PAX ISLAMICA 2 (6) / 2011
ABSTRACTS
Marat Safarov discusses methodological problems concerning use of oral narratives as a source for the history of Moscow Muslim community. Focusing on the technical issues of the research process he especially stresses that although all Moscow Tatar Muslims are completely rusophonic, a good command of Tatar language is important and necessary to more deep understading of ethnic narrative tradition taken mostly from the elder generation informants and reflecting their specific mentality and outlook. He also classifies types of oral narratives and local groups of narrators among Moscow Muslims of Tatar origin.
Guzel Sayfullina's article is focused on the discussion of Tatar 'ulama' on the problem of music, whether it is permitted or prohibited in terms of Islamic law. The question of permissibility of music (singing, playing on musical instruments) and listening of music in Islam is a subject of incessant discussions, which can be seen in significant number of sources in different languages. In this article, the contribution of the Tatar theologians into this polemics is shown basing on materials of the beginning of the 20t'1 century. The subject of music was among the most actual ones: it was discussed in periodicals by ordinary Muslims, it was touched in works of known writers and scholars (S.Nurlati-Bulghari, Sh. Mardjani, Q.Nasiri), and it was studied in special works by the outstanding theologians of the time: Riza Fakhreddin (special chapter in the commentary on hadith Jawami' al-kalim sharhe, 1916), Hasan-Gata Ghabashi (the manuscript of the article on the attitude of Islam towards singing and music, approximately 1908), Hadi Kildebaki (the monograph "Music and Islam", 1909). Written independently from each other and because of different reasons, these works have much in common. The most important for all authors is to show the futility of indiscriminate prohibitions of music and listening in Islam. In their evidence, the authors are based on the analysis of the Koran, various tafsirs, multiple hadith sources, showing brilliant theological erudition. They mention the dependence of interpretation of music on different social "contexts" and its positive influence on a person.
Alexey Starostin attempts to analyse in his study a phenonmenon of so-called "Soviet Islam", basing on the archival data from official organizations engaged in the political decision-making towards religion in the Middle Urals region during the second half of the 20^ century. The author argues that anti-Islamic policy of Soviets up to the end of Communist era had finally failed to eradicate Muslim beliefe and practice in the region. Main institutes of Islamic community had been preserved during the Soviet era and became a basis of nowadays re-vitalisation of Muslim religious life.
Similar issues are dealt with in the article of Konstantin Morgunov based on the archival data from the Orenburg region of the South Urals. He especially focuses on the life stories of local imams in the context of the history of their communities. The author analyses also the texts of official preachings, discovering an unavoidable influence of Soviet ideological instructions on public sermons of Muslim preachers. Such demonstrative loyalty, Morgunov argues, was an inevitable condition of religious communities' survival in the circumstances of official atheist policy.
Igor Alexeev in his essay is making an attempt to provide a new explanatory paradigm for the interpretation of historical meaning of current political transformation in the Middle East and North Africa. Arguing that current revolutionary processes reflect a crisis of modern "three-world system" of global economical and political relations, author tries to discover authentic political logic basing on achievements of traditional Muslim socio-political thought, e.g. social and political theories of Ibn Taymiyya and Ibn Khaldun. From this perspective Alexeev argues that coppalse on modern nation-state system which provided a "secondary modernization" model of development, if it takes place, will led to a double alternative of either a moderate Salafi-style Islamic "democracy" of neo-traditional patrimonial authocracy based on "neo-feudal" system of patronate alliances and revival of pre-modern social structures based on newly established 'asabiyya and ideological da'wa.
The paper of Asiya Ayupova focuses on Islamic religious groups in today's Great Britain, their diversity, interaction and contradictions. This article seeks to analyze different Islamic traditions and movements within Great Britain. British Muslim communities comprise a diverse range of traditions, in which four major tendencies are identifiable: the largest numbers of followers come from the Barelwi tradition, followed by Deobandi, then Jamaat-i Islam inspired institutions, and finally the Ahl-i-Hadith network. The most distinctive feature of the Muslim community in Britain is its striking diversity. British Islam has become diversified to such an extent that it is no longer recognizable as a single movement, with the development taking unexpected turns that belie popular monolithic representations.
Ilya Zaytsev in his short essay discovers a life story of Moscow akhun Khayr al-Din Ageev of the 19^ century, basing on the data provided by famous Tatar Muslim scholar Ridha al-Din Fakhr al-Din (1859-1936) in his encyclopaedic historical work Athar.
To buy a journal, please click here.
