Islam in Russia has a thousand-year history. After the Arabs conquered the region of Dagestan in the 7th century, Islam started to spread in Russia. After the North Caucasus, the place where Islam spread was the Volga (Idil) and the Ural region. In 922, the Volga Bulgarian ruler Almysh adopted Islam as the official religion of the state. In later years, after the conversion of Uzbek Khan to Islam at the beginning of the 14th century, Islam became the official religion of the state of the Altınordu (The Golden Horde). However, in general, Islam spread peacefully through the Russian territories, especially due to the commercial and economic relations established with Central Asia. The second half of the 16th century was a turning point for Muslim peoples. During the reign of Ivan, the Terrible, Kazan, Nogai, Astrakhan, and other Muslim khanates were conquered and occupied. During the occupation of the Muslim regions, an open struggle against Islam took place. The conquest of the region resulted in the obligatory baptism of many Muslims, the demolition of mosques, madrasahs, and education centers. In this way, the Muslim people lost their state and Russia became not only a multinational but a multi-religious state. However, during the 18th century, particularly in the period of Catherina II, positive developments occurred in the religious life and religious educational activities of the Muslim community. The establishment of the Religious Administration of Muslims in 1788 led to the official recognition of the Muslim community in Russia and the opening of a new page in Islam/state relations. Since then Islamic education has been given in schools and madrasahs in Russia more regularly than ever before. This situation came to an end with the arrival of the Soviet power in 1917. The years of militant atheism of the Soviet power had a devastating effect on the religious life and religious education of the Muslims. After the October Revolution, more than twelve thousand mosques were destroyed, all Muslim educational institutions affiliated with the mosque were closed, and about thirty thousand religious leaders were exiled. The closure of mosques and madrasas and the dispersal of the clergy caused the collapse of the Islamic education system. As a result of the perestroika policy in the USSR, with the fragmentation of old stereotypes, important developments in the field of religion-state relations occurred. Finally, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, new opportunities arose for the Russian Muslims. Today, the religion of Islam is the second largest religion in the Russian Federation after Christianity. Muslims make up 13% of the Russian population. This corresponds to about twenty million people. The Islamic religion has always played an important role in Russian history and continues to do so today. Democratization, which began in the second half of the 80s, and a new law adopted for the freedom of conscience and religion in 1990 made it possible to pave the way for Islam along with all other religions. There were 402 mosques in the entire USSR in 1988 while today more than four thousand mosques are in operation in Russia. Today, the Muslims in Russia have three independent religious administrative organizations. Approximately five thousand religious institutions and organizations are operatively affiliated with those institutions. Another important aspect of the revival of Islam in Russia was the development of the religious education system and the opening of other religious educational institutions at different levels. Today, more than a hundred institutions are offering secondary and high-level religious education in Russia. For example, the Russian Islamic Institute, the first institution of higher Islamic education in Russia, has been functioning in Kazan since 1998. In Moscow, the Moscow Islamic Institute has been in operation since 1999. Today, Kazan, the capital of Tatarstan, is one of the centers of Islamic education. Another center for Muslim religious education is Dagestan, where more than a dozen Islamic universities and institutes are functioning, and about 80 madrasas operate. However, most of the religious educational institutions do not have a single curriculum nor a single standard for education. In other words, each institution conducts an educational process in accordance with its curriculum and uses its own teaching methodology. At the meeting of the Council of Muftis of Russia on the 3rd of March 2005, the Islamic Education Council decided to establish and to develop a unified standard of education in religious education and to unite the existing institutions under one roof. The Islamic Council inaugurated in 2010 now covers the majority of institutions that offer religious education. Despite the positive developments that took place, controversy continues as to how an Islamic University should be functioning in Russia. Should it be a secular university with a certain part or an institution that, unfortunately, does not have a purely religious education and whose diplomas are not recognized by the Russian state? It appears that numerous issues concerning Islamic education in Russia somehow still remain unsolved. The issues that require resolutions are educational aspects such as content, pedagogical methodologies, a curriculum of the educational process, insufficient academic staff, course books, materials, and financial resources. This study indicates that the situation of higher Islamic education in Russia has significantly improved in the last decade, and the foundation of the higher education system at the undergraduate and graduate levels has been laid. However, the existing problems in the field of religious education reduce the quality of educational institutions and prevent their rapid development. There exist a number of Turkish studies on Russian Muslims, but the number of existing literature highly relevant to the teaching of Islam in Russia is quite limited. Moreover, in the studies available in Turkey, almost no emphasis is placed on higher Islamic education in Russia. In this context, in our study, a literature review was carried out based upon the documentation method whereby Russian sources were extensively used in the literature. For that purpose, official publications, regulations, curricula, journals, theses, and articles were utilized. In addition, description and screening methods were used in order to describe the situation of higher Islamic education in Russia. The general purpose of our research is to reveal the current situation of Islamic education in Russia and its relation to its past. Furthermore, the article attempts to explain what developmental process higher Islamic education in the country follows, and how it is organized and applied in practice. Finally, another aim is to determine the status of educational institutions providing higher Islamic education in Russia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]