Terra sebv s acta mvsei sabesiensi s

Russia-Middle East: The Influence of the Arab Factor 

 

145

 

Russia-Middle East: The Influence of the Arab Factor on the Formation of Muslim 

Education System in the Republic of Tatarstan in 1990-2000 

 

(Abstract) 

 

With the creation in 1992 of the first independent religious structure in Post-Soviet 

Tatarstan - the Spiritual Administration of Muslims of Tatarstan - there was an urgent need 

to train imams and mudarrises for the mosques, madrasahs and maktabs of Tatarstan. The 

ties between Kazan, Bukhara and Tashkent - the traditional centres of training of Tatar 

imams - were broken after the disintegration of the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics 

(USSR); as a result, the absence of religious schools demanded a search for new 

approaches. Help was received from various Arab funds and patrons, mainly from the Gulf 

States. At their expense, hundreds of young Muslim Tatars were trained abroad. 

Through the example of the events which took place in the religious sphere in 

Tatarstan in the last twenty years, we can see the attitude of the government to the problem 

of foreign Muslim education change from neutral and sometimes optimistic to highly 

negative. Attempts to ban the activities of imams who had graduated from foreign higher 

education institutions were made, but none of them led to any desirable results. 

On the whole a cautious attitude to this group of Islamic figures still remains: SAM 

of RT conducts various courses to retrain them according to local religious traditions, and 

tries not to permit them to occupy high positions in the system of the Spiritual 

Administration. Nevertheless, a gradual process of rehabilitation of graduates of foreign 

higher education institutions is taking place, as well as their social adaptation within the 

Muslim Ummah. New groups of shakirds go to Arab countries only after studying the 

fundamentals of Islam and local traditions on the basis of Tatarstan religious educational 

institutions. The stream of trainees is gradually decreasing, though there is still a need to 

obtain full higher religious education from the largest Islamic centres of the world. 

 

 

Bibliographical Abbreviations 

 

 

Baltanova 1999 

-  Gulnar  Baltanova,  O zhupele “vakhkhabizma” ili politicheskoy 

bor’be vokrug islama, in Vremya i den’gi, 18 November 1999. 

Islam v Rossii 1996 

-  Islam v Rossii: na poroge novogo raskola?, in Vremja i den’gi, 3 

October 1996. 

Kak protivostojat’ 2011 

-  Kak protivostojat’ salafizmu?, in Vremja i den’gi, 15 February 

2011. 

Materialy 2002 

-  Materialy Vtorogo ocherednogo s”yezda musul’man Tatarstana, 

Kazan, 2002. 

O neobhodimosti 2000 - 

O neobhodimosti tochnyh opredelenij, in Nezavisimaya Gazeta 

(“Religion” appendix), 29 November 2000. 

Postnova 2002 

- Vera Postnova, Yeshche odno vzyatiye Kazani, in Nezavisimaya 

Gazeta-religii, 4 March 2002. 

Predsedatel’ Gossoveta 1999 - 

Predsedatel’ Gossoveta Tatarstana Farid Muhametshin ne iskljuchaet 

vozmozhnosti zapreta vahhabizma, in Rossiyskaya Gazeta, 28 

September 1999. 

Samatova 2011 

- Al’fiya Samatova, Musul’manskoye dukhovenstvo Tatarstana 

natselilos’ na molodezh’, in Molodezh’ Tatarstana, 11 August 2011. 

www.cclbsebes.ro/muzeul-municipal-ioan-raica.html   /   www.cimec.ro

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A. M. Akhunov 

 

146

V moskovskoj gostinice 1992 - 

V moskovskoj gostinice “Metropol” sostojalsja diplomaticheskij priem 

po sluchaju otkrytija posol’stva Saudovskoj Aravii v Rossii, in 

Novosti,” 15 May 1992. 

Wahhabism 1999 

- Wahhabism - ne prosto zlo, eto smertonosnoye zlo, 1999, in 

Rossiyskaya Gazeta, 25 September 1999. 

Yakupov 2008 

- Valiulla Yakupov, Muftii ne soglasny, in Nezavisimaya Gazeta 

(“Region” appendix), 24 March 2008. 

Yusin 1992 

- Maksim Yusin, Nash vizit - eto bor'ba za rynki, v tom chisle za 

rynki vooruzheniy, in Izvestiya (Moscow release), 5 May 1992. 

 

Keywords: 

Russia-Middle East, Republic of Tatarstan, Islam in Tatarstan, Muslim 

education. 

www.cclbsebes.ro/muzeul-municipal-ioan-raica.html   /   www.cimec.ro

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515

 

 

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS 

 

 

AA 

- Acta Archaeologica. Copenhagen. 

AAL 

- Asien Africa Lateinamerica. 

Zeitschrift des Zentralen 

Rates für Asien-, Afrika- und Lateinamerikawissenschaften in 

der DDR. Berlin.

 

AAMT 

- Advances in Archaeological Method and Theory. 

Orlando. 

AAnt 

- American Antiquity. Society for American Archaeology. 

Washington. 

ABM - 

Alaska Business Monthly. 

Anchorage. 

Acta Asiatica 

- Acta Asiatica. Bulletin of the Institute of Eastern 

Culture. Tokyo. 

AO - 

Arkheologicheskiye 

otkrytiya (1965-2013). Moscow. 

AOASH 

- Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae. 

Institute of Oriental Studies. Budapest. 

AP 

- Arkheologiya Podmoskov’ya. Materialy nauchnogo 

seminara. Institute of Archaeology Russian Academy of 

Sciences. Moscow. 

ArchOttoman - 

Archivum Ottomanicum. Wiesbaden Ottoman 

Archivesa. Wiesbaden.

 

Ars Judaica 

- Ars Judaica. 

Bar-Ilan University. Ramat Gan. 

Art-menedzher 

- Art-menedzher. Business magazine considering culture 

and art as a resource for the social and economic 

development of society and offering various technologies 

and methodologies of management of this process. 

Moscow. 

Bibliosphera 

- Bibliosphera. The Siberian Branch of the Russian 

Academy of Sciences. Novosibirsk. 

BKF 

- Baltiiskii filologicheskii kurer. Immanuel Kant Baltic 

Federal University. Kaliningrad. 

BM 

- Byulleten’ Moskovskogo obshchestva ispytateley 

prirody. Otdel biologichesky. Moscow Society of 

Naturalists. Moscow. 

BMMS 

- Byulleten Muzeya Marka Shagala. Marc Chagall 

Museum. Vitebsk. 

Byilyie godyi 

- Byilyie godyi. Sochi State University. Sochi. 

CAn 

- Current Anthropology. Chicago. 

CHR 

- The Canadian Historical Review. University of Toronto 

Press. Toronto. 

www.cclbsebes.ro/muzeul-municipal-ioan-raica.html   /   www.cimec.ro

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