The article analyzes the basic prerequisites, driving forces and results of Muhammad Ali’s military reform in Egypt in the 1820s. The author considers the formation of a new Egyptian army in the paradigm  of M. Weber,  as a complex process  of monopolization of state  power and standardization of behavior  of subordinate social strata.  Recruits from Sudan and Egypt became soldiers, learning  the skills of discipline and regulations of the new industrial society, destroying traditional norms and customs. The new Egyptian army has formed a complex ethnic composition  of European technicians and instructors, Turkish and Circassian officers, Arab and Sudanese soldiers. After the war-rehearsals in Arabia, Sudan and Greece, these troops managed to defeat the Ottoman  army in Syria in 1831–1832 and 1839–1840.

The tragic events in the Middle East that have been going on for many years, connected with religious slogans and the activism of extremist  Islamist organizations, force us to turn  to the origins of these movements.  Analysis of documents and evidence of that time allows us to conclude  that  the beginning  of the struggle  and propaganda of Islamist organizations in the region should be attributed to the period earlier than it was accepted, namely to the early years of the 20th century. The main materials, used by the author, were the reports of the Russian consul in Damascus, Prince Boris N. Shakhovskoy  (1870–1926). This diplomat described in detail the work of local branch of the organization «Mohammedan Brotherhood», which was launched in 1909 in Damascus as well. As it was the case with the almost namesake  Egyptian organization, established  in 1928, which at the time of its foundation, some researchers associated  with the British intelligence,  Shakhovskoy  in his time also believed that  the British were interested in destabilization of public security  in Syrian  regions  and  used  its potential  in the  interests  of Britain. This notion is confirmed both in the earlier period and later, until today.

Islam played an important role in the formation and development of the Golden Horde statehood. Medieval Arabic annals and notes of travelers who visited the Golden Horde on their own have given a lot of information about the penetration of Islam and the establishment of its positions in the Golden Horde society. Among them, a special place is occupied by the writings of the Egyptian  authors  of the Mamluk  era. Along with the established  close diplomatic  and trade  relations  between  the Volga and the Nile, the dialogue  of cultures  was also widespread at that time. The spiritual traditions of the Golden Horde evolved at the crossroads  of different cultures  and peoples, and this happened in Mamluk  Egypt. The important point  was the fact that  by the XIV century,  the Golden  Horde  and the Mamluk  Egypt had a strong  position  in the international arena. The proposed  article reveals various facts related to the penetration of Muslim culture into the social and political life of the Golden Horde according to materials from medieval Arabic sources.

Indian  Muslims were initially viewed by British Orientalists  as a foreign  and alien element  in the Indian  society, as cruel invaders  who came to spread  their  religion  “at the tip of their  swords”.  According  to  these  concepts,  the  Indian  population was divided  into  two homogeneous and  hostile  “communities”,  that  is Hindus  (including  Sikhs, Buddhists,  Jains, etc.) and Muslims. Such perception  ignored  two aspects of crucial importance:  first, it did not take into consideration various regional, social, ethno-cultural, linguistic and other differences within each of the imagined  “communities”; second, the majority of the Indian  Muslims were not descendants of the invaders,  but local people converted  to Islam. Through preservation of many elements of their pre-Islamic  past, they were, and still are, closer to the Hindus  of their respective regions concerning  language, culture and lifestyle, than to their co-believers in other areas  of India,  or foreign  countries.  These orientalist  concepts  served  as the basis of British colonial policy; through education  system and press they were communicated  to the local elites, who  not  only began  to  think  in terms  of homogeneous religious  “communities”,  but,  quite logically, transformed them into the “nations”, thus  laying ground  for communalist  trends  in Indian nationalism.  In this way, the “two nations theory” was born. Its implementation was the idea of Pakistan  and the bloody partition of British India in 1947.

The article discusses the issues of the cult of saints within the theological views of the Tatar Jadid ulama of the late 18th – early 20th centuries. The prominent representatives of this movement – Gabdennasyir Kursavi, Shigabutdin Marjani, Galimajan Barudi, Rizaetdin Fakhretdin, Musa Bigeev – searched for the causes of spiritual, political, social and economic decline, in which Muslims found themselves. These religious representatives believed to fi nd a way out the crisis through the change of Muslim beliefs as well as the rejection from innovations in religion and return to the Qur’an and Sunnah.

They opposed many traditions that existed among the people. In their opinion, these rituals contradicted with the doctrines of Islam including the cult of saints and the institute of saints graves’ guardians. On the other hand, the Jadids regarded reforming the educational system, studying of secular sciences, borrowing modern scientifi c, technological and other achievements from the Europeans as an important condition for the progress of Muslims. This attitude of Tatar theologians favored the establishment of Islamic cultural values and opened up new ways for Russian Muslims to familiarize with the achievements of world civilization.

The article  analyses a modern  education  in Palestine  under  the continuous Israeli occupation. After signing agreements with Israel on the formation  of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) as an interim transitional body, the Ministry of Education and Science created a training program based on the American and Jordanian models. The educational atmosphere is strongly affected by Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In particular, the problem of access to education remains, due to the economic problems, limited number  of schools and security threats  against children  and  adolescents.  In  addition,  the  unresolved  issue  of the  creation  of independent Palestinian state  is reflected in textbooks,  imbued  not only with Palestinian nationalism,  but also with hatred  of the «occupiers».  This raises the issue of the lack of idea about the peaceful coexistence  of Israelis  and  Palestinians in the  minds  of young  people.  The existing  training creates partisans, able to wait a long time for an opportunity to form an independent state on the territory  of the PNA and Israel.

