ACADEMIC INTERPRETATIONS OF ISLAM IN COMMUNIST CZECHOSLOVAKIA: RUDOLF MACÚCH, KAREL PETRÁCEK AND IVAN HRBEK

The research of religions in former Eastern Bloc countries is often presented in terms of a loss of contact with the Western academic tradition and ideological bias. This paper attempts to show however that the study of Islam in individual countries was not homogenous. Islamic Studies in communist Czechoslovakia (1948-1989), although to a significant degreee limited by the ruling atheist ideology as reflected in Marxist- Leninist dogmatism, did not develop in isolation from Western scholarly debates. In fact, major works published in Slovak and Czech language by three respected Islamicists Rudolf M a c ú c h, Karel P e t r á c e k and Ivan H r b e k show clearly that Czechoslovak scholarship on Islam was to a wide extent connected with Western concepts, including the issues of methodology and the Orientalist discourse.