Objectively, nowadays the spreading of Islam in Ukraine is carried out in two directions. The first is revival of Islam in the environment of the people practicing it traditionally. The second is familiarizing with Islam of the representatives of the people interested in it, which historically adhere to other religions.
N.F. Rybachuk, Doctor of Philosophy, professor.
Revival of Islam in traditionally Muslim ethnoses began and takes place rather quickly, though problematically. Advancement in the second direction generates a number of difficult questions.
Any religious movement is successful not only owing to its internal advantages, its unquestionable validity. The success comes when it has support in the society, and becomes the object of interest. With reference to Islam there is a difficult situation in Ukraine now. On the one hand, in Ukraine are created legal conditions for development of various religions, including Islam. On the other hand, Islam should strengthen its positions not in vacuum, but in mainly Christian society. The reality is that the Muslims in the Ukrainian society are treated somehow suspiciously. The reasons for that are also the remembrances about wars between Ukrainians and their southern Muslim neighbors, and absence of ethnic roots of Islam in eastern Slavic peoples. And though, as it writes in his work "Islam in Ukraine" the Ukrainian scholar N.I. Kirushko, the mentioned wars had no religious character (did not put forward the religious-missionary purposes), hard historical memory somehow remains. Islam is thus perceived in the Ukrainian environment as foreign religion. The accurate archetype of Islam is the foreign phenomenon. Along with it, as it is stated in the aforementioned work, nowadays the mentality of Ukrainians is not focused on monotheism in that kind in which it is represented in Islam.
At the same time there is a paradoxical opinion that Ukrainians in their roots are supposedly the Turks who just speak the Slavic language. Then the known in the history facts when ethnic Ukrainians converted to Islam would not be casual. Their analysis shows that conversion to Islam took place in most cases not as a result of world outlook searches, but in the context of developing vital circumstances, for practical reasons. Material, financial support of academic Islamic studying in Ukraine is also of great importance, after all it is known, that not so many devout Muslims acquainted Europe with spiritual riches of Islam, its philosophy and art, but a lot of scholars of Islamic studies.
Nowadays it is necessary for the "religion of the Prophet" to coincide with the context of national-cultural life of Ukraine. For overcoming of the designated stereotypes Islam should not be represented to the Ukrainians as religion of Arabs and Turks. Islam in Ukraine should as if to acquire elements of national culture interfaced to Islam. There are a lot of ways here, including magazine release in the Ukrainian language, translation the Quran and Sunna into this language, use of centenary communications between the cultures of Ukrainian and Farsi ethnoses and many other things.
The special importance acquires refusal of demonstrative emphasizing of exclusiveness, the absolute validity of the religion. After all, Ukraine is the multi-confessional country, and Ukrainians are tolerant people. In public is set the opinion about acceptability and equality of all religions acting within the limits of the law. It is important for the Islamic movement to adjust dialogue with other faiths in Ukraine. Joint actions, statements, press conferences, charitable actions are essential for this purpose. Only during joint socially useful actions it will be possible to break the stereotype about Islam as the alien religion.
By IslamNews.ru
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