This article is focused on the Russian-Moldavian scientist and politician D. Cantemir (d. 1723). Being one of the most educated people of his time and polymath, D. Cantemir made a significant contribution to the formation of academic Oriental studies in Europe. His fundamental work on the history of the Ottoman Empire "On Growth and Decay" became well known in Europe. However, another work by D. Cantemir, which marked a breakthrough in the understanding of Islam by the Western mind — “The Book of Sistima, or Description of the Muslim Religion” — remained almost unknown outside Russia for a long time. The works of D. Cantemir are characterized by two important qualities. First, the active usage of many authentic Muslim sources. Secondly, a humanistic view on Islam and Muslims implies a quest for common ground for Muslims and Christians. These features, combined with D. Cantemir’s vivid and rich experience of interaction with Muslim civilization, made the works of the Russian scholar a path-breaking contribution to the development of Oriental studies in Europe. The publication of this article is dedicated to the publishing of a commented translation of the “Book of Sistima” into modern Russian, prepared by the researchers the Moscow Islamic Institute and the Medina Publishing House, and is intended to establish a basis for a deeper study of D. Cantemir’s heritage in the field of Islamic studies.

This publication continues the study of relevant traditions about the Tabuk expedition (in the ninth year of the Hijra), which was started in the fourth issue of the journal for 2023, as well as the dominant thesis in traditional political and legal theology about the jizya-tribute from infidels, allegedly established by the Prophet Muhammad. Information about the imposition of such a tribute on the Christian city Dumat al-Jandal after the raid on it under the command of Khalid ibn al-Walid is subject to formal (hadithological) and substantive verification. The research is carried out in line with the reformist- modernist orientation towards revealing the truly humanistic, pacifist- pluralistic spirit of the Quranic message and overcoming medieval, exclusivist-militantist interpretations of prophetic Islam.

This publication is intended to be a kind of introduction to the author’s planned translation of a fragment about the comprehension of the separated by the unseparated from the treatise “Long Commentary on Aristotle’s “De anima” written by Ibn Rushd (lat. Averroes; d. 1198). In Falsafa (Muslim peripateticism), the problem of cognition of immaterial substances (especially God and cosmic intellects) by the material, human intellect is of fundamental importance not only for Falsafa’s epistemology, but also for its felicitology, in which the highest happiness of the soul is seen precisely in its conjunction with the intelligible world. The article highlights the relevant aspects of the philosophical psychology of Muslim peripateticism, the foundations of which were laid by al-Farabi (d. 950) and Ibn Sina (lat. Avicenna; d. 1037): cosmology and angelology; the structure of the soul and the architectonics of the intellect; the rational- philosophical justification of intellectual happiness- unhappiness, especially in the afterlife; eschatological optimism — the thesis on the possibility of posthumous spiritual progress and of the final salvation of the majority of the souls.

The article is devoted to the methodology of fatwa- making in the Hanafi school of Fiqh. The rules of fatwa derivation, the main works of the Hanafi madhhab and special terms used by Hanafi scholars are considered. The study showed that the process of fatwa derivation is systematic and consistent, thanks to the methods developed by the Hanafi s, which allow the Mufti to navigate the vast legacy of Hanafi legal thought.

The author focuses on a previously unknown text by Musa Bigiev (died 1949), one of the greatest Russian religious figures of the first half of the 20th century, entitled “The ABC of the Great Truths of Islam”. The text was found in the materials of the Eastern Department of the GPU-OGPU and is devoted to the theological substantiation of the consistency of the ideas of communism and Islam. For the first time in Russian historiography, the article gives a general characterization of the source, its main provisions, and examines the circumstances of its appearance. The text of the “ABC” consists of an introduction and five chapters, divided into paragraphs, which are devoted to separate issues of combinability of the basic attitudes of communism and Islam. The theses are supported by theological argumentation, references to the Koran and hadiths, and statements of authoritative mujtahids. Bigiev concludes that there is a fundamental coincidence between communist attitudes and the values of Islam. The essay also contains detailed statements in favor of the cooperation of Russian Muslims and co-religionists of various Eastern countries around the world with the Bolsheviks, and a call for the creation of an “Eastern Union” to counteract the “imperialist West”. In conclusion, the author draws an inference on historical conditionality of the appearance of such a work by Bigiev in this historical period. “The ABC of the Great Truths of Islam” allows us to place Bigiev among the world theorists of Islamic socialist thought and to call him a ‘Muslim’ socio-political figure of the anti-colonial and anti-Western movement of the first half of the 20th century.

The article is devoted to the role of abystais as mentors (teachers) and mothers. Based on the materials of Riza Fakhreddin’s book “Mashhur Khatynnar” (“The Famous Women”), we analyze the concept of abystais created by him as mentors (subjects taught, educational literature, correspondence of books, preaching and holding majlises) and mothers (hereditary nature of activity, upbringing of daughters as abystais and sons as imams). Riza-qadi identified the names of the abystais, gave an idea of their teachers as well abystais’ teaching and preaching activities, which was innovative for the Muslim world of Russia. Before him, we only know the names of women as wives and daughters of imams and mudarrises without indicating their education and activities. If in the book edition “Mashhur Khatynnar” (1904) we see their brief biographies revealing the above-mentioned points, then in the manuscript of 1934 there are also quite detailed biographies containing information about various aspects of the social activities of these women and indicating their place in the education system of Tatars in the 19th century and the first years of the 20th century.

The article examines the role and place of Muslim holidays in the daily life of the population of Kabardino-Balkaria during the Soviet period. This explains the increased attention of the authorities to festive culture in general. It is concluded that in the Soviet period, the holiday, as a phnomenon of spiritual culture, became a kind of tool for constructing and maintaining value- semantic constructs relevant to the current historical moment in society. The reasons for the liberal attitude of local authorities towards religious holidays in the pre-war Soviet decades, that is, during the period of the most severe and consistent persecution of religion, are analyzed. The use of a religious component in the political activities of the Nazi occupation authorities, including in relation to religious holidays, is also being considered. Based on the analysis of archival materials, the features of the main Muslim religious holidays in Kabardino-Balkaria in the 40–80s of the XX century are investigated. It is concluded that, despite the permanent atheistic work, often timed specifically to the main religious holidays, they continued to occupy an important and lasting place in the daily life of the population of the subregion, despite the catastrophic drop in the level of religious literacy and the indifferent attitude of a significant part of the population to religion as a whole that has become commonplace.