Demand for Religious Institutions for Disputes Resolution with Muslims and Christians of Tatarstan

Abstract

Dispute resolution practices adopted by religious associations remain relevant under the conditions of contemporary society and a secular state. There are Christian church courts, mediation and arbitration institutions, rabbinical tribunals, Sharia councils, disciplinary and conciliatory bodies of other religious communities in Europe and North America. Ecclesiastical and Jewish courts, qadis and Sharia departments in Muftiates function in the Russian Federation. Applying the questionnaire method, the authors analyzed the demand for religious institutions engaged in disputes resolution with Muslims and Christians (predominantly Orthodox ones) in Tatarstan taking into account the peculiarities of the normative systems of Islam and Christianity, and the structure of Muslim and Orthodox associations. The survey revealed the following: 1) more often than Christians Muslims turn to religious institutions for settling disputes; 2) more often than Christians Muslims resort to aforementioned institutions to consider marriage, family, inheritance and business cases; 3) experts in Sharia and authoritative believers play an important role in resolving conflicts in Muslim society along with the clergy. That is not typical for Christians, who mostly limit themselves to appealing to clergymen. The demand for the dispute resolution institutions among Muslims is much higher than among Christians. Responses of Christians are in many respects close to the answers of non-religious respondents. This suggests that in the future, Muslim associations, imams and Sharia ex-perts will retain a greater regulatory potential than Christian associations.