Valiulla Yakupov
Muslim Religious Board of the Republic of Tatarstan, Kazan, Tatarstan
The role of traditional Islam in the modern religious revival in Russia
The processes of globalization at the end of the millennium and the growth of inter-civilization contacts intensify problems not only of world leadership and material domination, but also of spiritual rivalry. Inter-confessional competition and the advertisement of “our” religion have arisen. This kind of phenomena is a remnant of medieval worldview, and it belongs to the sectarian periphery of world religions and the near-religious intelligentsia, but not to the traditional clergy. This is a worldwide tendency, but unfortunately in Russia it assumes threatening features.
Islamic neophytes feel a certain discomfort in contemporary conditions because of the retrograde position of Islam, as they see it, both in the world and in Russia. It seems to them that Islam cannot sustain competition and loses its position in comparison with other more “modern” religious systems. Moreover, the emergence of the Islamophobia and obvious cases of terrorism with a “Muslim face” make many people think a “different” Islam exists. And if there are “bad” Islams, some neophytes logically conclude that the idea of constructing new a “good” Islam is relevant. However, the superficial path of the primitive modernization of Islam – fitting Islam into European standards – is hardly productive. With enough persistence in their activity, the “modernizers” of Islam can only lead to the emergence of a new Muslim sect.
Mazhabic Islam is not out of date, but on the contrary has distinct prospects for the future. Obsolete methods of ijtihad lost their actuality a long time ago and will not revive because they have fulfilled their function and are no longer necessary – just as it is impossible to compose new collections of authentic hadis.
With the development of Muslim enlightenment, the sectarian indispositions of Russian Muslims will be cured. We all remember the “sickness of communism’s childhood”, and analogously Russian Islam could not avoid the childhood’s sickness of wahhabism. The Koran and the hadis are not magical formulas, as some may think. It is impossible to interpret them arbitrarily and use them in order to advance one’s own ideas. Their meaning is determined by a prophetical understanding and reading.
It is necessary to consciously support the integrative processes between Islamic knowledge and Islamic movements; it will lead to the establishment of classical form of Islam, i.e. prophetical, mazhabic Islam.
On the present stage, there is no need to cardinally change the orthodoxy of Islam in order to make it up-to-date. This will only lead to the emergence of new confessional units. The goal now is to join efforts in reviving Islam based on the recognized mazhabs as classics – classics that primordially contain the possibilities to correspond to every epoch and every condition, whether in a monoconfessional or polyconfessional environment. Only this Islam possesses the spiritual dominant that leads the umma to progress.
