Liberal Islamic Theology in Conservative Russia: Taufik Ibragim’s “Qurʾānic Humanism”

Abstract

This article studies the work of the Moscow-based Syrian academic scholar Taufik Ibragim. Originally a Marxist historian of Islamic philosophy and kalām, after the end of the ussr Ibragim became one of Russia’s most authoritative scholars also of the Qurʾān and the Islamic tradition more broadly. Since the mid-2000s, Ibragim has publicly propagated the concept of “Qurʾānic humanism”, which is meant to demonstrate the tolerance of the Qurʾān and the humanist character of Islam in general, against Islamic extremism and stagnation in Muslim thought. In his opposition to the dominant political “traditionalism” in Russia’s Islamic landscape, Ibragim links back to the heritage of the Tatar Muslim educational and religious reformers (Jadids) of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Without reference to any other contemporary Islamic thinker, Ibragim advocates a reform of Islam to adapt it to the conditions of modern Russia. His interpretations appeal to Russia’s academic elite, as well as to the Jadid-oriented muftiate of the Russian Federation (dumrf) in Moscow, which until recently propagated Ibragim’s concepts against the vague “traditionalism” that other muftiates in the Russian Federation claim to follow. But his insistence on a rational approach to the Qurʾān and his challenging of the authority of ḥadīth have brought Ibragim the enmity of many conservative muftis and Muslim theologians in Russia, and Islamic reformism is under increasing attack.