Abstract:
The
social sciences have been demonstrating a steady growth of interest in Islam in
recent decades. It is becoming more obvious that the Islamic faith has
different, often conflicting, variations in practice. What influences the
process of formation of so different versions of Islam? One way to answer this
question is to study religious authority. This article is based on the
empirical material gathered in Tyumen region since the beginning of the 1990s
and analyzes multiplication of positions of religious authority, which is one
of the manifestations of fragmentation of authority in Islam.
In
the late 1980s – early 1990s, basic positions of Islamic authority in the
region were mullahs, abystai, astana keepers, and organizers of religious rites
among the residents of a particular place. Their activities resulted in the
appearance of different interpretations of Adat Islam, which included, among
others, Sufi practices.
In
the early 1990s, new positions began to form alongside with the previously
mentioned authoritative Islamic positions: the Ulema and imams. Their attempts
to centralize religious authority in order to ensure uniformity of Islamic
meanings and practices led to even bigger fragmentation of that authority and
increased the number of dogmatic and ritual interpretations of Islam.
The already existing interpretations of Adat Islam were supplemented by interpretations of different schools of Sufism, which were more and more taking shape, as well as versions of Salafism, which rejects all practices and meanings not justified by the Koran, the Sunna and fatwas of authoritative, mostly foreign, theologians. Moreover, up to date, the region has a localized Shiite interpretation of Islam too.
The already existing interpretations of Adat Islam were supplemented by interpretations of different schools of Sufism, which were more and more taking shape, as well as versions of Salafism, which rejects all practices and meanings not justified by the Koran, the Sunna and fatwas of authoritative, mostly foreign, theologians. Moreover, up to date, the region has a localized Shiite interpretation of Islam too.
In
addition, Islamic political activists, another position, new for the regional
religious field, has been formed since the late 1990s. Due to their efforts,
Islam began to be interpreted as a range of religious and political concepts:
from recognition of the possibility of living according to the secular laws to
jihadism.
References:
Bourdieu P., 2007. Genezis i struktura polia religii [Genesis and structure of the religion
field]. Sotsial'noe prostranstvo polia i praktiki. Moscow: Institut
eksperimental'noi sotsiologii; St. Petersburg: Aleteiia, pp. 7-75.
DeWeese D.,
2010. Authority. Key Terms for the
Study of Islam, Oxford: Oneworld, pp. 26-52.
Kabdulvakhitov K.,
2005. Po sledam tiumenskikh sheikhov: istoricheskoe
rassledovanie [In the wake of the Tyumen sheiks: historical investigation].
Tyumen: Tipografiia Pechatnik, 238 p.
Kliueva
V., Bobrov I., Cherepanov M., 2008. Radikal'nyi islamizm v Tiumenskoi oblasti
[Radical Islamism in the Tyumen region]. Biulleten' Seti etnologicheskogo
monitoringa i rannego preduprezhdeniia konfliktov, pp. 9, available at: http://eawarn.ru/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=22&Itemid=33.
Kliueva
V.P., 2009. Zhizn' v ateisticheskom gosudarstve: musul'manskie obshchiny
Tiumenskoi oblasti (1940-1960-e gg.) [A live in an atheistic state: the Muslim
communities of the Tyumen region (1940-1960-ies.)]. Vestnik arkheologii,
antropologii i etnografii, no. 10, pp. 117 -121.
Kramer G., Shmidtke
S., 2006, (ed.). Speaking for Islam:
Religious Authorities in Muslim Societies, Leiden: Brill, 310 p.
Seleznev
A.G., Selezneva
I.A., Belich I.V., 2009. Kul't sviatykh v sibirskom islame:
spetsifika universal'nogo [The cult of the saints in the Siberian Islam:
the specificity of the universal], Moscow: Izdatel'skii dom Mardzhani, 216 p.
Lediaev
V.G., 1996. Sovremennye kontseptsii vlasti: analiticheskii obzor [Modern
concepts of power: an analytical review]. Sotsiologicheskii zhurnal, no.
3-4, pp. 109-126.
Lediaev
V.G., 2000. Vlast': kontseptual'nyi analiz [Power: a conceptual analysis]. Polis.
Politicheskie issledovaniia, no. 1, pp. 97-107.
Lediaev
V.G., 2000. Formy vlasti: tipologicheskii analiz [Power forms: a typological
analysis]. Polis. Politicheskie issledovaniia, no. 2, pp. 6-18.
Lediaev V.G., 2011. Kontseptual'nye osnovaniia
empiricheskogo issledovaniia vlasti [Conceptual bases of empirical research of power].
Politicheskaia kontseptologiia: zhurnal metadistsiplinarnykh issledovanii,
no. 4, pp. 50-65.
Robinson F., 2009. Crisis of Authority: Crisis of
Islam? Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, no.
3, vol. 19, pp. 339-354.
Tychinskikh Z.A., Gabdrakhmanova G.F. 2015, (ed.). Istoriia i kul'tura tatar Zapadnoi Sibiri
[History and Culture of West Siberian
Tatars], Kazan: Institut istorii im. Sh. Mardzhani AN RT, 728 p.
Official publication
Full text in Russian
Bobrov Igor' Vladimirovich, PhD (Historical Sciences),
Cherepanov Maksim Sergeevich, PhD (Political Sciences),
senior researcher of Institute of the problems of Northern development, Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences (e-mail: maximcherepanov@yandex.ru).
Full text in Russian