Russian Muslims Research Articles

Источниковедческие аспекты истории ислама в России на страницах журнала «Маглюмат». 1908–1917 гг.

The early 20th century saw a rapid development of the Turkic Muslim periodical press in Russia. In a short time, a significant number of magazines and newspapers of various directions appeared in the country. They published materials about life, socio-economic situation of the peoples of Russia. The article is to analyze the articles and publications of the Arabic-language Turkic magazine Maglyumat, published in Ufa by the Orenburg Mohammedan Spiritual Assembly. It examines the history of the magazine’s creation and analyzes its publications. The object of the study is issues from 1908–10 and 1916–17. The research is based on materials from the issues preserved in the Manuscript Fond of the G. B. Khusainov Order of the Badge of Honor Institute of History, Language, and Literature of the Ufa Federal Research Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences (UFITs RAN) and in the Department of Rare Books of the Scientific Library of the UFITs RAN. Comparative-historical, systemic, and historical-typological methods have been used in the study. Archeographic study and systematic analysis of various issues show that the magazine’s publications were not limited to religious topics. They covered a wide range of issues of the Muslim population’s life, from government orders and resolutions to opening of new mosques and madrasahs. Unlike many other magazines of the period, it contained materials on the Muslims’ situation in the Russian Empire. Much attention was paid to the position of the Bashkirs, the land issue, there were publications of sources and historical works on the history of Bashkortostan, some were translated from Russian. Much attention was paid to the history and activities of the Orenburg Mohammedan Spiritual Assembly. A number of materials highlighted the publishing program of the magazine. At the time of its existence, the issue of Muslim education remained an urgent problem. The discussion continued between supporters of old- and new-fashioned education. One of the articles in defense of the new methods in education was written by a well-known Muslim figure Z. Rasulev together with like-minded people. Socio-political changes in the country after 1917 were also reflected on its pages. The research shows that the Maglumat is a valuable source for studying various spheres of the Muslims’ life in the early 20th century. Its materials reflect different aspects of the life of the society of the specified period and its condition, provide information on the socio-economic situation, cultural development of the Russian Muslims.

Sharia judge on the musical culture of Russian Muslims in the early 20<sup>th </sup>century. Pages of an unknown essay by Hasan-Gata Ghabashi

Sharia judge on the musical culture of Russian Muslims in the early 20<sup>th </sup>century. Pages of an unknown essay by Hasan-Gata Ghabashi

Social, Cultural and Religious Life in Istanbul a Century Ago Through the Eyes of Tahir Ilyasi One of the Idel-Ural Tatars

Çarlık Rusyası’nda 1881 yılında doğmuş olan Tahir İlyâsî, Rusya’da açlık sıkıntısı yaşayan Müslümanlara yardım toplamak maksadıyla 1922 yılında Türkiye’ye gönderilmiş ve İstanbul’da kaldığı 18 Haziran-28 Ağustos 1922 tarihleri arasını kapsayan bir günlük tutmuştur. Bu tarihler, Büyük Taarruz’un hazırlıklarının yapıldığı dönem olup işgal yıllarını kapsamaktadır. Tahir İlyâsî, İstanbul’da bulunduğu sürede iyi bir gözlemci olarak Osmanlı toplumunun sosyal yapısı ve iktisâdî durumu ile birlikte insanların dinî duygu ve düşünceleri hakkındaki müşahedelerini de günlüğüne yansıtmıştır. İlyâsî ayrıca hem din görevlilerinin hem de halkın İslâm’ın bazı ilkelerine aykırı davranışlarından da üzüntüyle söz etmektedir. İstanbul’da kaldığı sürede başta şeyhülislâm olmak üzere üst seviyede birçok idareci ve âlimle görüşmüş olan İlyâsî, o dönemdeki Osmanlı medreselerinin, kütüphane ve müzelerinin durumu, cuma ve bayram namazları, cenaze merasimi ve sünnet düğünü gibi hususlarda gözlemlerini aktarmıştır. Bu makale, Tahir İlyâsî’nin 1922 yılına ait İstanbul günlüğü bağlamında işgal yıllarındaki İstanbul’da dinî hayatı, sosyal hayattaki problemleri ve burada bulunan Kırım ve İdil-Ural Tatarlarının durumlarını incelemeyi amaçlamaktadır. Tahir İlyâsî’nin bazı dinî konulara dair görüşlerine de yer verilmiştir.

