Islamic religious identity in the context of the formation of a common Russian civil identity: sociological analysis

Background. Religious identity significantly influences the formation of a common civil identity in a multinational society, but the influence of the Islamic factor on this process has been insufficiently studied compared to the Christian Orthodox one. The purpose of the study is to identify the specifics and types of Islamic religious identity and its influence on the processes of formation of an all-Russian civil identity. Materials and methods. The following methods were used in the sociological research: quantitative method (mass questionnaire survey, June-July 2025, n = 503 in Penza region, Tatarstan, the republics of Bashkortostan and Dagestan). Results. It was revealed that the overwhelming majority of respondents in three regions of Russia with a predominantly Islamic population have good knowledge of the essence of their religion, which allows us to conclude that al-most two-thirds of the Islamic population of these regions have a normative-confessional religious identity, a third of the surveyed Muslim population have a folklorized religious identity. Folklorized Islamic identity, burdened with ethnic, local (living in rural areas, and as a result “ruralˮ religiosity) factors, various kinds of pseudo-religious superstitions and prejudices is a negative factor. Folklorized Islam is transformed into a marginal one, which leads to the development of anti-state, extremist, opposition sentiments, and blocks the formation of an all-Russian civil identity in regions with a compact residence of the Muslim population. Conclusions. Superficial knowledge of the fundamentals of the doctrine con-tributes to the formation of a marginal religious identity, which hinders the integration of society, deforms patriotic discourse and creates the ground for opposition and extremist sentiments. The most disturbing aspects in the area of Islamic identity are the “folk” simplified interpretation of two important tenets of the Islamic religion such as Jihad, understood by respondents as a holy war with the “infidels”, while it is interpreted by Islamic theologians as a system of ascetic rules and exercises, and Sharia as a system of Islamic legislation, when the Islamic population of the North Caucasus gives priority to Islamic legislation in relation to general civil legislation. This leads to negative trends in the social development of the entire country, when believers who profess “folk” Islam do not consider the Russian Federation as their common homeland, do not integrate into the general socio-cultural Russian space and do not want to comply with all-Russian laws that, in their opinion, contradict their subjective erroneous understanding of Islamic canons and dogmas.