Terra sebv s acta mvsei sabesiensi s

 

 

521

Vizantiysky vremennik  - Vizantiysky vremennik. Institute of General History of 

the Russian Academy of Sciences. Moscow. 

Voprosy Istorii 

- Voprosy Istorii. Russian academic journal for historical 

studies. The Institute of Russian History of the Russian 

Academy of Sciences. Moscow. 

Voprosi Literatury 

- Voprosi Literatury. Writer’s Union of the USSR. 

Moscow. 

Voprosy filosofii 

- Voprosy filosofii. Russian Academy of Sciences. 

Moscow. 

VTP 

- Istoricheskiye, filosofskiye, politicheskiye i 

yuridicheskiye nauki, kul’turologiya i iskusstvovedeniye. 

Voprosy teorii i praktiki. Tambov. 

WASJ 

- World Applied Sciences Journal. International Digital 

Organization Scientific for Information 

“IDOSI 

Publications” UAE. Dubai. 

Zapiski 

- Zapiski Vostochnogo otdeleniya Russkogo 

arkheologicheskogo obshchestva. Archaeological Society. 

Saint Petersburg. 

ZDMG 

- Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen 

Gesellschaft. Berlin Magazine of the German East 

Society. Berlin. 

 

 

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

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Terra Sebus: Acta Musei Sabesiensis, Special Issue, 2014, p. 135-146 

 

 

RUSSIA-MIDDLE EAST: THE INFLUENCE OF THE ARAB 

FACTOR ON THE FORMATION OF MUSLIM EDUCATION 

SYSTEM IN THE REPUBLIC OF TATARSTAN IN 1990-2000 

 

 

Azat Marsovich AKHUNOV



 

 

 

On 30 August 1990, the Supreme Council of the Tatar Autonomous Soviet 

Socialist Republic (SC of TASSR) adopted the Declaration on state 

sovereignty of the Republic of Tatarstan (RT). Wide prospects opened 

before the former autonomous republic to solve many problems and 

questions, including those in the religious sphere, without dependence upon 

Moscow. 

By the end of 1990 in Tatarstan there were two official religious 

structures with pretensions to leadership in the spiritual sphere: the SAM of 

RT (short for Spiritual Administration of Muslims in the Republic of 

Tatarstan) created in 1992 and headed by Gabdulla Galiullin, and SAM of T 

(short for Spiritual Administration of Muslims of Tatarstan) which in 1997 

was headed by Fareed Salman. The latter structure arose on the basis of the 

Main Mukhtasib Administration of Tatarstan in 1994 and reported to the 

Central Spiritual Administration of Muslims of Russia and the European 

countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CSAM of CIS) 

headed by Talgat Tadzhutdin. 

At that time the administrations each controlled approximately 350 

Muslim parishes in the Republic.

1

 The continuing opposition between the 

competing muftiats was revealed in the form of scandals at the federal level. 

The desire of government bodies to work with a loyal body was quite clear 

and led an agenda item being raised regarding a new leader for the Tatarstan 

Muslims and a uniform Republican muftiat. 

With support of the authorities, in February 1998 the first Unifying 

Congress of Muslims of Tatarstan was held, according to which only one 

muftiat - the Spiritual Administration of Muslims of the Republic of 

Tatarstan - remained in the Republic. All these steps led to stabilization of 

the situation, making it possible to carry out out quiet and fruitful work in 

the religious sphere. A system for controlling Muslim parishes was built, the 

                                                 



 Kazan Federal University, Republic of Tatarstan, Russian Federation; e-mail: 

[e-mail]. 

1

 Yakupov 2008. 

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

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A. M. Akhunov 

 

136

structures of the Spiritual Administration of Muslims of the Republic of 

Tatarstan were formed, and a wide educational network involving multiple 

levels of training was created. The number of parishes united around a 

mosque increased to one thousand, and by 2002 the Russian Islamic 

University, as well as two higher-education madrasahs, six specialized 

secondary madrasahs and one Muslim high school were functioning in 

Tatarstan.

2

 

By the Second Congress of Muslims, which was convened in 

February 2002, it had become clear that in order to maintain this entire 

system in a functionally operating state, huge financial injections were 

required. The Muslims of Tatarstan could count only on donations from 

parishioners, certain sponsors and patrons, and incidental funding streams 

from local budgets that certainly did not solve the problem. 

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 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. On their return home in the late 1990s - early 2000s, they 

played an important role in the formation of religious institutes in Tatarstan, 

and held leading posts in the religious hierarchical system. Although in this 

initial period these graduates of Arab religious higher education institutions 

received universal support - including support from government institutions 

- as the possessors of a full (“real”) religious education, as priorities in the 

domestic policy of the country changed, they suffered obstruction and even 

underwent prosecution. 

1992 can be called the starting point of the mass departure of Tatar 

youth for training in higher education institutions of Islamic countries. This 

process would have been impossible without the financial support of 

various Islamic funds, primarily Saudi ones. After the collapse of the USSR, 

the Russian Federation (RF) stayed in deep economic and political crisis. 

Tatarstan, which declared the policy of a “soft entry” into the market, was 

in a rather favourable situation in comparison with other subjects of the 

Federation, but was not yet financially strong enough to finance the creation 

of its own system of religious education. Besides, the Tatarstan leaders - 

                                                 

2

 Materialy 2002, p. 37-38. 

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