II. Meşrutiyet Döneminde İslamcı Aydınların Rusya Müslümanlarının Eğitimine Dair Görüş ve Düşünceleri (1908-1918)

The Islamism movement, which became prominent as a political ideology during the Second Constitutional Period (1908-1918), was free from the thought of Muslims as separate nations and emphasized they should be in unity based on religion. The Islamist intellectuals as the representatives of this movement, prioritized the idea of the Islamic Union; they deliberated on Muslim Turks living in various parts of the world through the Sırat-ı Müstakim and Sebilü’r-Reşad magazines they published. Among the subjects in question were Russian Muslims, who were assimilated by the Russian regime and its rulers, and who struggled to survive in religious, political and cultural terms with the repression policies. Islamist intellectuals gave various information on Muslims living in Russia through the press; they shared articles and news articles about their origin, language, population and socio-political situations. In the most general sense, they are Turks who belong to the Turkish race, and their language is composed of different dialects of Turkish. Regarding the population, the intellectuals stated that the statistics the Russian State gave were biased; they mentioned the existence of an Islamic nation with a population of twenty-five to thirty million under Russian rule. In addition, Islamist intellectuals emphasized the importance that Russian Muslims attached to education; in their writings, they expressed their belief that the old educational methods should be abandoned and new educational methods should be adopted. In this sense, they supported the Russian Muslims who wanted to reform all educational institutions by transforming them into a new style of education; they made explanations about the number of educational institutions in the country, their economic situation, whether there was state support or not, textbooks differing according to regions etc. The Islamist intellectuals also noted that Russian Muslims worked hard on the new method of education and made efforts, but they were opposed by the supporters of usul-i kadim (traditional education method), who defended traditionalism. They stated that these people did not care about the welfare and well-being of the Muslim population and aimed to continue education in the old way. After clarifying all these, the Islamist intellectuals reiterated in their writings that the distinction between Jadid and kadim should end as soon as possible and that schools and madrasas shoul be the hearts of civilization; they had no other purpose than this. The issue also received support from Muslim students studying in Russia, who expressed the need to dispel the negative atmosphere in educational institutions as soon as possible. They also stated that madrasas should be reformed, and that the sects such as Kadimist, Jadidists etc. should be put an end to. Because the Russian State pursued a policy of Russification of Muslims through education. In addition, the Russian state did not allow them to open schools or madrasas, and did not allow madrasas to be turned into schools; it tried to destroy these intitutians bye inflicting pressure. Furthermore, in addition in order to ensure that Muslim children were educated Russian schools, Christian religious education was paid for bye the state, while Muslims were required to pay for Islamic religious education. In short, Islamist intellectuals followed the Muslim people in Russia through Sırat-ı Müstakim and Sebilü’r-Reşad magazines during the Second Constitutional Monarchy Period and were closely interested in issues related to education and training. In this sense, they endeavored to reconcile the Jadidists and Kadimists who adopted new and old educational methods, on a common ground. They also discussed the assimilation they faced by the Russian regime and its rulers in their journals, as well as the oppressive policies regarding education and the struggle of Muslims against them.

CONFLICT IN UKRAINE, RUSSIAN-LANGUAGE JIHADIST PROPAGANDA, CHECHENS BATTALIONS AND THE LINK WITH THE RUSSIAN NORTH CAUCASUS

Since the beginning of the Ukraine conflict, international media have reported the presence of Chechen battalions among the ranks of Kyiv and Moscow’s forces. The Chechen presence in the conflict has nourished the jihadist propaganda in the Russian language and created a debate in the Russian North Caucasus and among the Russian Muslim umma (community) regarding the legitimacy of fighting with or against the Russian Federation. This paper wants to analyse the Russian jihadist propaganda’s narrative over Ukraine, the Chechen battalions’ role in support of the Ukraine army, and the geopolitical risk for the entire Eurasian region from terrorist groups’ exploitation of the Ukraine conflict.

