The goal of this article is to present an analysis of extant information on the ‘Campaign of the Elephant’ against Mecca with due regard to the overall historical context. The date of that event still remains as an object of a scholarly discussion, making this study opportune. The position of the scholars who reject the traditional dating of the campaign (around 570–571) and put it back to earlier times does not appear to be well-founded. Historical sources show that Emperor Justin II of Byzantium (565–574), who needed allies for his struggle against the Sasanians in the late 560’s and the early 570’s, called on the Ethiopian Negus and the latter’s half-independent governor of Yemen. The governor, probably, made a campaign to the North around the 570–571, and that appears to be remembered by the Arabs as ‘The Campaign of the Elephant’. Sasanid king Khusraw I Anushirwan (531–579) in 572 attacked and conquered Yemen. That came as a counter measure to the Ethiopian advance to the North, because the Sasanid king considered that activity to be a threat to his empire.

During the XVIII–XIX centuries there was a suffi cient number of educational institutions of various levels in Mughal capital. The existing institutions met the needs of the citizens in obtaining education fully enough. Delhi College was the most popular among all of them. The time of establishment of this educational institution and the identity of the founder is still open to discussions. Europeans who traveled to Delhi or who were there on service at the end of the XVIII and the beginning of the XX centuries often mention this college among Delhi’s places of interest. They also describe in details the appearance of the architectural complex. The former Gazi-ud-din Madrasa was changing and adapting itself to the modern realities of Delhi, remaining one of the major attractions of the city and the most famous and desirable among the educational institutions. Delhi College continued its educational activities despite occasionally inadequate funding. Its alumni and teachers made a great contribution to the development of culture and social thought in Delhi in the XIX century.

The years of the Great Patriotic War became the time of the USSR peoples rallying against the aggressors, where the heads of religious associations played a signifi cant role. The article analyzes little-known facts of the patriotic activities of Muslim leaders of the USSR. Due to the fact that the USSR government had been negative to Islam for a long time, many events concerning the relations between the Soviet state and Muslims were not widely publicized, and many documents had been kept secret for long periods. Therefore, when arrays of these documents were declassifi ed, researchers got the opportunity to detect and analyze them. Such facts and documents were of great importance for our article. We also found out that some of them were described thoroughly in a little-known modern literature of the latest times. The authors of the article show that the leaders of Soviet Muslims were fully patriotic from the fi rst days of the Great Patriotic War. The leaders of Soviet Muslims rallied Soviet citizens and revealed the true goals of the aggressors.

Studying the everyday life of the religious and understanding the relations between the USSR government and the religion requires insertion of new sources of information. Fragments of the materials by G.P. Snesarev devoted to the existence of Islam among Kasimov Tatars fi rst published in this paper makes it possible to fi nd out the key junctures in the history of the religion. Dated by the end of 1943 this report demonstrates the realities of the new Soviet policy towards the religion. Detailed information about the spreading of ritual practices, about the processes of secularization, describing the «life without a mosque» and the status of women of the period expands our knowledge of the social history and the situation with Islam in the USSR.

This article is devoted to the problem of Islamic law development in modern times. Economic and political backwardness of Muslim countries and especially the fall of the Ottoman Empire exacerbated the crisis of Muslim social thought. It led to searching the ways out of the current situation. Moreover, the revival movement encouraged theologian lawyers to search the ways of formalizing and popularizing Islamic law among Muslims. Within the framework of the problem, we consider the reasons that infl uenced the process of Islamic Law revival, as well as the results of this process. Economic, social and political events in the Islamic world triggered the processes of the education system modernization, led to the revaluation of Islamic Legal Heritage. All these transformations caused the creation of research centres and number of conferences and weeks devoted to the problems of Islamic law came in response to all the changes.

The publication is presented in a form of a commented translation of the Introduction to the Tafsir of the Qur’an «al-Kashshaf», authored by the last major representative of the muʻtazilite school, Jar Allah az- Zamakhshari (1075-1144). In this book the theologian describes two levels of understanding of the Holy Scripture. He names Rhetoric as the main science that is necessary for revealing all the secret truths, and also displays the main motives of his commentary writing. The Preface to the translation describes the distinctive features of Zamakhshari’s exegetical method and gives an analysis of the Introduction.

