Wearing the hijab in Russian educational institutions: a challenge to public order or a fulfillment of religious traditions?

this article analyzes the issue of wearing the hijab by Muslim female students in Russian educational institutions, an issue that has repeatedly resurfaced in Russian public life over the past fifteen years. Having arisen initially at the level of individual rural schools (the Nogai village of Kara-Tyube in the Stavropol Territory (2013) and the Tatar village of Belozerye in Mordovia (2014)), although it had already acquired an all-Russian scandalous sound at this stage of its development, this problem has grown to such a state that this year already in the third Russian region (Vladimir and Voronezh regions (2024), Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug (2025) a complete ban on wearing hijabs in schools has been legally introduced. The author, based on a study of the available scientific literature and journalism, a simultaneous study of the results of his own representative sociological survey (interviews), conducted an analysis of this topical issue, with an emphasis on clarifying precisely its prohibitive aspects, that is, determining what caused such a strictly negative attitude of the official authorities to this issue and what is the point of view of representatives of the Russian Ummah Muslim community itself.

Russian Islamic Ummah, educational institutions, hijab, ban on wearing hijab