In search of a common enemy: Russo-Turkish cooperation and its discontents (1908–1923)

The uneasy Putin-Erdogan partnership reminds of the early twentieth-century trends in the Russo-Turkish relations – taking advantage of each other’s dissidents vs cooperating against Western imperialism. Imperial Russia tended to indulge in the former which undermined the latter tendency in its policies in regards to the Young Turk regime who were similarly making irredentist overtures to Russian Muslim minorities. Both sides were also tempted or constrained by their existing or potential Great Power allies. In contrast, the partnership between the Soviets and Mustafa Kemal Ataturk would be more consistent as they minimized meddling in each other’s internal affairs to jointly oppose European encroachments. This article also shines a new archival light on the motivations of the Soviet side while highlighting the less well-known opposition to close cooperation between traditional rival empires on all levels of Soviet leadership. There is no scholarly work focusing on the 1908–1923 period in a single monograph or article (from the Young Turk revolution to the Lausanne negotiations). Looking at both sides of the 1917 divide reveals surprising continuity between the imperial and the Soviet policies despite the earthshattering effects of the First World War.

The Islamic Reformist Musa Bigiev as Portrayed by Hilmi Ziya Ülken

The present article is devoted to the study of the outstanding Russian Muslim theologian and modernist Musa Bigiev’s legacy that was carried out by the Turkish scholar Hilmi Ziya Ülken. It focuses on Hilmi Ziya Ülken’s interpretation of ideas of Musa Bigiev in the historical and socio-c ultural context in the Islamic East and Turkey in the XIX–beginning of the XX centuries.

Isma‘il Gasprinsky on integration of Muslims into socio-political space of the Russian Empire

The article examines the socio-political “Muslim project” put forward at the turn of the XIX–XX centuries by the famous Muslim figure, publisher and teacher Isma’il Gasprinsky (1851–1914), in the light of the problem of integration of Russian Muslims. A key factor in ensuring better social mobility of Muslims in the Russian Empire is the diverse initiatives of Isma’il Gasprinsky in the field of education. Moreover, Isma‘il Gasprinsky consistently advocated for restructuration and gradual unification of the Muslim spiritual assemblies in his own “Perevodchik-Terjiman” newspaper. At the same time, he justified the existence of this institution as a rational governing body for imperial Muslim subjects. Under the circumstances of the Russian Revolution of 1905 his attitude towards unification of Muslim spiritual assemblies has evolved into a paradigm of “national-cultural autonomy” for Russian Muslims. This idea, in particular, was proposed by the All-Russian Muslim Union, affiliated with Gasprinsky. This article argues that despite the questions, which this project posed, gradually transformed, the project itself kept following its dual, though, consistent aim. On the one hand, to consolidate Muslims as a particular group of subjects and inform them about the potential social opportunities in the imperial society, on the other, to assure the official authorities that imperial Muslims are eager to be integrated (not assimilated, though).

