Means of communication and socio-legal aspects of interaction between subjects of religious-penitentiary space: the case of Muslims

The Constitutional and Legal Institute of Religious Freedom in the Penitentiary System is subordinated to and regulated by the rules established by the Federal Executive Body exercising law enforcement functions in the fi eld of execution of sentences (FSIN of Russia). Finding themselves isolated from society, ethnic and practising Muslims, sentenced to imprisonment, feel forced restrictions on the religious freedom. The time and place of Muslims who perform religious rites and rituals are regulated by the documents issued by the Ministry of Justice of Russia were outlined the internal regulations for correctional institutions. The state is entrusted with the duty to provide in prisons a special environment, which would enable the spiritual nourishment of Muslims, whose rights to freedom of religious life are supported by centralized Islamic religious organizations. The civil institutions exercise public control over this implementation. At the same time, the Russian State is increasingly interested in interacting with the main subjects of the religious and penitentiary space. Among them there are offi cial structures of the Islamic Ummah, sending educated imams and Islamic theologians for religious service in prisons, representatives of the Islamic expert community, also there are Public Councils on the problems of the penitentiary system under the Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia. The present author considers the activities of Muslim spiritual departments to provide prison libraries with religious literature (the Holy Quran and semantic translations, the Hadith of Prophet Muhammad, His biography, books on Islamic law) as well as the best examples of religious literature, which manifest the traditional values of Russian Islam and the imperatives of a positive socio-cultural environment to be the signifi cant means of communication in the religious-penitentiary environment.

Piśmiennictwo religijne polskich Tatarów w okresie powojennym (1945–1989)

Religious Literature of Polish Tatars in the Post-War Period (1945–1989)The article opens with a general overview of the socio-political situation of the Tatars and the specificity of their religiosity in the People’s Republic of Poland (1945–1989), leading to the main part: an analysis of ephemeral religious prints created and distributed by Polish Tatars. The description of the sources is introduced with a presentation of the broad socio-political context which determined the functioning of this minority after World War II. The study characterises the basic types of religious literature of the Tatars: (a) traditional manuscripts, (b) periodicals and publishing activities, (c) ephemeral prints. It also considers the significance of these types of literature in the period between 1945 and 1989. The analysis of seven prayer books and three teaching materials provides the basis of general observations concerning ephemeral religious prints created by Polish Tatars after World War II. The analysed sources have not as yet been studied by researchers. Piśmiennictwo religijne polskich Tatarów w okresie powojennym (1945–1989)Artykuł rozpoczyna się od przybliżenia położenia społeczno-politycznego Tatarów w PRL-u oraz specyfiki ich religijności, by dojść do szczegółowych kwestii, związanych z analizą religijnych druków ulotnych opracowanych przez polskich Tatarów. Charakterystykę opartą na źródłach poprzedziło zatem przedstawienie szerokiego kontekstu społeczno-politycznego, który determinował sposób funkcjonowania tej mniejszości w Polsce po II wojnie światowej. Autorzy scharakteryzowali podstawowe typy piśmiennictwa religijnego Tatarów: a) tradycyjne rękopiśmiennictwo, b) czasopiśmiennictwo i działalność wydawniczą, c) druki ulotne. Zwrócono przy tym uwagę na znaczenie poszczególnych rodzajów piśmiennictwa w okresie 1945–1989. Charakterystyki religijnych druków ulotnych, opracowanych przez polskich Tatarów po II wojnie światowej, dokonano na przykładzie 7 modlitewników oraz 3 materiałów dydaktycznych. Dokumenty te dotąd nie były przedmiotem badań naukowych.

Catalog of Religious Literature Preserved in Turaida (1671–1992)

Kreišmane, Līga. Bībeles, dziesmu un sprediķu grāmatas Turaidas muzejrezervāta krājumā. Rīga: Dardedze Hologrāfija, 2020. 191 p. ISBN 978-9934-8524-6-6.

L’ESEGESI CORANICA, IL SUFISMO SCIITA E LA METAFISICA DI IBN ʿARABĪ: CONSIDERAZIONI SULLA STORIA INTELLETTUALE DEL SUFISMO SCIITA NEL XIX SECOLO

Riassunto: Ibn ʿArabī ebbe una influenza profonda e duratura sulla tarda filosfia del mondo dell’Islam, in particolare nelle sue regioni orientali. La sua influenza fu talmente pervasiva che temi, vocabolario e concetti di origine ‘akbariana’ divennero comuni e prevalenti nella letteratura religiosa per moderna e moderna. Questo articolo tocca alcune di queste idee e concetti, in particolare l’approccio di Ibn ʿArabī alla nozione di ‘unità’ così come rialaborato nel lavoro di un importante, ancorché poco studiato sino ad oggi, maestro sufi sciita, Sulṭān ʿAlī Shāh Gunābādī (m. 1909). Questo studio del lavoro di Sulṭān ʿAlī Shāh dimostra come il maestro iraniano negozi la sua lealtà ideale nei confronti dello Shaykh al-Akbar, mantenendo al contampo una cristallina consapevolezza della delicatezza dei temi trattati prendendo le necessarie distanze dalla lettera della teoria, ove ciò fosse necessario, eppure nello stesso tempo corroborando la propria adesione intellettuale e spirituale al cuore della metafisica del maestro andaluso. Abstract: Ibn ʿArabī had a profound influence on later Islamic philosophy and mysticism, in particular in the Muslim East. His influence was pervasive to the point that Akbarian themes, vocabulary and main ideas are common currency in early modern and modern Iranian religious literature. This article covers the issue of some of these themes and ideas, namely Ibn ʿArabī’s understanding of ‘unity’ (waḥda), as exposed in the work of a prominent, albeit understudied, Shiʿi Sufi Master, Sulṭān ʿAlī Shāh Gunābādī (d. 1909). This survey of Sulṭān ʿAlī Shāh’s work shows how the Iranian master negotiates his allegiance to the Shaykh al-Akbar while maintaining a sharp awareness of the sensitivity of his main ideas, distancing himself from the letter of the theory when needed, while at the same time reinforcing his theoretical adherence to the core of the Andalusian master’s metaphysics.

