Geidar Dzhemal, a prominent Islamic philosopher and public figure in Russia, has died in Moscow at the age of 69.
Friends said that Dzhemal died on December 5 after a battle with a disease they did not identify.
Dzhemal came to prominence in the mid-1980s, during Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev's glasnost and perestroika reforms.
He was a supporter of the creation of the Islamic Renaissance Party in the Soviet Union.
In 1990, Dzhemal established an information center and the Al-Vakhdat newspaper in Moscow.
In 1995, after the 1991 Soviet collapse, he created and led an interregional movement called The Islamic Committee in Russia.
Dzhemal was a host of several television programs in Russia about Islam and Islamic countries.
Friends of Dzhemal's wrote on social networks that he will be buried on December 6 in Almaty, Kazakhstan.