CC BY
24
considerable section of the settled population there (about forty percent for the entire region, for Qatar and the UAE - 80, in Bahrain -50 percent, and 30 percent in Oman). About 70 percent of workforce staying in the CCASG have come from Asian developing countries. Their money transfers to the home countries are estimated at $70-80 billion a year. Indians form the biggest migrant community about six million (30 percent of all migrants), then follow people from Pakistan, the Philippines, Bangladesh and Indonesia. Two-thirds of all money transfers from the CCASG countries are sent to Asia. For most Asian economies they are an important source of the flow of foreign currency and foreign workforce. A. Rogozhin notes that expanding mutual ties between the CCASG and Asia creates new risks for the region. On the one hand this makes the CCASG countries more dependent on the economic development and stability of their biggest Asian partners. On the other, their socio-economic problems can become more complex since they will become more closely connected with the rapidly growing community of people of Asian origin in the CCASG countries.
Author of the abstract - Valentina Schensnovich
2019.01.010. OLGA BIBIKOVA. ISLAM AND MUSLIMS IN THE CZECH REPUBLIC // "Studies of Institute of Oriental Studies of RAS, № 4. Economic, social and political, communal problems of Afro-Asian countries,"Moscow, 2017, P. 326-339.
Keywords: atheism, Muslims, refugees, identity, xenophobia.
Olga Bibikova,
PhD(History),
Institute of Oriental Studies, RAS
After disintegration of Czechoslovakia the Czech Republic appeared on the map of Europe in 1993. As the researcher notes,
the most part of the population of the country (59%) refers to non-religious that allows to designate the Czech Republic as the least religious country of Europe. Traditionally in the Czech Republic Catholicism dominates. About 27.4% of the population are adherents of the Roman Catholic Church. Representatives of different nationalities and religions live in the Czech Republic. Up until recently there were no non-Christian religious communities (except Judaism) in the country. Open society and freedom of worship made possible emergence of new communities, first of all Protestants of the American type. However, the distrust in the state forces believers not to document their religious affiliation during polls and censuses.
Statistics recorded small number of Muslims: a little over 3 thousand. However, there are massively more natives of Muslim countries in the Czech Republic. The Czech Republic, being in the center of Europe, long since dealt with Muslim countries. The main contacts with Muslims were made with natives of neighboring countries - Bulgaria and Croatia which at the end of the 14th century came under influence of Ottomans. It is known that in the 10th century merchants from the East came to the Czech Republic for fur and slaves. The main information on Islam came from visiting merchants. Jan Hus (1369-1415), the ideologist of the Czech Reformation, mentioned in his works the Koran. During 1867-1918 the Czech Republic was a part of Austria-Hungary where there were also the territories inhabited by Muslims. In particular, Bosnia possessing a large number of the population islamized in the period of Ottoman domination in 1878 came under influence of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. In these conditions Bosnians began to move on the neighboring lands.
Some of them settled in the Czech lands. In 1912 the emperor Franz Joseph accepted the rights of Muslim community of the country. Then the Koran was translated into languages of Austria-Hungary including Czech. In 1918 failures at the fronts of World War I and an economic crisis led to disintegration of the Austro-Hungarian empire. The Bosnian Muslims who once moved to the
Czech Republic remained to live on the Czech lands. In 1934 hundreds of Muslims united and appealed to the authorities for recognition de jure of the Muslim organization. However official recognition did not happen. After World War II the Muslim community continued to be rather small, besides the policy of the government in the socialist period did not provide support of religious communities. During the rule of the president E. Benesh (1940-1945) a number of decrees of nationalist character was passed. In particular, Hungarians and Germans were almost expelled from the country. Concerning others, there were adopted laws limiting their rights. New attempts of Muslims to achieve registration of the community in the Prague spring of 1968 also weren't successful.
Return to a question of registration of Muslim association took place only in the mid-1970s after that in 1968 formed Union of Muslim communities appealed to the authorities for recognition. By that time in a number of the cities there were small, spontaneously created Muslim communities. The author notes that the aspiration to unite with compatriots or people of one belief - is the line particular to natives of Islam habitat. In 2015 the Muslim community of Karlovy Vary consisting of 10 people appealed to the city leaders to organize a stationary room for prayers so much so Karlovy Vary attracts foreign patients, including from Muslim countries. In particular, considering the high level of care in the Czech perinatal centers, there come women from rich Arab families.
In 2004 the Czech Republic became the member of the European Union. New opportunities for citizens of the country opened, many Muslims who were in the country temporally, immediately decided to use this situation - students, businessmen, especially as the new law allowed to apply for gaining citizenship for those who lived in the country more than 5 years. Among students the natives of the Arab countries dominate who arrived to study in the Czech universities. The education level in the Czech Republic meets the highest European criteria therefore natives of
different countries traditionally aspired to get here. Tellingly that 80% of students of the Arab origin, both Muslims, and Christians, get or already have the diploma of medical universities, and 20% -engineers. These are prestigious professions, demanded and well paid both on their homeland, and in the Czech Republic.
