increased, this disease continues to affect couples significantly. Religion and culture seem to be part of the therapeutic process for people with cancer. Despite the abundance of the Arab Muslim community in Western countries, there is a lack of documented data on Arab Muslim couples experiencing cancer. A simple exploratory qualitative study was conducted through semi-structured interviews on six married couples (n = 12) identifying with the Arab Muslim culture and being affected by cancer. An iterative data analysis was performed. Results were reported under the following themes: accepting illness through coping strategies provided by Muslim religious beliefs and practices, experiencing problems with the expression of needs and feelings within the couple, experiencing closeness within the family, and experiencing illness in the hospital setting as Muslims. Our results show that Islamic beliefs can facilitate acceptance of a cancer diagnosis. It is also noted that religion seems to unite spouses in supporting each other and maintaining hope in a difficult context. Communication issues may persist between a couple due to stressors related to cancer. The results of this study could raise awareness about the importance of exploring religious and spiritual beliefs when supporting couples affected by cancer.

“Knowledge” and “Action”: al-Ghazali and Arab Muslim Philosophical Tradition in Context of Interrelationship with Philosophical Culture of Byzantium

“Knowledge” in Islam, Muslim culture and philosophy is considered as the key to understanding Muslim civilization, the formation of which took place in interaction with the cultures of peoples of the eastern and western parts of the former Roman Empire. The Byzantine theology and philosophy were of great importance for the points of contact and mutual enrichment of Muslim and Christian cultures in the Middle Ages, influencing the formation of Christian orthodox doctrine and the worldview of the ethnically diverse peoples of the Byzantine oikumene. The phenomenon of “knowledge” in Muslim culture is presented in the article in connection with some contexts of Byzantine culture. “Knowledge”, as well as the categorical space of Muslim culture as a whole, on the one hand, allows us to understand the spirit of Islam as a phenomenon of religion, culture and civilization, and on the other hand, to determine the role and significance of this space in the formation and development of the main directions of Arab-Muslim philosophy formed in the “golden era” of Islam. The article considers the spiritual attitude to the “search for knowledge” in Islam: in the Koran and the Sunnah. Particular attention is paid to the concept of “knowledge” in the Arab-Muslim culture, while it is noted that written culture, book knowledge and education in general were the property of not only a narrow circle of rulers and religious figures in the Arab Caliphate. Within the framework of the categorical space of the Arab Muslim culture and philosophy, it should be borne in mind that the categories of “knowledge” (‘ilm) and “action” ('amal) constitute an inseparable unity within the framework of the Arab Muslim spiritual tradition in the context of the relationship between “theoretical” and “practical” mind. The role of “knowledge” and “action” within the framework of the Arab Muslim philosophical tradition is considered on the example of the teachings of al-Ghazali, who had a huge impact on the development of philosophy both in the Arab East and the European West. Being a key figure in the spiritual history of Islam and Muslim civilization, al-Ghazali considered knowledge not just as a value, but also as a virtue. An ardent champion of the role of reason, he connected theoretical reason with the understanding of spiritual realities that give us various systems of knowledge called sciences. The area of competence of practical reason, which should be based on the theoretical, al-Ghazali associated with human behavior. Practical reason directs human actions based on the will, based on and guided by a moral ideal. Al-Ghazali’s teachings are considered in notions and terms formed and developed in the Middle Ages within the Arab-Muslim culture and reflecting some meanings of such historical type of philosophical culture as the Greek-Byzantine classical Patristics. Al-Ghazali and the Byzantine Church Fathers shared a philosophical and theological understanding of man in his relation to the Creator and the phenomenon of “knowledge”.