RUSYA TÜRKLERİNDE KADIN HAKLARI MESELESİ

Türk tarihi açısından kadının sahip olduğu konum yüzyıllar boyunca mutlak surette değişikliklere uğramıştır. İslam öncesi Türk toplumlarına bakıldığı zaman kadının erkekle beraber toplumsal hayat içerisinde aktif olarak yer aldığı, kılıç kuşanıp ata bindiği ve sürekli bir şekilde talim yaptığı görülmektedir. İslamiyet’in Türk toplumuna girmesinin ardından da kadınlar sahip olduğu çoğu hakkı ilk başta korumuş fakat İslam dininin yanlış bir şekilde yorumlanması ve etkileşim içerisinde bulunulan Arap kültürünün tesiri altında kalınması sonucunda kadının statüsünde bir düşme görülerek toplumsal hayat başta olmak üzere pek çok alanda ikinci plana atılmıştır. Kadın hakları meselesi mevzu bahis olduğu zaman da tüm dünyada olduğu gibi Rusya Türkleri arasında da bu husus üzerinde hassasiyetle durularak çalışmalar yürütülmüştür. İsmail Gaspıralı öncülüğünde ortaya çıkan Usul-i Cedit hareketi doğrultusunda kızların eğitimi için tamamen onlara tahsis edilen kız okulları yenileşme çabaları içerisinde önemli bir yere sahiptir. Basının toplum üzerindeki etkisinin farkında olan İsmail Gaspıralı uzun uğraşlar sonucunda çıkarttığı Tercüman Gazetesi’nde, kadın haklarına yönelik yazılara yer vermiş olsa da bunu dönem içerisinde yeterli görmemiştir. İsmail Gaspıralı’nın imtiyaz sahibi olduğu ve kızı Şefika Gaspıralı’nın editörlüğünü üstlendiği Âlem-i Nisvân Dergisi ise Rusya Türkleri arasında çıkarılan ilk kadın dergisi olma özelliği taşımaktadır. Âlem-i Nisvân’ın açtığı bu yolda, ondan sonra Işık, Süyüm Bike, Azat Hanım ve Şark Kızı gibi birçok dergi yayınlanmıştır.
 Siyasi açıdan kadın hareketlerinin oluşumu ise Rus İhtilali’nin 1905 yılında gerçekleşmesiyle birlikte Çar’ın Rus olmayan azınlıklara kendi örgütlerini kurabilme hakkı tanıyan 1906 tarihli geçici kararnamesi ile açılan kadın cemiyetleri sayesinde mümkün olmuştur. Düzenlenen Rusya Müslümanları Kongreleri de kadınların ait olduğu toplumsal statüye ulaşabilmeleri için önem arz etmektedir. Kadınlar açısından aktif bir mücadele döneminin başladığı 1917 yılında toplanan Rusya Müslüman-Türk Kadınları Kongresi de kadınların kendileri hakkında son derece dikkat çekici kararlar aldıkları bir oluşum olarak görülmektedir. Daha sonra Rusya genelinde yaşayan tüm Türk ve Müslümanların katılımıyla gerçekleştirilen Bütün Rusya Müslümanları Kongreleri, sunulan konular sebebiyle karşılaşılan muhalefetlere rağmen Müslüman-Türk kadınının haklarını savunan aydınların mücadeleleri sonucunda kadın-erkek eşitliğinin sağlanması ve siyasi alanda kadının hak ettiği noktaya gelebilmesi için Türk Kadın Hareketine büyük katkı sağlamıştır.
 Bu çalışmada tarihi süreç içerisinde Rusya Türkleri arasında kadın ve kadın hakları meselesi ele alınacaktır. Türk Kadın Hareketine dair ilk gelişmelerin Kazan Tatarları tarafından kadınların konumunu iyileştirmeye yönelik başlamasıyla birlikte bu konuya desteğini esirgemeyen Türk aydınları ve onların yapmış oldukları faaliyetler hakkında birçok bilgi çalışmanın kapsamına girmektedir. Meselenin gidişatı açısından son derece önemli olan gazete ve dergiler kadın hareketine sunduğu katkı sebebiyle üzerinde durulan hususlar arasında yer almaktadır. Kadın cemiyetlerinin oluşumu ve düzenlenen çeşitli kongreler de incelenen konuların temelini oluşturmaktadır.

Muslim Clergy’s Activities in the Volga-Ural Region in 1917

The article is devoted to the role of Muslim religious leaders of the Volga- Ural region in the social movement of 1917. After the February Revolution of 1917, the participation of the clergy in the change of leadership of the Orenburg Mohammedan Spiritual Assembly (OMDS), as well as the creation of clergy societies, in the work of All- Russian Muslim and provincial Muslim congresses could be seen. The paper is intended to investigation of this phenomenon in a number of regions. It should be noted that the OMDS clergy for more than a century of its activity (1788–1917) set an example of civic loyalty and loyalty to the authorities of the Russian Empire. At the same time, especially starting from the revolution of 1905–7, it became concerned about the role of the OMDS in relations with the authorities and its own flock, issues of self-organization of the clergy, ways of organizing the system of Muslim religious education. Therefore, the presence of representatives of the Muslim clergy was noted not only at their own professional venues, but also at general civic events of Muslims. The paper deals with the role of religious leaders in the social movement of Muslims in the Volga- Ural region in 1917. and their contribution to it.

The Place and Role of Tradition in Renewal

The article reveals little-studied aspects of Muslim thought in Late Russian Empire in the context of modernism-tradition dichotomy. The author proposes three case studies that demonstrate the contribution made by Russian Muslim scholars Murad Ramzi, Gasan Alqadari and Khalil Rahimov to moderate modernism at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in Russia.

