Elmira Akhmetova is a PhD student in history and civilisation at the International Islamic University of Malaysia (IIUM). She has published her MA thesis, Ideas of Muslim Unity at the Age of Nationalism: A Comparative Study of the Concept of the Ummah in the Writings of Musa Jarullah and Said Nursi (Saarbrücken: Lambert Academic Publishing, 2009) and her latest book, Islam in Russia: Historical Facts and Modern Developments, is due to be published in Malaysia by the International Islamic Institute for Advanced Islamic Studies (IAIS) in 2011.

Bayram Balci is Senior Research Assistan…