The problem of the connection between falsafa and religion in al-Farabi teachings

This article discusses the relationship between religion and falsafa in the worldview of Abu Nasr al-Farabi, a prominent representative of the Arab-Muslim culture of the Middle Ages, the founder of Falsafa.The fundamental searches of the thinker were also outlined, which led to the approximation of Islam to nature based on the Muslim worldview, to the works of the philosophers of antiquity Plato, Aristotle about the creation of the world. The question of the thinker's vision and opinion in relation to religion still remains an unfinished topic. During the writing of the article, evidence was presented describing the unity of Al-Farabi with religion and Falsafa. Farabi himself, being a representative of Falsafa, gave a rationalistic assessment of religion. He identified religion with philosophical categories, not with religious traits. Among his treatises and scientific books by Al-Farabi, the problem of combining falsafa and religion is one of the most ambitious and diverse.Farabi also defines religion and falsafa, starting from their origin. Religion is, according to the thinker who arose after falsafa in time. In addition to understanding the necessity of religion, Al-Farabi argued that existence is possible without it. That is, he meant that even through philosophy, a person can achieve truth and wealth. This article examines in detail the nature and essence of Farabi's theological teaching.Also the subject of the research of the article was the problem of the thinker of prophecy, the origin of the world, the theory of creation, God (Allah). The article systematically analyzed the works of foreign and domestic scientists-researchers of the teachings of Farabi.

ДЕЙСТВИЕ И СУБСТАНЦИЯ: БАНИ, ВИНО И ПАЛЬМЫ В КЛАССИЧЕСКОЙ АРАБСКОЙ ЛИТЕРАТУРЕ

The world around us is a collection of things in constant motion and influencing one another. In other words, the world changes every instant. Each moment it differs from itself a moment ago, never staying the same. The difficulty discovered by the Greeks is that what is constantly changing cannot be cognized for if the world is always in motion, always new, knowledge becomes obsolete and useless the very instant after we acquired it, as the world will never be the same as we knew it. So we need to stop that movement, to see the unchanging in change, to understand the change as the renewal of the permanent. The Greeks learned doing it relying on the notion of substance, i. e., the immutable essence of a thing that constitutes its self and survives any of its changes. Such a way of conceptualizing the world was inherited by the big European culture. The big Arab-Muslim culture learned to conceptualize change as a renewal of an action, considering the action itself unchangeable as long as it flows from the actor to the recipient. Those two logics of sense positing gave birth to the metaphysics of substance and metaphysics of action. They the two ways of sense positing, manifest themselves in any activity of consciousness. They are not hard to find in the functioning of language either – both theoretical and ordinary. The classical Arabic texts provide possibility of reading them in perspectives of both substance and process logics, where the two contrasting meanings are suggested by the same verbal design.

INFLUENCE OF ARAB-MUSLIM CULTURE ON THE PROCESS OF ORIGIN OF DAGESTAN LITERATURE

The subject of this study is Dagestan literature. Special attention is paid to the first written works in the republic, which appeared under the influence of Arab-Muslim culture. This article examines the influence of Arabic-language culture on the formation of literary traditions of the peoples of Dagestan. Works in Arabic, Persian and Turkic languages in the spiritual literature of Dagestan testify to the centuries-old impact of Eastern culture. The manuscript gives an overview of the first Arabic-language sources written on the territory of Dagestan in the X-XII centuries. With the integration of the Arabic language in society, there is a creative flourishing of the activities of scientists of various fields of science: ethics, dogmatics, logic, Muslim law, hagiography and many others. The authors note not only the influence of Eastern literature, but also the creativity of the peoples of the Near and Middle East in the fate of Dagestan written literature and literary traditions. The authors of the article note that the spread of writing based on Arabic graphics contributed to the increase in the level of literacy of the Dagestan population, which is reflected in the literature.

«Совершенный человек» vs «Праведный факих»: суфийские истоки политической концепции имама Хомейни

