This paper focuses on the analysis of the Islamic thinker Kh. A. ElFadl’s political and legal conception. This conception assesses the potential of the Islamic tradition for the legitimization of democracy. We indicates that El-Fadl’s concept is not another ‘Islamic democracy’ project, but an analysis of the relationship between democratic ethos and Islamic political values. It is demonstrated that an adequate understanding of this relationship requires a comprehension of Qur’anic anthropology — the idea of human call, in particular. The logical transition from acceptance of God’s sovereignty and the status of man as His earthly governor (a successive authority’) to the inadmissibility of usurpation of power is considered reasonable. The article proves that El-Fadl allows historical variability of the forms of checks and balances that impede usurpation of power. Therefore, he emphasizes precisely the democratic ethos, and not a particular political theory or a specific political regime. The irregularity of the monopolization of a democratic ethos by the Western culture, on the one hand, and the monopolization of Shari‘a by Islamists, on the other, is thoroughly noted. In the conclusion the author outlines a general understanding of the nature of Shari‘a and the Shari‘ah foundations of political practice in the concept of El-Fadl.

The article introduces some aspects of Qur’anic studies that engaged Musa Carullah Bigeyev in throughout his life. It also offers an overview of the sources, which allow to completely reconstruct the method of Qur’anic translation, which Bigiev elaborated. The author publishes previously unknown data about the fate of the manuscript of the translation of the Qur’an and the prospects for its discovery. In addition the article introduces a unique lifetime cycle of Qur’anic publications of Musa Bigeyev in the Turkish magazine “Yeni Selâmet”, which have been published during the last year of his life. In this cycle Bigeyev presented his vision of the prehistory of the Qur’an, namely the chronology of sending down of the first forty-one suras, as well as the features of their content and structure.

Islam, which originated in the Arabian Peninsula, spread up to the Atlantic Ocean in the West, up to India in the East and up to and across the Middle Volga region in the North. The details of the Islamic law and, more precisely, the features of worship in each regional case depended on the features of the nature and climate resp. on the circumstances of the economy as well as on the ethnic resp. cultural customs and traditions. The practice of Islamic worship in the northernmost region of Pax Islamica, i. e. in the Volga-Kama region, also supposed important questions to resolve. The Muslim legal thought should deal with the other length of day and night in comparison to the Middle East. Short nights and long days in summer, a large number of cloudy days in the Volga-Ural region have led theologians to seek ways to determine the time of beginning of fasting period and the month of Ramadan especially for this land. In particular, Sh. Marjani and M. Bigeev have paid their attention to this theme. The paper examines namely these attempts to adapt the rules of worship to the diversity of natural zones.

The discourse as the process of linguistic activity, as the complicated communicative phenomena is broadly studies in the works of Russian as well as European scholars. The paper deals with the short outline of works, which are devoted to the study of theme of global power of discursive communication. In the circumstances of human interaction the information is not only a mode to interact; it is also a factor, which unites people, lets it develop and influence mutually. This paper deals with discursive practices of Islam, describes problems of false understanding of Islamic theology. The author strives for rethink some Islamic concepts, because of being aware of necessity to translate them into the modern language. Some important terms, as it was shown, are incorrectly translated. It requires meaningfulness and responsibility while speaking about Islam and for Muslims.

The article traces the most important stages in the development of the tradition of the Qur’anic reciting by the Tatars and Bashkirs of Russia in the pre-Catherine time, i. e. from the epoch of Middle Age islamization up to the late 18^th century. The author reveals some factors, which let the tradition develop diachronically. It is pointed out that the melodic characteristics of the ethnic tradition of reciting of the Quran are conditioned by the peculiarities of the developing folk music culture, determined primarily by the pentatonic (five-stage) mode basis. The closeness of the Tatar and Bashkir cultures dictates the use of the ethno-regional research methodology. According to it, the tradition of the Tatar and Bashkir Qur’anic reciting is considered as a whole phenomenon due to the ethnical resp. linguistic closeness of the both peoples. The information from medieval treatises, historical works, as well as cultural works is also involved into the horizon of this interdisciplinary research.

What has modern times preserved from the past and what appeared in it as evidence of the onset of a new era in the development of Arab culture, in the Arab mind, “Arab reason”? The traditional problems of philosophy remain actual, but now interest in them is determined by the issue, how important they are for the implementation of the goals of social and cultural development as well as for understanding the place of the Arab nations in modern civilization. In the context of solving these problems we also consider the content of the concept “Arab mind”. The key points to pay attention are its epistemological features and saturation with new historical and cultural concepts, such as the importance of personality and consciousness (individual and collective), understanding of the interconnections with other nations, attitude to the values of one’s culture and importance of their preservation for the universal culture.

