THE ISSUE OF WAQF IN THE CONTEXT OF THE ESTABLISHMENT OF MUSLIM INSTITUTIONS IN POST-SOVIET TATARSTAN

Abstract

The importance of the issue under study is specified by the increasing significance of the religious factor in the social, political, religious and cultural life of the global community and of Russia in the 21st century. The aim of the article is to find out and analyze the tendencies of the development of the Waqf system among Tatars at the end of the 20th and at the beginning of the 21st centuries, to determine the possibilities of religious institutions’ financing by means of engaging and adapting such traditional instruments as Waqf to modern conditions. The main method of the research is historical and comparative, when the existence of Waqf property in the Russian Empire until 1917 is compared with the modern state in this sphere according to current Russian legislation. The article highlights the impossibility of unimpaired operation of the institution of Waqf under the conditions of a secular state. Furthermore, the author offers ways of legitimizing separate principles of Waqf in the framework of current Russian legislation. The article may be useful for the further study of institutional history of Russian Islam, as well as in modern social discussions about the role of religion in secular spaces, and also in forming scientific and methodological, regular and legal frameworks to improve government policy concerning religion.