The main models of rationalization formed in the classical period of the Arab-Muslim culture (VIII–XV centuries) have had a notable impact on Modern polit­ical discourse in Iran. The paper presents an analysis of the political concept of the ideologist of the Islamic revolution in Iran in 1979 Ayatollah Khomeini (1902–1989). Applying the categorical model “explicit – hidden” (ẓāhir – bāṭin) to the analysis of Khomeini’s argumentation makes it possible to identify the most important references to the major philosophemes of mature Sufism in his main work “Governance of the Jurist: Islamic Government” (Vilāyāt-i faqīh: hukumat-i islāmi). The paper explores Khomeini’s views on the phenomenon of Islamic rule, personal qualities and duties of the ruler-jurist (faqīh). The result shows how the concept of the “Perfect Human Being” (insān kāmil), of the greatest Sufi thinker Ibn ‘Arabi (1165–1240) is realized and fundamentally re­considered in Khomeini’s political manifesto. In Ibn ‘Arabi’s philosopheme the unity of God-and-world is manifested by the “Perfect Human Being”. The gov­ernance of Khomeini’s “Righteous Jurist” helps maintain God-and-people “con­nection” at state level. A comparison of Ibn ‘Arabi’s philosopheme and the polit­ical concept the “Governance of the Jurist” sheds light on the ways the “Perfect Human Being” concept increasingly associated with the figure of “Righteous Ju­rist” in socio-political reality of pre-revolutionary Iran

Raj utracony – losy Morysków w Trylogii grenadzkiej Raḍwy ‘Āšūr. Konteksty postkolonialne

The paper focuses on a historical novel, a genre that enjoys great popularity in Arabic literature. Based on historical material incorporated in literary fiction, the contemporary Arab writers try to deal with the most important subjects of ongoing intellectual discourse, such as colonialism, neocolonialism, and postcolonial identity. The analysed material is the novel The Granada Trilogy by Egyptian writer Raḍwà ‘Āšūr (Radwa Ashour), which in 1994, won the Best Book of the Year Award granted by the General Egyptian Book Organisation and the first prize at the first Arab Women’s Book Fair in 1995. It has been translated into many languages, including English and Spanish. The three-volume chronicle covers the period from 1491 to 1609, i.e., from the fall of Granada to the total expulsion of Muslims from Andalusia. The article aims to show that the author of The Granada Trilogy illustrates the gradual and deliberate elimination of Arab-Muslim culture in Spain as another act of the West-East confrontation, putting it in the colonial and neocolonial context of contemporary conflicts in the Arab World.

Dialogue of East and West on the Example of Arab-Muslim Сulture

The dialogue expresses the simultaneous coexistence of the past and the present, the preservation of continuity between them. The Arab-Muslim civilization, in its heyday, embodied the ideal of dialogue between East and West. The purpose of this study is to study the mechanisms of intercultural dialogue of the Eastern Renaissance era, analyze them for their application in the conditions of the modern globalized world. Islam played a key role in the formation and development of the Arab-Muslim civilization. Religion, along with philosophy and science, played the role of a connecting link in the spiritual and intellectual life of medieval Muslim society. Dialogue is possible when, in the collision of different cultural traditions, some new unifying knowledge is synthesized. The development of their own spiritual and religious movements as Sufism among the peoples of Central Asia conquered by the Arabs indicates that the Arab-Muslim culture was not limited to Islam. The peoples of the Arab Caliphate preserved and developed their distinctive cultural and religious traditions.

Синтез арабо-мусульманской культуры в Персии и Северной Индии: к истории вопроса

The article is devoted to the analysis of the process of the Persian language and culture de-velopment in the Middle Ages and the modern period, its continuity from the Sassanid era to the Samanid and Safavid eras and the synthesis of Arab-Muslim culture in Persia and India. The author turns to the origins of the New Persian language, examines the influence of Iranian culture on the cultural development of neighboring people and demonstrates that the Farsi language influenced the emergence in the Delhi Sultanate of a new Urdu language with a predominance of Persian-Arabic vocabulary. The synthesis of the Arab-Muslim culture of Iran, the mutual influence of the Arab-Islamic and local cultures, clearly manifested in the development of architecture, are considered. Chronologically, the article covers the period of the Middle Ages and the modern period. The re-search is based on the methodological principles of historicism and objectivity, as well as on the his-torical-comparative, historical-genetic, historical-typological methods and civilizational approach. The author concludes that the Iranian cultural influence in the Middle Ages and in the modern peri-od extended to all the eastern lands of Islam – from the Seljuk state to India. The Muslim society was multifaceted, yet subject to the strict rules of Islam. Classical Muslim thought and culture were characterized by a high adaptive capacity. At the end of the twentieth century, the Iranians declared the Persian language an important factor of cultural integration and the foundation of the national mentality. The Farsi language was proclaimed “the second language of Islam”, and the knowledge and study of classical poetry and philosophy of Sufism was recognized as an important means of consolidating the Muslims of the region. This cultural policy contributed to overcoming the interna-tional isolation of the Islamic Republic of Iran and expanding the scope of regional cooperation.

