ISLAM IN THE CASPIAN AND THE CAUCASIAN FOOTHILLS BORDERLAND: SOCIAL AND RELIGIOUS REVIVAL ON THE FRINGES OF THE MUSLIM WORLD

Abstract

The Islamic community is a very complicated phenomenon with a lot of phenomenological features manifested in different spheres: the economy, socio-territorial organization, communication, and the reproduction channels. Some Russian academics believe that the possibilities offered by investigative neo-classicism, understood as "predominantly empirical studies of specific groups (trends, movements, schools, etc.) which appear and function in Islam as Islamic phenomena, should be tapped to help understand the phenomenon of Islam. We shall copy this approach-it alone will help us explain changing Islam as a social and political enigma. It should be said that certain analysts have correctly identified the phenomenon of Muslim regionalization as a situation under which the Islamic leaders concentrate on religious developments at the local level. We shall try to explain this phenomenon through the de-modernization conception. We regard the Islamic answer as part of society's crisis conscience.