Interdisciplinarity and diachrony in expanding the research optics of Islam in Russia and Central Asia: introduction

Abstract

The article presents the editorial concept and content of the thematic issue of the Historical Ethnology journal dedicated to Russian Muslims, the Muslim population of Turkestan in the late 18th – early 20th centuries, and Islam. The papers included in the issue are united by the key subject “Islam in the changing contexts of eras: social and identification projections” and represent a wide field of research perspectives in Islamic studies. The interdisciplinary and diachronic approaches used in forming the content of the issue allowed tracing the dynamics of the state and the development of Islamic institutions, traditions, norms and practices, which undergo changes under the influence of the socio-political, ethnocultural and economic situation of different historical eras of the Russian history. The empirical perspective is aimed at studying the ethnocultural and social aspects of Islam in different regional contexts related to the specifics of the intellectual, theological, ritual, social, and everyday life of Muslim communities in Tatarstan, other regions of the Russian Federation, and Uzbekistan (Turkestan of the late 19th – early 20th centuries). A significant part of the articles is devoted to revealing the role of Islam in the Tatar community in different periods of its development: from imperial Russia, through the era of Soviet atheism, to the realities of modern times, which are characterised by unprecedented dynamics of the development of communication technologies. The transformation of the ritual sphere of Muslims, the format of religious practices, new online communities, and the activities of spiritual leaders in the Tatar-language media and in the blogosphere largely determine the attitude of the population, particularly young people, to Islam. A number of works in the issue trace the influence of migration processes on the development of Islam and Muslim communities in historically non-traditional social and geographical contexts. Comparison of historical research with a wide range of factual materials, documents and evidence of the past – with modern ethnological and sociological research allows us to form a multidimensional and dynamic vision of the situation in Islam and Muslim communities, taking into account their historical background in Russia and Central Asia.

Keywords

• islam
• muslims
• muslim community
• tatars
• islamic education
• religious identity
• muslim migrants
• interdisciplinarity
• diachronic approach.