Comparison of Islamic Discourse in Russia and Abroad in the Context of Formation of Missionary Competences

Abstract

The aim of the article is description of the features of Islamic discourse in general as well as within its two directions — traditional Islam and the discourse of radical Islam (Islamism), in the context of which special attention is given to religious concepts as indicators that point to the discourses mentioned above. Applied linguistic methods are used including quantitative one. The sources are data from the national corpora of languages: British National Corpus (BNC), Contemporary American English (CoCA), National Corpus of the Russian Language (NCRL) with text samples from 1980 to 2023. In the context of describing of the spread of traditional Islam in contemporary Russia the humanistic orientation of the discourse of traditional Islam in Russian-language space is noted, as well as the least degree of its politicization that can be explained by the adaptation of Islam in Russia to centuries-old coexistence with Orthodoxy. The low frequency of Muslim religious terms in the NCRL (especially in comparison with the frequency of Orthodox religious terms) can serve as a linguistic proof of the moderate background of the discourse of traditional Islam in the Russian-language space over the past 40 years. Abroad, predominantly the discourse of Islamism develops, which is described by Western researchers in negative tones. The migration of Muslims to Western European countries and the United States, which have lost Christian values, generates fear of Muslims in this part of the world. Linguistic proof of this situation on the example of the English language is the specific character of the frequency of Muslim religious terms in BNC and CoCA. For an Orthodox missionary, the situation of fragmentation of the religious discourse of Islam into traditional and radical directions dictates different approaches to the development of missionary discourse in contemporary conditions.