15th anniversary of the reconstructed Nizhny Novgorod Cathedral Mosque

Nizhny Novgorod Cathedral Mosque built at the beginning of the 20th century ceased to be a place to gather Muslims in the years of Soviet power. Its building with destroyed minaret and dome was used for social needs up until 1991 when Muslim community won it back in its possession. Thus reconstructed with a newly built minaret the mosque opened its doors to Nizhny Novgorod Muslims once more 15 years ago. To mark this event the Religious Board of Muslims for the Nizhny Novgorod Region held a series of festive events including academic conference Islamic Institutions in Contemporary Russia

Representatives of Muslim clergy from Moscow, Ulyanovsk, Nizhnekamsk, city officials, leading religious and public leaders along with over a hundred mosque-goers came to honour all the activists of the Muslim community who maintained the reconstruction works. One of the most important events of the anniversary day was the academic conference Islamic Institutions in Contemporary Russia held in the building of the Cathedral Mosque.

The conference gathered religious leaders of Muslim organizations of the European part of Russia and leading scholars and experts on Islam from Moscow, Kazan, Yaroslavl and Nizhny Novgorod. It opened with the presentation of several newly issued books of the Publishing House Medina. Among them a book Azan over the Volga River that tells the story of Nizhny Novgorod Cathedral mosque and the people who kept it up throughout the years of its existence, quarterly Islam in Contemporary World: National and International Aspects, and a collection of lectures of the Third Annual Academic Conference Faizkhanov Readings.

The participants of the conference spoke on the problems of contemporary system of religious education in Russia and possible ways of solving them taking into account previous experience of Russian Muslims and of some of the Muslim states. After the discussion they came to the conclusion that the institution of religious education is the one to determine further development of Russian Muslim community upon the whole. Thus it apparently should combine the scholastic pattern of Muslim education of the 19th — early 20th century and jadidism traditions with their openness to innovations in the world humanitarian sciences.