The article serves as an introduction to the translation of the book «The Incoherence of the Incoherence» (Tahafut at-Tahafut) by the peripatetic philosopher Ibn Rushd (Averroes, 1126–1198), written in response to the work of the theologian-asharite al-Ghazali (1058–1111) «The Incoherence of the Philosophers» (Tahafut al-Falasifa). The paper highlights the motives of al-Ghazali’s attack on Muslim peripatetism (Falsafa) and its infl uence on the fate of this school in the Muslim world. The research describes the basic understanding of the Falsafa picture of the world that comes as a framework for the discussions unfolding the fi rst of the three main points of al-Ghazali’s criticism, which is the thesis of the world eternity. The connection between Ibn Rushd’s book and his earlier theological and polemical treatises as «On the Correlation between Philosophy and Religion» and «On the Methods of Proof for the Principles of Creed» is shown.

The following paper bases on an analysis of relevant scientifi c material, the Russian Federation legislation and includes an empirical study that is a sociological survey of Muslim entrepreneurs. Thus, the author proposes his own defi nition of the term «Islamic business», which is understood as socially responsible entrepreneurship based on Islamic Law (Sharia) following, where social responsibility comes as a seminal formulation. In conclusion, the author encourages the researchers to intensify theological studies of a new economic phenomenon in the context of observing the ethical standards of Sharia.

This article is devoted to the description of the creative path of one of the most respected scholars and researchers of Hanafi Theological and Legal School (мadhhab) Ibn al-Humam (1388–1457). Based on the analysis of medieval and modern Arabic sources, the paper provides a list of the theologian’s works in the fi eld of Muslim Law (fi qh), its methodology (usul al-fi qh), Muslim dogma (aqida) and in a number of other disciplines of Islamic Science.

The article off ers the results of a comparative empirical study aimed at identifying image of the fate of the secular and Muslim youth. Studying a phenomenon that cannot be proven experimentally by means of measuring its quantity and frequency, we had to rely on the experience, comprehension, feelings and emotions of a cognizant, who knows and understands the world. As the empirical base of the research came 153 students from diff erent educational institutions of Kazan. 79 of them profess Islam and 74 of them are not adherents of any religion. The researcher used a written survey. The results of the study allowed to formulate the image of the fate existing in religious and non-religious worldview and in such a way to comprehend its nature, structure and role in human life. Thus, the author proposed a model of fate. At the same time, the results of the analysis created new puzzles for the researchers, demanding from the psychologists rethinking of the very problem of the subject, both in content-structural and dynamic aspects.

The article focuses on the specifi cs of Muslims’ motivation, determined by the method of Stojković I. and Mirić J. We consider the motivation to be a psychological state directing the psychological process into a certain course and realized in activities. The study was based on an opinion-poll of 90 people from Almaty, Ufa, Kazan and Moscow. The study has proven that Muslims with high internal motivation for faith also display high social motivation for religion. Internal motivation is closely related to the concept of Islam as a source of emotional well-being, ideals and morality. Muslims’ perception of Islam highly correlates with the values of traditionalism. It appears that women preferably emphasize the role of Islam in preserving the traditions of the family and people in accordance to the same of men. Religion is partly considered by Muslims as means of fulfi lling desires, but this parameter is not the principal one. Perceiving religion as means of fulfi lling desires connects to the respondents’ understanding Islam itself as a way of maintaining traditionalism, the continuity of the family legacy and ethnic community. The results of the study make it possible to highlight the abovementioned confessionally-caused features of motivation among Muslims.

The article analyzes the content of the international intensive educational program on Islamic psychology at Indonesian Islamic University in Yogyakarta, where, for the fi rst time, fi ve experts from Russia took part in 2019. This training of Russian psychologists in Indonesia became possible on the ground of an agreement between the Association of Psychological Assistance to Muslims (Russia) and Indonesian Islamic University. The article is presented as an analysis of the lectures and discusses the content of Forgiveness Therapy. It also highlights the specifi cs of psychological counseling in overcoming depression in the context of Islam. Based on the analysis of the content of the international program «Islamic Psychology: From Theory and Research to Practice» in Indonesia, the paper reveals the prospects for the further development of psychological counseling of Muslims in Russia.