Issue of Waqf in the context of establishment of Muslim institutions in the post-Soviet Tatarstan

Abstract

© the author(s). The importance of the issue under study is specified by the increasing significance of the religious factor in the social and political, religious and cultural life of global community and Russia in the 21^st century. The aim of the article is to find out and analyze the tendencies of the development of Waqf system among Tatars at the end of the 20^th and at the beginning of the 21^st centuries, to determine the possibilities of religious institutions' financing by means of engaging and adapting such traditional instruments as Waqf to the modern conditions. The main method of the research is historical and comparative method, at the example of successful existence of Waqf property in the Russian Empire until 1917. Previous experience is compared with the modern state in the realities of the current Russian legislation. The article highlights the impossibility of the unimpaired operation of Waqf institution in the framework of available legal base and in the conditions of secular state. Alongside with this there offered ways of legitimization of separate principles of Waqf institution in the framework of current Russian legislation. The article presents the results indicating historical experience of the functioning of Waqf among Tatar in the past, rather successful existence of Waqf in the sovereign Tatarstan in the 1990s in the framework of local legislation, as well as failed attempts of the local authorities to solve the issue of Waqf property in the federal and all-Russia level. The article materials might be useful in the further study of institutional history of Russian Islam, as well as in modern social discussions about the role of religion in the secular space, and also in forming scientific and methodological, regulatory and legal framework to improve government policy about religion.