According to the Tatar Muslim scholar Rizaeddin Fakhreddin (1858–1936), the first of the Muslims of Russia who studied the heritage of the medieval scholar Ibn-Taimiyyah (1263–1328), was famous Tatar historian and theologian Shihab al-Din al-Marjani (1818–1889). In his treatise “Ibn-Taimiyyah”, Fakhreddin cited a brief note by Marjani about this Sheikh, where he was characterized as a Muslim “heretic” in terms of Sunni dogma. Since Muslim Tatar reformers (Jadids) mostly spoke positively about the Sheikh, Fakhreddin wondered what Marjani relied on when referring  to the “heresy” of Ibn-Taimiyyah. He could not answer this question in his time. Therefore,  the purpose  of this study is to find out how Marjani in his writings assessed Sheikh Ibn Taimiyyah in general.  In order  to do this, we present  the identified  fragments  of Arabic texts about  this famous theologian  from two works of Marjani,  with Russian translation and commentary, and analyse the briefly presented material.

The  main  sources  for  our  study  were  the  third  volume  of “Wafiyyat al-aslaf”,  the biographical  work of Sh. Marjani,  and his theological  work “al-‘Azb al-furat”.  Both works are written in Arabic. The first is available only as a manuscript, and the second one as a manuscript, and as a printed version. In our study, we found fragments about Ibn-Taimiyyah in these sources, provided  them  with  a Russian  translation, gave short  comments,  analysed  these  fragments and compared  them with the texts of the original  sources,  from which Marjani  borrowed  the information about the Sheikh.

Marjani clarified his attitude  towards  the Sheikh in two fragments  from his footnotes to the commentary  of Jalal al-Dawwani,  and in the third fragment  from the work “Wafiyyat al-aslaf”. In the last work, the Tatar author relied on sources such as “Mir’at al-jinan” of al-Yafi‘i, who was a contemporary of the Sheikh, and “Sharh al-‘aqaid al-‘adhudiyyah”  of al-Dawwani, who read some works of the Sheikh. Marjani himself was not familiar with the specific works of Ibn-Taimiyyah. He recognized  the high status  of Ibn Taimiyyah.  as one of the important scholars of the Hanbali Madhhab and as an expert of Hadiths, but also emphasized that from the point of view of traditional Sunnis, the Sheikh professed some “heresies” (bid‘ah) in the field of dogma and issued rare fatwas that contradict to four Sunni Madhhabs.

The article discusses the worldview unity of the scriptures  of monotheism  (Torah, New Testament  and Quran) in aspects of “healing souls” of religious people. Using quotes from the scriptures,  it is shown that they precisely determine  the most important for the life of each person  and his relationship with the outside  world, such as “good and evil”, “friend, brother, neighbor and enemy”. It is demonstrated that according to the scriptures, the state of the person’s flesh (body)  directly depends  on how strictly he abides by the rules, laws and commandments presented in the scriptures.  It is substantiated that the goals and objectives set by the scriptures of monotheism  provide a meaningful existence of each person and all mankind on earth and the direction  of their  productive  activities; and that  in this regard,  modern  psychotherapists and psychoanalysts are still helpless, because they cannot intelligently answer not only the question related to the meaning of human life on earth, but also provide clear criteria and parameters for a “right” and “wrong” life, “mental health “Or” mental ill health “to” adjust “the lives of their wards without resorting  to the scriptures.

The issue of models and strategies  of power, in accordance  with the Islamic political and legal tradition, remains at the focus of the global Islamic discourse. The discrepancy of the modernization project, introduced by the West to the culture of Islam, the imposition of different socio-political  matrix, a new form of cognition  of reality, and problems  in the implementation of state  projects,  force the Muslim religious  and intellectual  elite to look for adequate  forms of political and social management. Within  variability of the offered programs  and ideas, it is possible to highlight two main trends in the achievement of the objective.

The first – the reformist one – is aimed at making the necessary changes of the hybrid constitutions, developed  and  adopted  during  the  colonial  period,  of the  work  of the  constitutional courts, introduction of new legal norms, adequate to the modern times, into the social life. The second – the radical one – means a complete breakup  with the type of political and social management enshrined in the project of the Modern,  essentially a «return» to the Premodern by means of «re-activating» the classical Islamic political and socio-legal  concept sphere in the conceptual space and in social practice.

The article attempts  to analyse the peculiarity of the actualization of the concept «hijra» and a number  of related  concepts in the domain of the second trend,  as a response  to the challenges of modernity.

The  article   analyses   of  the  relationship  between   the  various   components  of identification  within the religious group of Muslim respondents and the quality of life of older people.  The sample was presented by three  age groups  according  to the classification  of the World Health  Organization: 55-64  years, 65-74  years, 75 years and older. The study involved 180 elderly people (80  Muslims and 100 atheists). The methodology of measurement of in-group identification  (K. Leach) and the SF-36 questionnaire were used as methodological tools. According  to the  results  of the  work,  it was revealed  that  the  religious  activities  of Muslim respondents provide them with a sense of well-being, compensate for the insufficient satisfaction of some aspects of life, and help them cope with current  problems.

Based on  the  analysis  of documents and  the  secondary  data  analysis,  the  article identifies social fears experienced by Russian Muslims. The types of fear are identified: loneliness, death,  pain,  rejection,  punishment, condemnation, consequences   of  changes,  inconsistency with the image of a true  Muslim, failure  to achieve bliss after  the transition to the next life, unsatisfactory fulfilment of marital and parental  roles based on Islamic ethics.

The factors in the emergence of fear are highlighted, based on violations in the structure of the  personality  of the  Muslims:  low self-esteem,  negative  relationship experience,  socio-psychological characteristics of the individual,  lack of social self-regulation skills. Institutions and mechanisms  that  implement  activities to overcome  the consequences  of fears among  the Muslims  are  described,   and  recommendations  to  assisting  professionals,   interacting  with different categories of the Muslims, are provided.