Ravil Gaynutdin: ‘We must unite all our efforts to prevent a universal immoral catastrophe’
Muslim Spiritual Board of Russia has returned to Kazan with a large-scale conference in the run-up to the BRICS heads of state meeting
The V Spiritual Silk Road: Importance of Religious Values in the Space of Greater Eurasia International Scientific and Theological Conference took place in the Ballroom of the Korston Hotel on 25 July. Scheduled for two hours, before noon prayer, the first half of the plenary session of the conference eventually stretched for another half hour, because each of the speakers, and there were 14 of them, found time for philosophy and for a story about achievements and confrontations in the world. Read the details in the material of Realnoe Vremya.
Urumqi — Bishkek — Alma Ata — Bolgar — Kazan
In the foyer, guests could see shamails from the turn of the last two centuries, as well as the works of modern calligrapher Gulnaz Ismagilova: in one of them she displayed Musa Jalil's poem “The Last Song”, and in the other she stylised the text to match the silhouette of a woman. According to her, the interest was so great that she took a tour several times.
For the first time, the conference was held in 2016 in Urumqi, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region of China. In 2017, it was organised in Bolgar and Kazan, after which it moved to Bishkek, then, in 2019, to Alma-Ata. Now five years later, it has returned to Kazan, in the run-up to the meeting of the BRICS heads of member state. The topic — The Importance of Religious Values in The Space of Greater Eurasia.
“The choice of this topic as the name is due to the official accession of the United Arab Emirates to the BRICS group and is aimed at discussing the role of religion in achieving the strategic goals of the group's member countries," said the rector of the Mohamed Bin Zayed University for Humanities (the university co-organised the conference) Mubarak Al-Zahiri.
The most ambitious was the speech of the chairman of the Muslim Spiritual Board of the Russian Federation, the Council of Muftis of Russia, Sheikh Ravil Gaynutdin, whom the moderator, his deputy Rushan Abbyasov, called “the spiritual leader of Muslims of Russia”. Recalling the role of Russian Muslim theologians, muftis, and imams of the past, Gaynutdin noted:
“Inspired by their example, drawing wisdom from their deep heritage, today we also need to faithfully defend these timeless values, only in the face of new threats and challenges, using modern models and concepts. We all see how in today's post-industrial societies, with their high technologies and innovations, catastrophic moral degradation is simultaneously taking place, characterised by militant secularism, propaganda of absolute permissiveness and promiscuity, the destruction of family institutions and upbringing. Moreover, this pseudo-culture is aggressively broadcast to all corners of the globe as the only true and progressive one.
Gaynutdin called those present “spiritual pastors of their peoples, who have chosen to serve God and spread His commandments among people as their mission”, who “are obliged to unite all their efforts to prevent a universal immoral catastrophe, end segregation based on the principle of the “high” culture of one region and the spiritual “backwardness” of other countries.”
Humanitarian values do not change
He also listed the “Fundamentals of state policy for the preservation and strengthening of traditional Russian spiritual and moral values” approved by Russia's President Vladimir Putin and concluded:
“Each of these points is fundamental to the Islamic doctrine of morality. They are constantly called to them from the minbars of our mosques, they are brought up at the desks of our madrassas," Gaynutdin concluded.
“Religious leaders in the BRICS group are becoming increasingly culturally important," said Mubarak Al-Zahiri. “And they are expected to play an important role in relation to their countries, societies and states. This is the role of dialogue in order to identify common features that unite the religions to which they belong. Undoubtedly, humanitarian values are the core of these common features and have the property of permanence. They do not change, no matter how much languages, customs and traditions change.
“We, as religious figures, call on a return to moral and religious values, and also urge to avoid following Western values," Ayatollah Alireza Arafi, the chairman of Iran's theological seminaries, echoed his colleagues, who later explained these terms in detail from the point of view of Islam.
About how Russia was admired in the past and why it is necessary to go to the contemporary Tatarstan
Among the foreign guests, the most important speech belonged to Dr. Usama Al-Azhari, who has recently become the Minister of Waqfs of the Arab Republic of Egypt.
“I would like to go back 170 years ago, in particular, the doctor said and remembered Muhammad Ayad Tantawi (before him, the then ruler, who was interested in other civilisations, sent his fellow scientist to Paris). “And then the sheikh sent the second envoy, when he learned Russian, to Russia, he lived in St. Petersburg and taught there for 20 years at one of the largest universities in Russia. And your orientalists were delighted with him. Ignatius Krachkovsky wrote about him in Arabic.
We add that Tantawi is the author of the Description of Russia (“A gift to the intelligent with messages about the country of Russia” — Tuhfat al-azkiya bi-akhbar bilad Rusiya).
The Mufti of Tatarstan, Kamil khazrat Samigullin, who spoke already in the afternoon, complained that he did not have enough time to list the achievements of local scientists, invited guests to cooperate and told about the vectors of development of the modern Tatar Ummah.
“Tatarstan is the largest centre for the development of Islamic finance in Russia. To date, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Tatarstan has developed 15 unique Islamic products for 14 financial organisations. These are mortgages, debit cards, settlement accounts for legal entities and individuals, project financing, leasing, factoring, acquiring, surety, pension savings, cashback, investments and securities, installments... At the same time, we have not only developed them, but also carry out further external Sharia audit of their sales. We at the MSB RT adhere to one fundamental principle in this matter: the most important aspect of the Islamic finance market in Russia should be expertise and Sharia control.
“But most of all, in the confrontation with the West, the hearts of Russian Muslims ache for the co-religionists in Gaza," the republican mufti concluded his speech.
Afterwards, scientists, imams, and officials discussed two topics at the conference site. This is “The Quran in the forms and images of modern Islamic culture and education”. Here, for example, the imam-khatib of the Yardem mosque, Ildar khazrat Bayazitov, talked about the experience of teaching the Koran to blind people. And “The Peoples of Greater Eurasia: modern ethnographic studies of religious everyday life” — in particular, senior researcher at the Institute of Ethnological Research (Ufa) Zilya Khabibullina spoke about modern Sufism in Bashkortostan. In the evening, the National Library hosted the forum of Muslim youth of the BRICS member countries “Creation. Responsibility. Leadership”.