Suchergebnisse

Polygynous families had been living legally in Russia in the areas inhabited by Muslims from the October Revolution to the mid-twentieth century. However, such a family model was not common among the followers of Islam. An act penalizing bigamy or polygamy was introduced into the Penal Code in 1960. During perestroika, and later changes in the political system, imams who came from abroad began to visit areas inhabited by Muslims. They contributed to the rebirth of religion and promoted the idea of po­lygamy. Polygyny is the visible sign of dissimilarity and Muslim identity and was an important point in their teaching. In this context the number of polygynous relationships in Russia has increased significantly. The article is dedicated to the analysis of social and political discourse in Russia that has been taking place for several years.

Polygynous families had been living legally in Russia in the areas inhabited by Muslims from the October Revolution to the mid-twentieth century. However, such a family model was not common among the followers of Islam. An act penalizing bigamy or polygamy was introduced into the Penal Code in 1960. During perestroika, and later changes in the political system, imams who came from abroad began to visit areas inhabited by Muslims. They contributed to the rebirth of religion and promoted the idea of po­lygamy. Polygyny is the visible sign of dissimilarity and Muslim identity and was an important point in their teaching. In this context the number of polygynous relationships in Russia has increased significantly. The article is dedicated to the analysis of social and political discourse in Russia that has been taking place for several years.

Professor Tadeusz Kowalski (1889–1948) corresponded with scholars from practically all over the world. He was interested in the developments of Oriental studies in the Soviet Union. He valued the publications he received from the USSR, as well as all contacts he had with Russian researchers. He sought to cooperate with Alexander Samoylovich (1880–1938) – one of the most eminent Turkologists in the Soviet Union. This goal had been partially achieved. The archives of the Polish Academy of Sciences and the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences in Kraków now hold, catalogued under ref. No. KII-4, j. 174, just three letters from the Russian Turkologist. Despite their small number, these materials are an engrossing source of knowledge on the state of Soviet Turkish studies in the mid 1920s and the Soviet Oriental studies community. These letters are all the more precious – as the author managed to determine – as the branch of the archives at the Russian Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg, where the legacy of professor Samoylovich is kept, has no copies. It is interesting that there are no surviving copies of the letters from professor Kowalski to the Russian Turkologist. The article's purpose is the edition of the letters of Alexander Nikolaevich Samojłowicz – a Soviet turkologist – to Professor Tadeusz Kowalski, including their translation into Polish. These documents constitute a certificate of international academic relations development between scientists from Poland and the Soviet Union in the interwar period.

In the Western world, a hijab is seen as a special form of oppression of women who are hidden and fully controlled by men. In this context, it seems to be interesting what Muslim men thought about the veil, how they interpreted Islamic law, its Koranic verses and hadiths that refer to the title issue to justify that it is not necessary to apply it. The article's purpose is to present the views of two Muslim modernists – the Egyptian: Kasim Amin and Tatar, and Musa Bigijew – on issues related to women's rights in Islam regarding the obligation to cover up women. The author tries to answer the following questions: is it really possible to consider their thoughts as a manifestation of a kind of struggle for women's rights and efforts to "liberate" them? To what extent the views on the isolation of women in the Arab-Muslim world have changed in the time between the publishing of both analysed texts; and whether Musa Bigijew considered the socio-political changes that took place in the Middle East in the 1920s?

As we prepare this book for publication, the enthusiasm for the "Arab Spring" has proved entirely misguided. The situation across the Middle East is now more dangerous than it has been for half a century. Tunisia's revolution sparked a string of regional uprisings which ousted the rulers of Egypt, Libya and Yemen, leading to chaos in Egypt and anarchy in Libya, as well as to conflict in Syria. Several major world powers have become embroiled in the latter and the conflict evolved into full scale war. Although Bashar al-Assad of Syria still has control over some territories due to his secret police and the armed forces, he cannot, and probably has no interest in stopping the expansion of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) - a Salafi militant organization born in 2014 in the political vacuum in Iraq left by the fall of Saddam Hussein. With thousands of migrants fleeing conflict-torn countries of the Middle East, Europe is currently struggling to cope with a massive refugee influx, although the vast majority of the refugees have remained in the region, especially in the camps in Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan. Some European countries, including Germany and Sweden, opened their gates to refugees, while others (i.e. Poland and Hungary) refused to take the migrants. Undoubtedly, the migrant crisis has been feeding xenophobia and political populism - anti-immigrant sentiment was one of the reasons why the British voted to leave the European Union in referendum held in June, 2016. So what exactly we can do? A response to this question requires a realistic appraisal of the situation on the ground, in-depth knowledge of Islamic societies and politics. The West's inability to understand the inner workings of the Middle Eastern countries has already had some catastrophic effects. From ignoring contempt between Sunni and Shia, to disregarding a regional struggle for power (Saudi-Iranian rivalry), from overlooking minorities, to discounting the tribal structure of the local populations, the list of failures is long.