On February 14, the Yardam Assistance Nationwide Charitable Foundation hosted a roundtable discussion on topical issues of the spiritual ministry of imams in places of detention.

The Bolgar Islamic Academy was presented by research officer of the Center for Interreligious Dialogue Ramis Fatkhullin, and the Academy’s master students joined the discussion online: Yusup Hazrat Abdulayev, first deputy Mufti of the Voronezh region, deputy chairman of the interreligious working group at the UVS Russia in the Voronezh region and Abdulhakim Hazrat Yafarov, Deputy Mufti of the Saratov region.

During the round table, there was a summarizing of the activities of imams, carrying out spiritual service in places of detention, for the year 2022, as well as a discussion of plans for the current year and the preparation for the holy month of Ramadan. Special attention was paid to summarizing the results of the pilot project on the development of the activity of public assistants of imams in correctional institutions. It should be noted that this project was launched a year ago and has shown its effectiveness. The results of the realization of this initiative were sounded by public assistants.

The event was also attended by the Deputy Head of the Federal Penitentiary Service of the Republic of Tatarstan Ilnaz Fakhreev, head of the Commission of the Public Council under the Russian Federal Penitentiary Service on cooperation in science and education, member of the Public Council of the Russian Federal Penitentiary Service Shamil Kashaf, chief researcher of the Russian Federal Penitentiary Service Research Institute Sergey Ohanesyan.

As a part of the discussion Shamil Kashaf proposed to conduct a scientific-practical conference together with the Bolgar Islamic Academy and the Russian Islamic University on the theme of improvement of spiritual service in prisons, including theoretical reflection and scaling of this project.

In summarizing the results of the meeting, Ildar Hazrat Bayazitov, Chairman of the Board of Yardam Assistance, awarded Bulat Hazrat Raupov, a graduate of the Bolgar Islamic Academy and muḥtasib of Leninogorsk District, Republic of Tatarstan, a medal of the National Union of Charities “For Contribution to Civil Society Development”.