Studying the Islamic lifestyle and academic success of Russian Muslim students

The notion of lifestyle has recently attracted the attention of various scholars as a social science concept. For thousands of years, human beings attempted to realise and manage their lifestyles, and governments have tried to influence the lifestyles of their people. Nevertheless, the definition of lifestyle and its conceptualisation is relatively new. Lifestyle means the specific method of living of an individual, group or community. Lifestyles include a set of values, behaviours, moods and tastes that can refer to the interests, opinions, behaviours and behavioural orientations of an individual, group or culture. The Islamic way of life follows a grand plan of behaviour according to which all life is a movement to get closer to God. This plan, however, is dynamic and always demands adjustment. In a desirable religious life, all actions and situations can be called worship. People’s lifestyles and the path they choose for themselves are deeply related to their success in life. Therefore, the present study aimed to evaluate the effect of the Islamic lifestyle on the academic success of Russian Muslim students in 2021. In total, 2000 graduate students of Kazan, Russia were studied in this research. According to the results of mean analysis in SPSS, the academic success of the students who followed the Islamic lifestyle was reported to be higher than the mean level (more than 3 out of 5). Furthermore, according to the Structural Equation Modeling in LESREL, the Islamic lifestyle has a positive significant effect on the students’ academic success (p-value: 0.83; t-value: 7.92).Contribution: Amongst the various factors that can influence students’ academic success, the current research focused on the Islamic lifestyle. The findings of the present study offered a new insight into the relationship between the Islamic lifestyle and academic success in Russia.

The infl uence of the social identity of Muslims on collective actions

This work studies the relationship between the social identity of practicing Russian Muslims, in particular its religious aspect, and its involvement in collective actions within the EMSICA model of collective actions by E. Tomas. The study is based on a number of methods: D. Van Camp "Religious identity individual and social components measurement" (adaptation by O.S. Pavlova to Russian Islamic version) method; auteur methods of measuring involvement in religious practice; auteur methods of measuring feelings of group anger; auteur methods of measuring the perception of injustice to the group; auteur methods of measuring involvement in collective actions; auteur methods of measuring the perceived eff ectiveness of collective actions. The calculation was performed on the basis of Spearman Correlation Coeffi cient, as well as linear regression analysis. The study sample consisted of 120 people, students of Muslim religious educational institutions.

China's Muslims and Japan's Empire: Centering Islam in World War II by Kelly A. Hammond

Reviewed by: China's Muslims and Japan's Empire: Centering Islam in World War II by Kelly A. Hammond Selçuk Esenbel (bio) China's Muslims and Japan's Empire: Centering Islam in World War II. By Kelly A. Hammond. University of North Carolina Press, 2020. xviii, 294 pages. $95.00, cloth; $29.95, paper, $22.99, E-book. In China's Muslims and Japan's Empire: Centering Islam in World War II, Kelly Hammond examines the Japanese empire's cultivation of China's [End Page 453] Muslims—primarily Sino-Muslims—amidst the multiethnic composition of the Japanese-occupied territories in China. Identified as regional collaborators in East Asia, Sino-Muslims were also designated as representatives of Japan's interests in the wider world of Islam beyond East Asia, reaching out to Muslim communities in South East Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa through their longstanding transnational network across the Muslim world. The book's first chapter discusses Japan's growing interest in Sino-Muslims from the Meiji period through the puppet regime of Manchukuo until the end of World War II. The second chapter exposes the difficult situation of Sino-Muslims "sitting on a bamboo fence" between the Chinese Nationalists and the Japanese empire. The third chapter situates Sino-Muslims in the Japanese empire's Islam policy projects to "undermine Soviet Communism and Western imperialism" (p. 109)—projects such as presenting Japan as the savior of Islam, the 1938 opening of the Tokyo Mosque, and providing haven to anticolonial and anti-imperialist Muslims and to Tatar Muslims. The latter were officially designated as Japan's Muslims. The Japanese authorities built mosques, erected schools for the education of Sino-Muslim men and women, and sponsored the 1938 Sino-Muslim religious pilgrimage (Hajj) to Mecca and Medina and the pilgrimages of Japanese Muslim agents during the 1930s. The government formed the Greater Japan Islamic League (Dai Nippon Kaikyō Kyōkai) in Tokyo in 1938 for Islamoriented public relations propaganda, with General Hayashi Senjurō as its president and the Russian Muslim Tatar religious cleric-activist Abdurresid Ibrahim as the Muslim "face" of the organization. In 1937 Japanese authorities had already founded the All China Muslim League in Beijing with Wang Ruilan as chairman and Takagaki Shinzō as the Japanese advisor. Chapter 4 moves on to the deployment of Sino-Muslims in Japan's aspirational empire in regions beyond East Asia, discussing the reports of the Greater Japan League which argued in favor of using Sino-Muslims as a "model" for modern Muslims and as a commercial network to sell tea in the Middle East and North Africa as part of Japanese "cultural diplomacy." The final chapter 5 and the conclusion link Japan's policy toward Islam with fascist entanglements, whereby "Islamic spaces and overlapping interests" (p. 183) tied policies of the Japanese empire to those of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy within the global fascist project. The book concludes that both the Chinese Nationalists and the Chinese Communists were in their postwar regimes impacted by Japan's Sino-Muslim policies factoring in the formation of Sino-Muslims as an ethnic community—Hui minzu. It ends with an epilogue on lessons of history, addressing the current violent and repressive Chinese oppression of Uyghurs. Highlighting the connection of Sino-Muslims to imperial Japan's prewar "Islam policy" (frequently termed kaikyō seisaku in the writings of [End Page 454] Japanese Pan-Asianist intellectuals such as Ōkawa Shūmei), Hammond makes particular use of the photographs, journals, and policy reports of the Greater Japan Islamic League, the Japanese government's propaganda and networking agency targeting Muslim lands near and far. Many publications on Islam in Japan were written by the first generation of Japan's own Islamic studies experts. These included the Arabist scholar Kobayashi Hajime, who was educated in Egypt and became an instructor in the Army Academy during the war; Tanaka Ippei, an expert on Chinese Muslims and interpreter for the Imperial Army; and the Japanese Muslim Suzuki Takeshi, who participated in and wrote about the Japanese Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca. Hammond tapped other rich materials deposited in Waseda University's Dai Nippon Kaikyō Kyōkai database, including the journals Isuramu (Islam) and...