Вопрос о музицировании и исламском праве как проблема методологии

The issue of music and Islamic law is considered in the aspect of the methodology due to the proper Arabic language picture of the world and mechanisms of theoretical thinking classical Arab-Muslim culture. The author clarifies that the procedure of inference in Islamic law did not concern music or musicians, but the actions of a person playing/listening music. On the grounds that legal power was epistemic, concentrated in the hands of private lawyers, there was no single center in Arab-Muslim culture from which the legislative decision regarding musicking/listening would extend to the entire Islamic world. The situation is different in the Russian Empire and the post-Soviet states, where, despite the external similarity with classical Islam, the attitude of a lawyer and a person who plays/listens music, for reasons of a cultural and historical nature, is built according to a hierarchical system of values and requires separate study without mechanically equating one historical phenomenon with another. It is shown that the contrarian dichotomy ‘permitted — forbidden — neutral’ appeared in modern science as a result of the universalist approach, did not take place in the legal field of the Arab-Muslim culture, which developed its own system of evaluating actions. The lawyer made a judgment, or ‘branch’, based on the basis-‘root’, which served as the textually fixed Koran and Sunnah, as well as the procedures of unanimous judgment and co-measurement, while the judgments themselves on the same fact could be contrastingly opposite, depending on the characteristics of the legal schools.

Acute family marital psychosis

IntroductionAcute marital psychosis is an acute psychotic episode occurring in a particular context which is marriage. In fact, marriage represents an event with a very important emotional load especially in the Arab-Muslim culture. This event can, in some people, induce a relapse of certain psychiatric disorders, particularly psychotic ones. We propose in this work to report two clinical observations concerning two brothers who both presented, a few years apart, an acute nuptial psychosis with two different evolutions.ObjectivesStuding the characteristics of nuptial psychotic episode in a one family and the different evolution of each one.MethodsReporting two clinical cases of two brothers who represented both acute psychotic episode in a nuptial context with different evolution.ResultsThe two patients are brothers with common psychiatric background which is their mother treated for chronic psychotic disorder. They were hospitalized in our psychiatric service for acute psychotic episode occuring in a nuptial context with chronic evolution for the first one and a partial recovery for the second one.ConclusionsMarriage represents an event with a very important emotional load especially in the Arab-Muslim culture. In thiscontext, acute psychotic episode can occur with different evolution for patients predisposed. Studing socio-cultral circumstances related to psychotic episode can help mental health professional to improve the quality of health care service.

Psychosis in muslim arab population. Case report and article review

IntroductionIn Spain, we are forced to familiarize ourselves with Arab-Muslim culture to properly treat our patients. The diagnosis becomes complicatedbecause western health professionals are not usually familiar with thisform of symptom presentation.ObjectivesThe objective of this work is to study the influence of Arab culture and Muslim religion on the psychopathological symptoms presented duringa psychotic episode.MethodsWe present two cases of psychosis in two brothers of Maghreb originwho were treated for the first psychotic episode in the acute psychiatricunit in a Spanish regional hospital. Then, we carried out a litle researchfrom the literatura.ResultsThe common psychopathological symptoms presented by two brothersof 26 and 27 years were: symptoms of thought, control and influence of the self. Delusional ideas of self-referential harm and persecution. Auditory and cenesthetic hallucinations. In the literature we find that patients with Islamic backgrounds whosuffer hallucinations can attribute these experiences to different beliefssuch as geniuses (jinn), black magic and the evil eye. One of the siblings was diagnosed with a psychotic episode withoutspecification, while the other brother got the schizophrenia label. Webelieve that this may be related to the fact that mental healthprofessionals generally tend to label fantastic stories as mind-blowingor delusional in nature.Conclusions1. Religious beliefs and fantastic tales of Muslim culture can be considered psychotic symptoms if healthcare professionals are notfamiliar with this culture. 2. Teamwork between mental health professionals, translators and religious counselors can improve care for Muslim patients.

