Staff of the Scientific Laboratory on the analysis and modeling of social processes are actively involved in making of the online course “Islam: history, culture and practice”.

The course examines and analyzes the emergence of Islam as a religious teaching and practice, as well as its subsequent development as a cultural and socio-political tradition in various historical and cultural circumstances and regions. The course examines the struggle of ideas and the clash of socio-political movements, based on various interpretations of the foundations of Muslim dogma. The cornerstone of the methodological complex of this educational complex is the concept of internal diversity, “multidimensionality” and “polyphony” of the Muslim tradition, as well as the dynamics of its interaction with non-Islamic value systems, religions and societies.

The course is recorded at several venues: the State Hermitage Museum, the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography RAS and St. Petersburg State University.

The course authors are: Doctor of Historical Sciences, Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences, General Director of the State Hermitage Museum, Dean of the Faculty of Oriental Studies of St. Petersburg State University M. B. Piotrovsky; Professor of Islamic Studies at the University of Michigan, Head of the Scientific Laboratory for Analysis and Modeling of Social Processes at St. Petersburg State University A.D. Knysh; Professor, Deputy Director of the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography, Russian Academy of Sciences E.A. Rezvan; Ph.D., Senior Lecturer, Department of Philosophy and Cultural Studies of the East, Institute of Philosophy, researcher of the Scientific Laboratory for Analysis and Modeling of Social Processes, St. Petersburg State University A.I. Matochkina; Ph.D., Assistant, Department of Arabic Philology, Faculty of Oriental Studies, researcher of the Scientific Laboratory for Analysis and Modeling of Social Processes, St. Petersburg State University D.V. Ulanova.

The online course will be available on the Open Education educational platform ( https://openedu.ru ) in the fall of 2017.