‘Popular Ijtihad’ and Entangled Islamic Discourse on the Covid-19 Pandemic in Russia

In this article, I examine initial reactions of the Russian Muslim community in social networks to the spread of the Coronavirus. My two main questions are: Who and how reinterprets the category of Islamic piety in the context of the pandemic, and to what extent does the online environment transform the Islamic tradition? To answer them, I focus on the following key narratives of Russian Muslims’ online discourse on the pandemic: Covid-19 as a retaliation against China for the persecutions of Muslim Uighurs in Xinjiang region, the search for signs of the coming doomsday, as well as various approaches to the reinterpretation of religious piety. Moreover, I consider how the pandemic sped up an entangled glocalised discourse. In the context of the increased role of the transnational online Muslim community, I suggest the term ‘popular ijtihad’ to describe individualised forms of religious engagement that the crisis situation stimulated.

А Local Drama (an Episode From the Life of Mid-19th Century Moscow Tatars)

The article deals with an episode from the life of Moscow Tatars in 1841–1842, associated with the theft from the house of influential Tatar merchant M. Abdulov. The main themes of research are Tatar Muslim (separate ethno- confessional) community in Moscow in general, and religious life in Zamoskvorechye district, role of imams, everyday life of mid-19th century Muscovites, cases of Muslims christianising, in particular. For the first time in Russian Muslim Studies the author uses some unpublished documents of the Central State Archive of Moscow and the National Archive of the Republic of Bashkortostan.

Между российской правовой системой и нормами шариата: судьба закона 13 мая 1830 г. «О неотступлении от общих правил при погребении мусульман»

Introduction. The article deals with an aspect of religious policy of the Russian Empire in the second quarter of the nineteenth century that concerned the legal regulation of the terms of burial of the deceased, which affected the rules of burial for Muslims. It aims to analyze the case of state and police law interfering with the religious canons of Russian Muslims. Materials and methods. The office records of the Orenburg Muftiate help clarify the historiographical thesis on the controversy of the 1830 law and shed light on its social consequences. The research is based on the methodological approaches of the new imperial history and the socio-cultural analysis of Russian society as a “big society”. The research methods include comparative historical, source study, textual and psycho historical. Results. While preparing and implementing the law of 13 May 1830, “О neotstuplenii ot obshchikh pravil pri pogrebenii musulman” (On non-departure from the general rules for the burial of Muslims), the authorities used the Orenburg Muftiate, entrusted with the announcement of the law and administrative control over the parish clergy. The military administration took an active part in coordinating actions to comply with the new funeral order. The reactive policy of the authorities towards the mullahs and the population of the Bashkir cantons created tension around the religious issues. A petition to Nicholas I, attempting at a dialogue between Bashkirs and the authorities, had the opposite effect and led to increased polarization of the society and the government. Results. The legislative innovation on the unification of the terms of burial, including the territories with a Muslim population, was controversial from its very beginning. The officials in the center had a clearer understanding of the regional tasks of the administration when ready to admit that the Muslims may be excluded from the law. The Orenburg Mufti was somewhat unclear about the political plans to unify burial traditions and saw his principal goal in a diplomatic settlement of emerging bureaucratic issues. According to the present author, there is a connection between attempts to change the burial canons of Muslims and the religious agenda of the 1835 rebellion in the Urals. The state rulemaking attempt turned out to be ineffective in the realm of religious canons.

