A Requiem for “Jadidism”? Debates on Islamic Education in Contemporary Tatarstan

Over the last two decades, the public discourse on Islam in Tatarstan has seen a shift from celebrating “Jadidism” to a new emphasis on “Qadimism”. This paper explores the Tatar national movement’s use of “Jadidism” in the 1990s and 2000s and then reconstructs the “Qadimist” countertrend which started to gain visibility with the works of DUM RT deputy mufti Valiulla Yakupov (d. 2012), and which became dominant in the religious establishment of DUM RT under Mufti Kamil’ Samigullin (in office since 2013). In the second part of the paper we trace the marginalization of “Jadid” literature in Tatarstan’s Islamic teaching institutions. We argue that also “Qadimism”, as the discursive counterpart of “Jadidism”, has undergone changes in scope and meaning over time, and eventually became a self-ascription of the current Islamic leadership. Furthermore, our paper compares the attack on “Jadidophilia” by religious leaders in Tatarstan with the ongoing critique of “Jadidophilia” by Western academic scholars.