Interaction of secular and religious leaders in the development of Islamic education in Russia: history and modernity (using the example of the Samara region)

The purpose of this study is to study the process of interaction between secular and spiritual persons in the development of Islamic education in the Samara Region. To achieve this goal, the author analyzes the evolution of relations between secular and spiritual authorities in the pre-revolutionary, Soviet, and post-Soviet periods, and also examines some of their features at each stage. Islamic education in the Samara region has undergone a number of significant changes. The extensive system of Muslim education in the Samara province was formed in the pre-revolutionary period, but ceased to exist with the coming to power of the Bolsheviks. Archival sources allow us to prove that the desire of Muslims for religious education did not stop: They succeeded in opening a mosque in Kuibyshev in 1967, where religious and educational activities were periodically conducted. The author came to the conclusion that in the pre-revolutionary period, representatives of the secular authorities were suspicious of Muslim religious leaders, which was subsequently replaced by rejection of each other in Soviet times. Since the era of perestroika, the necessary prerequisites for the development of Muslim education have emerged. As a result of the dialogue between secular and clerics, it became possible in the Samara region to open the Gali madrasah in 1992 and the Nur madrasah in 2003, as well as another mosque in Samara in 1999.