Islam among Crimean Tatars: the features of the ethno-confessional situation
In the article the author analyzed the cultural and social-political role of the Islam and religious policy of local authorities in Crimea considering religious diversity of the peninsula and political conditions after March 2014 when Russia took control over the territory of Crimea during the Russian-Ukrainian crisis (Ukraine and Parliament Assembly of the Council of Europe as well as USA and many other countries define the transition of Crimea to Russia as annexation act). The article based on the field sociological research of the religious life that the author held in Crimea in 2016. The expert interviews grounded in the social-anthropological approach that based on using methods of the holding of the open interviews or conversations with the respondents. The author makes a conclusion that after 2014 began a new period of the development of Islam and new national self-determination of Crimean Tatars on the peninsula connected with the self-determination of the national Islam as well as with the spiritual searches of the Crimean Tatars intelligentsia. Religious progress at that period determined by the dialogue or countering with the sufists, salafists and with representatives of the national movement that are opposite or loyal to Russia. So far as radical elements of Muslim ummah (prohibited in Russia movement «Khizb-ut-Takhrir») left the peninsula the most influential Spiritual association of Muslims of Crimea have to prove its loyalty to the Russian authorities that began to provide the policy of supporting of two competing Muslim organizations.