ANALYSIS OF SOCIO-ETHICAL IDEAS IN AL-FARABI AND ABAI KUNANBAEV’S WORKS

Great thinkers’ scientific works play the important role in public opinion formation in the development of society. There are well-known people in the humankind history, who have made significant contributions to the development of various fields of knowledge, moreover, they were the founders of Philosophy not only at the level of a domes-tic culture, but also in a global scale. This article denotes that the significance of al-Farabi and A. Kunanbaev’s legacy is determined by the fact that many of their positions in the field of Philosophy, Sociology, Logics, Ethics, Aesthetics, natural scientific ideas had a great influence on the subsequent development of social and philosophical thought of the people not only in the East, but also in Europe. These philosophers can be regarded as treasures of world, who during the searching of knowledge and truth, managed to overcome the existing differences in ethnic, cultural, linguistic, religious grounds. The proof of this is the fact that the philosophers despite being a native of the Turkic lands became famous as Arab-Muslim culture’s philosophers that deeply comprehended and popularized European philosophy.It is certain that the works of the great scientists such as al-Farabi and Abai in the field of science and education attracted the attention not only of us, but of the whole world. Their works have been translated into English, French, Persian, German, Russian and introduced into scientific circulation. The 2020th year has the historical spiritual sig-nificance for the entire people due to the 1150th anniversary of al-Farabi and the 175th anniversary of Abay.

Invitation to Dialogue (about S.I. Gabiev’s book “Arabs, Islam and Arab-Muslim Culture”)

The article is devoted to the analysis of the book of the Dagestani educator Said Gabiev “Arabs, Islam and Arab-Muslim culture” (1915). Its relevance is due to the fact that many of its provisions can be used in the modern process of spiritual and moral education. This work has practically not been studied since its publication, the events that followed after 1915 did not contribute to this. The article states that S.I. Gabiev is a European educated intellectual who has absorbed the democratic values of Russian culture, and at the same time is a Muslim believer, an expert on Islam. The book is the first experience of Islamic-Christian dialogue in public thought in Russia at the beginning of the 20th century, where the task is to acquaint the reader with the history and culture of Islam, to overcome negative stereotypes, prejudices and prejudices about Islam characteristic of the public consciousness of Europe and Russia. Ignorance of Islam, a prejudiced attitude towards it was, according to the author, especially destructive for Russia, which included a multimillion Muslim population. S.I. Gabiev analyzes the Islamic dogma of predestination (fate), which, in his opinion, was the cause of the stagnation that reigned in contemporary Muslim society. The author insists on the need for modernizing transformations in society, for cleansing Islam from historical social and cultural “stratifications” that contradict Islam. Pointing to the exceptional vitality of Islam, the author is confident in the revival of Muslim culture and thought, in the political independence of the Arab-Muslim states. S.I. Gabiev proceeded from the fundamental possibility of mutual understanding of the country’s two religious and cultural universes: Christian and Muslim, in the process of which a new Russian culture would be created. The author believes that, taking into account the above material, an interreligious and intercultural dialogue is necessary in Russia, which should become its original civilizational idea.

