Recent Soviet Islamology

Since the mid-1960s' Islamic Studies in the U .S.S.R. have increasingly crystallized as a structurally complex discipline. This process has led to an even greater degree of autonomy, on both the cognitive and institutional levels, from traditional Oriental Studies and general Religionswissenschaft . 2 In pursuing specific philosophical and sociological objectives the discipline has its own principles of data formation, logical and culturally 'processual' thought, mechanisms for translation of both the `essential' and symbolic features of the cultural heritage, and special channels of perception and reconceptualization . This is not merely a renovation of the fundamental concepts of Islamological science. It is not just an important change in its methodological or instrumental armoury, nor is it only an evolution of the forms and motivation of scientific activity in the field of study of the Muslim religion . It is also a complex of more profound and far-reaching phenomena, which are the direct result of radical changes in Soviet intellectual culture after 1953 . During this period, as compared with the 1940s and early 1950s, there was a far-reaching transformation in both the logical pattern and indeed the very style ofscientific thought. A serious danger of conceptual stagnation, which threatened the study of Islam, was overcome only by means of factual and heuristic accuracy . This change was manifested in new approaches to the object of knowledge, new principles of theoretical comprehension of the subject of the research, and, above all, by a heavy dependence upon the discipline of sociology . Emerging as a new `borderline' sub-discipline, the sociology of Islam, by its very nature, lent itself to continuous expansion in the repertoire of its subjectmatter. The field of research was determined by the diversity of interactions between the indigenous population of traditionally Islamic regions, and religious and quasi-religious institutions . Account needed also to be taken of the `system of atheistic education' 3 continuously deployed by the State. This move towards empirical studies was caused by the need to combat a process of minimisation directed at such basic elements as `the religious complex'

Epistemology · Object (grammar) · Social science · Sociology · Subject (documents) · Eurasian Exchange Networks · Philosophy · Religious Studies and Spiritual Practices

• Introductory essay. Crisis and creativity

  Steven Joseph Engler, Steven Engler et al.•Religion•2011

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• Carl Heinrich Becker

  Open Access•Mark Batunsky•International Journal Middle East…•1981

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