On the 31 of October Moscow hosted a meeting of the working group on the organization and monitoring of the implementation of the action plan of the training of specialists with an in-depth knowledge of the history and culture of Islam in 2014-2016.
During the meeting, the problems of the methodology for the implementation of educational programs, their educational and methodological support in the context of the current challenges facing Islamic and Islamic studies in the Russian Federation were discussed. The meeting was chaired by the Deputy Minister of Education and Science V. Kaganov. The event was also attended by heads of educational institutions conducting a program “Training the students with an in-depth knowledge of the history and culture of Islam” and the representatives of Muslim spiritual departments. St. Petersburg State University was represented by M. Lavrikova, Vice-Rector for Academic and Methodical Work, O. Redkin, Head of the Department of Arabic Philology, and O. Bernikova, head of the working group on the training of specialists with in-depth knowledge of Islam’s history and culture.

The meeting was held in the framework of the IX International Theological Scientific and Educational Conference “Reading named after Galymdzhan Barudi” on the topic “Islamic theology and objectives of Islamic education,” during which O. Redkin and O. Bernikova also spoke at the round table meeting “Islam and the Muslim world as objects of scientific knowledge. Goals of scientific periodicals in the context of the development of theological tradition ”, held with the support of the Higher Attestation Commission under the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation. The key topic discussed at the conference was the readiness of modern Russian Muslims to cooperate with state universities and the scientific community – including on the basis of already existing models of Islamic intellectual tradition – for the development of theological thought and Muslim education in Russia. The conference participants also focused on understanding the heritage of a prominent Tatar religious leader, theologian and enlightener Galimdzhan Barudi (1857 – 1921) – the first elected mufti of Russian Muslims, the founder of the famous Madrasa Muhammadia, in the context of modern Muslim thought.
The conference was attended by many Russian and foreign representatives of public and private educational organizations, research institutions, expert communities and centers of Islamic research.