Social Science Research Council

"Teaching Islam in Eurasia"
Tavrida National University
Simferopol, Ukraine, August 6-18, 2007
"Islamic Thoughts and Islamic Movements"

This third summer institute migrated to Crimea where it was held at Tavrida National University in Simferopol, Ukraine.  Institute participants were welcomed to Simferopol by an opening-day panel of local scholars, including our host, Professor Oleg Gabriyelyan, Director of the Political Science Department at Tavrida University.  Panel presenters introduced their audience to both historical and present-day issues relating to Islam in Crimea, including an emphasis on the Crimean Tatars.  This panel and related excursions throughout Simferopol and Crimea over the following two-weeks continued the SSRC’s attempts to use the shifting locations of the summer institutes to highlight both similarities and differences in the role/s that Islam has played and continues to play throughout the vast and varied regions of Eurasia, both historically and contemporaneously.

Continuing the trend since 2005 towards fewer themes, this institute emphasized the two broad topics of Islamic Thought and Islamic Movements, spending approximately a week on each theme.  Resource faculty Zifa Auezova and Abdulkader Tayob lectured and moderated discussions during the first week on Islamic thought.  They were replaced by professors Alexander Knysh, John Schoeberlein, and Adeeb Khalid for the second week on Islamic movements.  Participants actively took part throughout the two weeks, each lecturing and responding to questions on pre-selected topics, with everyone joining in during group discussions.  Readings were assigned and distributed in advance to facilitate interaction, and additional guests joined the institute at various times, including local scholars Nariman Abdul’vaabov and Elmira Muratova.

Professor Svetlana Kirillina, Institute of Asian and African Studies at Moscow State University returned for a third summer as both a guest lecturer and to continue work towards the eventual publication of a Guide to the Teaching of Islam in Eurasia, an attempt to share the combined knowledge of the institute participants on the variety of ways and places in which Islam is currently being taught at institutions of higher education throughout Eurasia, including a focus on the institutions, the types of courses, and the varied curriculums in use.  Work on this publication will continue throughout 2008, as will a number of other activities evolving out of the past three summers.

Initial plans for these activities include a special meeting and presentations in Moscow, Russia in December 2007 at a conference entitled “The World of Islam: History, Society & Culture,” and another conference in Kazan, Russia in spring 2008 on “Jadidism and Islam in Eurasia: History and Present Day.”  Additional meetings and public presentations are also scheduled to take place in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan in winter 2007 and will include guest lectures in university classrooms as well as panels on both curriculum and research topics at a number of local universities and institutes.  Additional activities are currently being planned for other locations, including the Caucasus.