Musa Bigiev and his contemporaries on the state of the Muslim education system

The article introduces the testimonies and reflections of outstanding Muslim intellectuals of the Russian Empire on the state of the educational process at Muslim educational institutions in Russia and among the Muslim expatriate community at the turn of the 19th–20th centuries, which was inadequate to the challenges of the Modern era. The author of the article traces the history of the formation of Muslim education among the Tatar population of the Russian Empire back to the era of the adoption of Islam by the Volga Bulgaria. An analysis of connections with various educational centers in Central and Central Asia demonstrates the specifics of the formation of an educational system common to all Muslims of the Russian civilization. The paper presents numerous sources and testimonies of Tatar Muslim intellectuals, who were trained at Tatar Islamic educational institutions of the first and second stages in late 18th – early 19th centuries. The materials allow us to examine in detail and evaluate the disadvatnages and outdated principles of teaching methods for shakirds, Muslim students. Fragments of letters, memoirs, publicistic articles in the Tatar printed media of such famous Tatar public figures as M. Bigiev, G. Kursavi, Sh. Marjani, K. Nasyri, R. Fakhretdin, S. Ayni, and G. Idrisi demonstrate the tendency, which became relevant in the Tatar society at that time, to overcome medieval dogmatism and scholasticism in youth education. The development of the scientific and technological progress and the formation of a bourgeois layer in the Tatar society actualised the value of free thinking, which directly correlated with the importance of the Tatar theological thought development: a deep study of theological subjects – the interpretation of the Koran, the tradition of Muhammad and Islamic jurisprudence. The information contained in the presented materials remains relevant today, since, on the one hand, it allows us to take into account the mistakes of the past, while, on the other hand, it can and should be used in the process of organising and content-filling the educational process at existing and future Muslim educational institutions in the Russian federation.