The history of the Muslim world confirms the universality of the mutual interaction of existence and consciousness. Since the nineteenth century, the main challenges of the time have required from the umma mobilization and joint unification, initially in the name of liberation from colonialism and later — from the negative effects of globalization. Hence the natural and justifiable emergence of what can be called political Islam. The article is devoted to Muslim thinkers who had the greatest influence on public consciousness in India before and after its partition (1947) into India and Pakistan. The central figure in the Muslim enlightenment movement of India was Sayyid Ahmad Khan (1817–1898). No one has fully presented the philosophical foundations of reformation than the eminent poet-philosopher Muhammad Iqbal (1877–1938) in his “The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam”. Diametrically opposite to reformation stand was taken by Abul Ala Maududi (1903–1979), the founder and the leader of Jamaat-i-Islami, justified Muslim "fundamentalism". The intercultural philosophical position was implemented by Muhammad Sharif (1893–1965), a recognized authority among Muslim philosophers of India and Pakistan.

The article provides a comprehensive picture of the state of research on the thought of Abu Hamid al-Ghazali (1058–1111), the greatest Islamic jurist, theologian and thinker, in Soviet and Post-Soviet Russia. The research is important because there is a widespread stereotypical view in the West and Russia that the decline of rationalism in the Muslim world and strengthening of Mysticism is due to al-Ghazali. The first part of the article traces down a number of research projects carried out during the aforementioned period, the dominant research trends and different approaches to al-Ghazali’s thought in general and certain his teachings. The author demonstrates that Soviet and Russian researchers have made a substantial progress in studying the intellectual legacy of al-Ghazali due to forsaking the one-sided approach that prevailed in Marxist Oriental studies during the Soviet era. According to their views, al-Ghazali developed a rationalistic trend of the Islamic Theology (Kalam) and Muslim Peripatetic Philosophy. Studies on al-Ghazali carried out in the late Soviet era and in Post-Soviet Russia will be analyzed in the second part of the paper.

The paper deals with the history of Tatar thought, including ideas of religious reformists, Enlightenment, socialist, liberal thinkers as well as liberal theologians during the Early Modern Age and later contemporary period up to the 20^th century. It is revealed, Tatar religious reformation could be separated into two big periods: first, the stage of emergence, (the works of the first reformers A. Utyz-Imyani and A. Kursavi), and second, the later real reformation, which is associated with the legacy of Sh. Marjani, R. Fakhraddin, M. Bigi and Z. Kamali. Tatar Enlightenment also developed in two periods: the Enlightenment of the 19 th century, represented by H. Faizkhan, Sh. Marjani and Q. Nasyri and the Enlightenment of the early 20^th century, i. e. doctrines of R. Fakhraddin, M. Bigi and G. Tukai. Moreover, at the beginning of the 20^th century there emerged some new trends: liberalism (S. Maqsudi, Yu. Akchura), theological liberalism (M. Bigi, I. Gasprinsky) and socialism (the early stage of G. Iskhaki’s activity, M. Vakhitov and G. Ibragimov).

The author of this article wanted to define a special approach to the problem of how to know God, which developed in the poems of Farid al-Din ‘Attar (1145/46–1221). She based on a comparative analysis of the ‘Attar’s philosophical views with the ideas of the thinkers of Falsafa, Sufism and Isma‘ilism. The author carefully analyzed the prologue named “Concerning the Unity of God” of ‘Attar’s major poem “The Language of the Birds” (Mantiq al-tayr). In this prologue ‘Attar deals with theme of “God’s incomparability”, which means the fundamental impossibility of description of God through various categorical combination. The author used the methods of historical and philosophical reconstruction, philological and textological analysis of the text. Particular attention in this article was given to comparison of the theories of the knowledge of God, developed by Ibn Sina, Jalal al-Din Rumi, Mahmud Shabistari, with ‘Attar’s philosophical ideas. The novelty of the research is: for the first time in Russian philosophical Iranian studies ‘Attar’s philosophical views was considered in the context of the general tradition of Arab-Muslim philosophy.

The paper is devoted to the complicated problem of islamization of Indonesia. The author describes mainly the three most important theories related to this long cultural process. The first theory, elaborated by W. F. Stutterheim, Chr. Snouck-Hurgronje and L. W. van den Berg, derives Indonesian Islam from Gujarat. Close contacts with India as well as some archeological funds witness for this version. The second theory, (Indonesian scholars maintain it mostly), explains Islamization by activity of Arab sailors. The most known of its partisans is Indonesian theologian Haji Abdul Malik Karim Amrullah or Hamka. The third theory looks as modification of the second, in this case not Arab, but Persian-originated sailors are considered as preachers. Namely its defenders (H. Jayadiningrat and U. A. Hussein) apply culturological approach while arguing for Persian influence. The paper also deals with the first period of spreading of Islam through the territory of modern Indonesia. The special attention is paid also to some significant features of Indonesian Islam.