On February 26 in the Art hall the Mufti of Chelyabinsk and Kurgan regions Rinat-khazrat Raev met students of South Ural State University. The rector of SUSU Alexander Shestakov, the head of the Administration of Regional Spiritual Directorate of the Muslims Marat Sabirov and the head of the National Policy Directorate of the Ministry of Culture of Chelyabinsk region Ilya Anosov were present at this meeting.
Ilya Anosov says in his welcoming speech, “In the current geopolitical situation we can observe that the Islamic community is actively radicalized, but Islam is not extremism. In most cases a dangerous ideology is disseminated because of imperfection of the institutional and management structure. In this respect our region is quite stable: an agreement with the Supreme Mufti of Russia was made more than 10 years ago, that’s why practically all registered in the region Muslim spiritual organizations are referred to the Central Spiritual Directorate”.
The Mufti appealing to students has emphasized that he is really glad to see them and considers this meeting an important educational event. In the course of his speech he told students who can be considered Muslims, on what ideas Muslim faith is based, what books are believed to be scriptures in Islam and what options in respect of faith and religion people have today. Rinat-khazrat Raev also pointed out that learning opportunity is a challenging and important stage in personality development.
The Mufti covered the problems of misunderstanding of Islam and the Koran, as well as the use of this interpretation for compelling people to commit dangerous and unlawful actions. Besides, he showed his concern that people are increasingly divided according to national and regional principles. The Mufti thinks that the knowledge and right understanding of the fundamentals of Islam can help in solution of this problem.
Students asked the Mufti a number of questions. In particular, the Mufti was asked about jihad and by what signs one can identify people who misunderstand the principles of Islam.
At the end of the meeting Rinat-khazrat Raev thanked all students and expressed his hope that such events will be a good tradition of interacting with the representatives of traditional religious organizations.