Islamic studies

Paradoxes in the Study of Contemporary Islam in Russia

This paper is the critical comment of a Russian Islamicist on the recent issue of the journal State, Religion and Church in Russia and Worldwide devoted to the interdisciplinary study of contemporary Islam in Russia and abroad. Based on his rich experience of archival and fieldwork among the Muslims in Russia’s North Caucasus, the author discusses the strengths and weaknesses of contemporary scholarship on Islamic reformation.

The Formation of Russian Islamic Studies: Between Confessionalism and Scientific Objectivity (Second Half of the 19th to the Beginning of the 20th Century)

This article is devoted to an analysis of the emergence of Islamic studies in Russia in the second half of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries. The Faculty of Oriental Languages at St. Petersburg University opened in 1855, and the so-called Anti-Muslim Branch in Kazan Theological Academy opened in 1854. The two schools were usually called the “academic” and the “Kazan missionary” school, respectively. The key figures in the academic school were A. Kazem-bek, V. Rozen, V. Barthold, A. Schmidt, and I. Krachkovsky.

“Islamic Reformation”: Positive Project or Artificial Concept?

Today the concept of “Islamic Reformation” acts as a universal framework for a large number of research projects within the field of Islamic and Muslim studies. This theory, mediated by Western modernization theory, claims a comprehensive understanding of Islamic reality and thus attracts many researchers. However, this universality results in a lack of attention to some important areas, which stimulates criticism from experts on Islam.

On Bryan S. Turner’s Anti-Orientalist Sociology of Islam

The article makes an overview of the work of Bryan Stanley Turner, prominent expert on Islam and the author of an original theory as reflected in his papers recently put together in the volume called «Sociology of Islam». The crucial point of most of the chapters included in the volume is a thorough analysis of Orientalism and its implications to current Islamic Studies.