Boundaries of the religious in the fine art of shamail the 19th – 21st centuries

Abstract

Most of the today researchers define the art of shamail as “religious” or “Islamic” art. The paper proposes to analyze the relevance of the established definition in relation to shamail term in order to consider the term in a broaderframework, extending its geographical, cultural,religious and linguistic boundaries. Such a broader approach to defining the art of shamail, a shift away from presenting the Arabic-language and/or Arabic-graphic text on shamails as a text of exclusively religious character; consideration of shamails from regions outside the established borders (of modern Republic of Tatarstan) – all that will eventually make it possible to trace the evolution or degradation of the art of shamail, to pay more attention to shamail as a historical source, to raise new questions about the functions of shamail and its role (in the past and in the present) of the art in society of Muslims in Russia and Post-Soviet spaces. The paper offers previously unpublished samples of shamails for consideration: the Bukharian one from the Tyumen region (museum of Embaevo village), Tatars of Belarus (museum of Iv’e village, Grodno region) as well as the shamails of baptized Tatars – kryashens – published by their author on the Internet.