Moscow Jadid: Theological and Legal Views of Imam ‘Abdulwadud Fattahetdinov (1882–1954)

The article for the first time describes the theological and legal views of a famous Moscow imam ‘Abdulwadud Fattaheddinov’ (1882–1954), identifi ed on the basis of analysis of one of his publications in “Shura” Journal. Presenting a detailed critique of two Qadimist fatwas, it quite vividly characterizes its author as a consistent progressive man who denies blind imitation of tradition in matters of religion, who calls for modern rational proofs of Islamic truths and explanations of the Quran, the author comes as a supporter of a principle of “Sharia goals” and a defender of women’s rights. At the same time, the theologian bases his fatwa-making not only on his own interpretation of the sacred primary sources, but also appeals to classical works of a traditional for Tatars Hanafi madhhab. The research for the first time among Russian Muslims coveys the need for the translation of Quran and other Islamic literature into Russian. The paper also reports the unknown fact of the fi rst neophyte Muslims appearance in Russia just after granting freedom of conscience by the Provisional Government in July 1917.

Intellectual Debates in Relation to the Opening of the Bolgar Islamic Academy (Tatarstan, Russian Federation, 2017)

The Bolgar Islamic Academy (BIA) was conceived as the highest level of religious education, where Muslims from all Russian Federation could get MA and PhD degrees in Islamic Studies. Among the main tasks initially set for this educational institution was: a) Integration of all levels of Islamic education into educational consistency throughout the Russian Federation; b) Protection of Muslims from foreign influence c) Development of Russian national traditions in the sphere of Islamic theology; d) Providing opportunities for Russian Muslims to receive high-quality Islamic education (on the Arabic language) in their homeland. On September 4, 2017, the Bolgar Islamic Academy opened its doors for 75 students. Its opening was preceded by a rather interesting discussion, which affected wide audience, including Muslims, Christians, secular-oriented individuals and academic community. On the early organizational stage three concepts of the Bolgar Islamic Academy have developed: 1) the concept of the Muslim Spiritual Council of Republic of Tatarstan, 2) the project of the academic community (by Alfrid Bustanov), and 3) the proposal of Muslim activist Rezeda Safiullina. There were also heated debates between supporters of traditional madrasa education and reformist wing on the pages of the popular electronic newspaper Business Online. The discussion, debates and the final choice of the concept are a wonderful illustration of the Talal Assad’s concept of orthodoxy, which is nothing more than a “distinctive relationship - a relationship of power”.

Umar ibn al-Khattab in the cultural memory of Muslims of Russia on the example of the Republic of Bashkortostan

For Muslims, the early history of Islam is an important part of the religious meta-narrative. A special place in this story is occupied by the life and reign of Umar ibn al-Khattab, who is revered in Sunni historiography as the second righteous Caliph. The article analyzes the place of Umar ibn al-Khattab in the collective memory of Muslims in Russia. The work is based on the analysis of such sources as Russian-language theological literature, the 2012 TV series "Umar ibn-al Khattab", mentions in Russian-language media, statistics of Internet search queries based on the Google Trends tool, as well as the results of a survey of Muslims of Bashkortostan dedicated to cultural memory. The article is based on the hermeneutical method, quantitative analysis, and questioning of believers. For Islam, the biographies of companions are an important part of hagiography. The biographies of the companions are sinless, the actions are justified, the Muslims of the first centuries appear to be an ideal society. The results demonstrate that Umar ibn al-Khattab is the most interesting "place of memory" for believers among the companions of the Prophet Muhammad. The figure and narratives of Umar's rule are a space for the self–identification of Muslim believers for the whole world and Russia in particular, and his image is the basis for instrumentalization in the public life of the Muslim community. This is especially true of such aspects as power, law and relations with other faiths.