There are also large communities of Muslims from the neighboring European countries in the country: Albanians, Bosnians and also Caucasus natives. In general, among new immigrants of Muslim origin, both among students, and other categories men prevail. This circumstance, Olga Bibikova writes, logically assumes that thanks to marriages with Czech women the number of newly-converted Muslims grows. The number of Muslims in the country can't be exact owing to a traditional custom not to specify religious affiliation during a census. The sociologist from Charles University Carel Cerny gives figure -22 thousand people. Muslims of the Czech Republic profess Sunni Islam of hanafi sense. There is a small group of Shiites in the country (about 300 people).
In June, 1990 the Czech socialist republic which soon confirmed the rights of citizens, professing Islam was proclaimed. In spring, 1991 a meeting of the Union of Muslim religious establishments took place in Prague. The same year two Muslim communities - in Prague and in Brno - received the official status. In 1992 prayer hall was opened in Brno for the first time. It does not differ from neighboring buildings and has no minaret. Before Muslims gathered for a Friday prayer in tenancies and even in one of premises of Egyptian Embassy in Czechoslovakia. Two years later it was opened the Islamic fund which purpose was a creation of conditions for performance of acts of worship. Thanks to donations the Fund could get in 1995 a ground for construction of a mosque. In 1998 the mosque was built. Subsequently and in Prague near Wenceslas Square it was allocated and arranged a room (in Jiri Grossman's passage) used as mosque. In several years on the skirts of the city the cathedral mosque was built. The imam of the central mosque of Prague is Vladimir Sanka, a Czech
converted to Islam. Some more chapels emerged in Prague. The Czech press mentions "the Turkish mosque" in Pivovarnitsk Street where the imam is a native of Turkey Sadriddin. Natives of Turkey and Uzbekistan became its visitors. The number of Uzbeks constantly grows in the Czech Republic.
In the 2000th the number of immigrants from Muslim countries increased. First of all, at the expense of students and also members of families of those foreign Muslims who already obtained Czech citizenship. In 1993 in the Czech Republic the Union of Muslim students and young people was created. Subsequently it was renamed as the Union of Muslim youth and students where except arrived from abroad, children from mixed marriages joined. People, whose relatives twisted fortune with Muslims, having married the students and businessmen who arrived to the Czech Republic, created a Society of friends of Muslim culture (the head - Saleem Vladimir Voldan). This organization was renamed later as the Islamic union and became a member of World Islamic League. The important event for Muslims of the Czech Republic took place in 2004 when the Ministry of Culture registered the Union of Muslim Communities (UMC) as the official religious organization having relevant rights, including the right for state baking. UMC includes several communities in different cities, the Union of Muslim youth and students, Society of friends of Muslim culture and also Islamic fund in Prague and Brno. The organization publishes materials about life of the Czech Muslims, trying to form public opinion of the country about Islam values and also renders assistance to the Muslims who found themselves in the hot seat. Activity of Islamic fund in Brno and Prague includes work in Muslim community and work focused on familiarization of the population of the country with Islam and life of the Czech Muslims. In the community it is carried out traditional for Islam charity, collection for refugees, religious and legal support. Due to a lack of right amount of mosques actions regularly take place in branches of the Islamic fund, which comes under non-profit organizations. Possibly, the
author writes, its activity is carried out by means provided from abroad. The fund considers necessary to help local Muslims with maintaining of their belief, identity, to carry out educational activity and to extend reliable information on Islam. Every Friday at the premises of the Fund in Prague it is held communal prayer which brings together about 200 people. Besides, there is also a lecture which can be heard not only in Czech, but in translation in English and Arabic. On Saturdays school for children and courses for adults function. Children and adults are acquainted with Arabic, also subtleties of theology are explained (fiqh).
Presence of Muslims in traditionally Christian, and nowadays to a large extent atheistic country which the Czech Republic is, outwardly looks quite safely. However with increase of acts of terrorism in Europe and also destruction of statehood of a number of Arab states and growth of a flow of immigrants, Czechs, also as well as other inhabitants of Europe, are leery of their life and the future of their children. In return, the country leaders rather carefully take requests of Muslim community, considering possible discontent of indigenous population. So, religion lessons are not allowed at public schools, separate Muslim schools with a full educational cycle are also prohibited. The situation around Islam which aggravated after declaration of ISIL and migration crisis of 2015-2016 forces the authorities to pay close attention to activity of Muslim organizations in the country.
The problem of refugees, since 2015, also promotes emergence of economic, political and social problems related to necessity to accommodate immigrants, to promote their adaptation and socialization in host society. The host society also has to be ready for meeting with foreign culture. In the first instance there are usually xenophobic sentiments. Possibly to some extent this way it can be explained refusal of the authorities to accept the refugees who arrived in Europe through Greece and Italy in 20162017. In the height of the migration crisis in 2015, Ministers of the Interior of the EU established quotas on accommodation of migrants in the European Union countries. But many countries
