These two volumes, each containing 39 articles, resulted from the International Symposium on “Islamic Civilization in the Caucasus” which was held in Baku, on 11-12 June 2019. The symposium was organized by the Azerbaijan Institute of Theology, IRCICA, and the Institute of Oriental Studies named after Academician Ziya Bunyadov of the Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences (ANAS). This was the second symposium on this theme to be organized by IRCICA in cooperation with the governmental and academic institutions of Azerbaijan. The first International Symposium on “Islamic Civilization in the Caucasus” was conducted on 9-11 December 1998 under the patronage and in the presence of President Heydar Aliyev. 40 papers were presented by participants form 10 countries. The proceedings of the symposium were published by IRCICA in 2000.
The second symposium received 106 papers by scholars from 11 countries: Azerbaijan, Australia, Georgia, Iran, Kazakhstan, Moldova, Russia, Turkey, Ukraine, U.S.A., Uzbekistan.
The majority of the articles contained in these two volumes are in Azeri Turkish, with summaries in English. They were prepared for publication by a group of researchers from the Institute and IRCICA under the direction of Prof. Dr. Agil Shirinov, Rector of the Azerbaijan Institute of Theology. They are grouped under the following section themes: “The spread of Islam in the Caucasus”, “The impact of Islamic culture on religious and socio-cultural life in the Caucasus”, “Development of Islamic sciences in the Caucasus”, “Islamic art, architecture and literature in the Caucasus”, “Multiculturalism in the Caucasus”, “The role of President Ilham Aliyev in strengthening tolerance and multicultural traditions in Azerbaijan”, “The role of mosques, madrasas and khanagahs in religious education in the Caucasus”, “Islamic policy of Tsarist Russia in the Caucasus”, “The role of Caucasian scholars in the development of science and natural sciences”.
