PSIA Seminar: External Religious Influences in Azerbaijan – Reshaping National Islam

The seminar deals with the impact of Iranian, Turkish, Arabic variations of “Islam” on reshaping the “national Islam” in Azerbaijan. It will also look into the activities of moderate, conservative and radical Islamist movements in the territory of Azerbaijan, as well as the formation of new religious groups of Turkish, Iranian, and Arabic background. It argues that despite the fact that Azerbaijani authorities succeeded in containing the activities of foreign missionaries by closing their madrasas, banning foreign religious institutions, prohibiting participation of non-Azerbaijani preachers in religious services, ceremonies and rituals, however they failed to remove the deep-seated religious and ideological influences that foreign Islamic movements had managed to instill in Azerbaijan.

Arax Pashayan, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Yerevan State University

Arax Pashayan is Associate Professor at Yerevan State University. She is teaching courses on modern Islamic movements and ideologies in Arab countries. She is also a Senior research fellow on Arab countries at the Institute of Oriental Studies, Armenia. Dr. Pashayan’s research interests include Political Islam and modern history of the Middle East. She has published two monographs and a number of articles. Her recent book “Islam in Azerbaijan. The past and the present” was published in 2014 in Yerevan.

http://psia.aua.am/seminars-2016-2017/