Presentation of the book “New tendencies in the social and religious thinking of the Bulgarian Muslims” – Assoc. Prof. Ibrahim Yalamov

On 13^th of April, 2017 the High Islamic Institute together with the Association for Cultural Interaction in the city of Sofia presented the book of Assoc. Prof. Ibrahim Yalamov “New tendencies in the social and religious thinking of the Bulgarian Muslims”.

The author of the book put as a main objective in his study “to shed light on the changes in the social and religious thinking and moods of the ethnic and religious minorities in Bulgaria; clarifying the question of how their separate segments are self-identified and evaluate their situation and the status of their communities”.

Among the participants were: The Chairman of the Supreme Muslim Council – Vedat Ahmed, the deputy grand muftis Birali Birali and Ahmed Hasanov, the reviewer of the book Assoc. Prof. Mihail Ivanov, Ismail Dhambazov – historian and writer, Ismail Chaushev – writer, and many other intellectuals and students.

One of the discussed topics was radicalism. The results of a questionnaire have showed that “The Muslims in our country are not fully immunized with regard to the radical teachings. Because radicalism, albeit very limited, has an impact on the marginalized and unenlightened segments.”

The author and the participants expressed the common opinion that “this is something worring because here there is something real which despite of how small it is, cannot be ignored“.

Assoc. Prof. Yalamov highlighted that “For the psyche of the minorities is typical one feature – to adapt to the environment in which they are”. And continued “I think that we have to be objective. If the model of education is not changed there is no way to speak about a dialogue.”

Yuzlem Tefikova