The accuracy of the literacy theory claims in the context of the medieval Arab-Muslim culture. Development of qadiship as an implication of the dissemination of writing and literacy

The accuracy of the literacy theory claims in the context of the medieval Arab-Muslim culture. Development of qadiship as an implication of the dissemination of writing and literacy

Рецензия на монографию Акаева В.Х. «Суфизм в контексте арабо-мусульманской культуры»

The reviewer outlines the content of V.Kh. Akayev's scholarly monograph “Sufism in the context of Arab-Muslim culture”, highlighting such its features as a consistent analysis of the diverse prerequisites for the origin and spread of Islam, the interpretation of its basic principles, and linking the evolution of Sufi culture with the development of Muslim society. The reviewer notes that the author provides a comprehensive analysis of Sufi culture and considers the main tariqas as an integral part of public life, where they find expression and play a controversial role. A distinctive mark of the monograph is its focus on the specifics of the formation of Sufi tariqa in various regions of the Muslim world, and, chiefly, in the North Caucasus. The structural anal-ysis of the monograph carried out in the review shows that the author permiates the idea that Ar-ab-Muslim culture cannot and should not be viewed as an anomaly in the development of hu-manity, since it is one of the universal ways of socio-cultural organization of society that is in interaction with other cultural and historical types thereof. Meanwhile, the radicalistic and ex-tremist manifestations in Islam fundamentally contradict the inner essence of this religion fo-cused on uniting people on the basis of equality, brotherhood, and social justice. The reviewer also comments on some inconsistency in the author's conclusions, as well as the redundancy of empirical material and some errors of a technical nature

Funkcje i dysfunkcje języka inkluzywnego, ze szczególnym uwzględnieniem asymetrii rodzajowej w języku polskim

The text addresses the problem of relationships between grammatical gender and the possible existence relation between gender-based linguistic asymmetry on the one side, and thinking and organization of social life on the other. It is commonly believed that language not only describes but also creates reality, and the lack of gender-based linguistic symmetry leads therefore to a number of negative phenomena that impede the position of women or even exclude them from participating in public and political life. Not dismissing this view entirely, the texts demonstrates that the influence of grammatical gender and the feminine equivalents on thinking and on the situation of women is marginal. The comparison with the Arab countries and Iran provides the most convincing evidence. Arabic is characterized by an almost ideal symmetry with regard to gender, and Persian has no grammatical gender at all. Despite this fact, the situation of women in both areas of the Arab-Muslim culture is one of the worst in the whole world.

The Types of Religious Identity of Chechen Students

Introduction. In connection with the growth of religious consciousness of young people in Russia, the study of their religious identity is being updated. Scientists pay special attention to Islamic denominations, as both in Western countries and in the Russian Federation, the number of Muslims is increasing. However, scientific publications cover mainly sociological aspects of the problem, and its psychological component remains insufficiently investigated, which largely determines the social behaviour of a person and affects the process of his or her socialisation. In view of the interest shown by the scientific community in Arab-Muslim culture, appropriate psychological research should be carried out in Muslim-dominated regions. The Chechen Republic is one of such territories in the Russian Federation.The aim is to identify the characteristics and types of religious identity of Chechen students.Methodology and research methods. The study was performed in the framework of socio-psychological approach using the following questionnaires: “Scale of Religious Orientation” by G. Allport, D. Ross; “Structure of Individual Religiosity” by Y. V. Shcherbatykh; questionnaires developed by A. N. Tatarko and N. M. Lebedeva for the study of certainty and valence of ethnic identity and readiness for interethnic interaction; “Types of Ethnic Identity” by G. U. Soldatova and S. V. Ryzhova.Results and scientific novelty. It is revealed that the majority of Chechen students are characterised by consistently internal religious orientation, in which religion is the main value and primary motive of activity. Almost a quarter of respondents demonstrated consistently external religious orientation, characterised by instrumental or external significance. A small group of respondents can be classified as inconsistently religious, whose external religiosity prevails over the internal, and their motivation for behaviour is poorly connected with religion. On the basis of the factor analysis, the types of religious identity of Chechen students are revealed: ethno-cultural, true Muslim, formal, pro-social, non-adaptive, nonreligious, ethnocentric and positive ethnic. The present study evidences that the structure of social identity of students is dominated by ethno-cultural religious identity.Practical significance. The research results extend the knowledge about the content of the concept of “religious identity”, its place in the structure of social identity of the individual, as well as about the relationship of religious orientations with ethnic identity.