Religious and moralistic works in the repertoire of the printing house of Daniel Adam Veleslavin

The author analyzes the publishing activity of the Czech typographer of the XVI century Daniel Adam Veleslavin, identifies the repertoire of publications, in particular the publication of religious and moralistic works, considers their role and place in the publishing products of the printing house and their significance for the Czech reader. Reference to sources, in particular to the bibliography of Czech publications, suggests that the printing house of Veleslavina produced moral and religious literature that did not have a narrow religious function, but it was always aimed at life practice.

Termes exprimant la notion d’amour en grec, leurs traductions adoptées et leur contexte d’emploi dans les Évangiles synoptiques et dans l’Évangile selon saint Jean

The purpose of the present article is the analysis of the Greek terms expressing the concept of love ἔρως (eros), στοργή (storge), φιλία (philia) and ἀγάπη (agape) and the impact of their semantic character on the uses appearing in the Bible. The author is primarily concerned with the study of etymology and determination of historical changes in the meaning of the analyzed terms, their use in secular and religious literature, in classical and late Greek.The next step is a detailed analysis of the verbs φιλέω (phileo) and ἀγαπάω (agapao), which are the only of the four terms to appear in the Gospels. The text ends by indicating for each form used in the Gospels its semantic scope and checking whether it corresponds to the basic semantic features of each of the verbs.

PROBLEMS OF TRANSLATING RUSSIAN RELIGIOUS LITERATURE INTO CHINESE FOR CHINESE TRANSLATORS (ON THE EXAMPLE OF A. VARLAMOV’S NOVEL «THE SUNKEN ARK»)

Varlamov’s novel «The Sunken Ark» is a philosophical story about Russian Orthodoxy, which also affected Chinese readers. The author focused his attention on the translation of this novel. What problems are there in Russian religious literature for Chinese translators and even Russian language learners? Three issues are analyzed, from basic religious vocabulary to religious philosophy. You can get to literary art by overcoming the language barrier.

Religiosity in Pulamai ilakkanam

Until the Sangam literary period (till 200 AD), Tamil language was secular and Tamil literature was created with an emphasis on virtue in both internal and external life. After that, religious literature started appearing in Tamil language. Tamil grammar texts are based on literature that appeared in different periods. Thus the “Pulamai ilakkanam” (grammar for scholarliness) composed by Vannacharabam Dantapani swami reveals the literary context that prevailed in the 19th century when he lived. Pulamai ilakkanam shows the author's religiosity and the religious beliefs and devotion in the field of education and literature at that time. Grammar is the rules for creating literature. If so, constructing Tamil scholarliness in relation to a particular religion would be tantamount to narrow down the breadth of the Tamil language. Based on the content of Pulamai ilakkanam and the literary context of the time, this article discusses the dominance of the religions over Tamil literature and the use oflanguage by religions for their development.

From the Company Town to the Innovation Zone: Frontiers of Public Policy, the State Action Doctrine, and the First Amendment

This article draws on the state action doctrine and the case Marsh v. Alabama to evaluate a recent proposal to create an unprecedented public-private partnership in the state of Nevada. In Marsh, the Supreme Court of the United States held that a private citizen was protected under the U.S. Constitution's First and Fourteenth Amendments in distributing religious literature on the sidewalk of a “company-owned” town. We make the case that both the state policy under consideration and a number of political and economic trend lines indicate that the issue central to Marsh remains pressing at the start of our new millennium: what are the circumstances under which concentrated private power amounts to something akin to government authority, thereby implicating the protections of the national Constitution? Our goal in this piece is not to offer an exhaustive or thorough review of the particulars of the “Innovation Zone” bill under consideration, but to consider, in advance, constitutional problems that might arise from granting corporations broad powers traditionally wielded by governments.

The Representation of Earthquakes in Hindu Religion: A Literature Review to Improve Educational Communications in Nepal

In Nepal, after every large earthquake, local people appear to be motivated to get better prepared for future earthquakes. However, their motivation vanishes before effective preparation, mainly due to the lack of earthquake education in their community. Promoting up-to-date scientific knowledge to a society living under high earthquake hazard is important and contributes to reduce the related risk. The dissemination of information in Nepal lags far behind modern seismological knowledge, and part of the local population still believes in religious explanations and stories about earthquakes. We run an educational program in Nepal to make people better aware of earthquakes and to improve their preparedness through obligatory school education, but the dichotomy between scientific and religious visions of earthquakes remains a challenge. For more efficient acceptance of earthquake preparatory advices, it is important to better perceive the religious narration of earthquakes and to include these in the educational communications. Thereby, we reviewed the main sources of Hindu literature and gathered relevant and interesting explanations on earthquake evidences and causes. The primary religious interpretations of earthquakes in different Hindu texts are related to the Gods and their actions, and some sources also include physical descriptions of earthquakes related situations or processes. We found that most of the stories, causes and explanations of earthquake do not match with the concepts of modern science, yet there are exceptions such as a historically old advice to leave buildings during the shaking. The collected findings are important not only from a religious literature review perspective, but also and mainly to develop an inclusive and more efficient strategy to communicate about earthquake related topics in the classroom as well as with the public in Nepal.