Islam ja Ortodoksisuus

Islam and Russian orthodoxy – Russia’s unique way (Russian philosophers and writers on Islam)

Russia has never considered Islam as something distant and abstract, which was irrelevant to its daily reality. Islam for this country has always been a forceful outer strength and a tangible inner component of state activity, whose role in the Russian history is far more powerful than is officially admitted by custom.

The mystical and rationally inexplicable sense of inner affinity to Islam caused many Russian poets – from Pushkin to Bunin – to compose verses to Koran’s motifs and led Russian philosophers of the past – both pro-Western and Slav-oriented – to ponder over Islamic issues. What did they see in Mohammed’s faith and how did they perceive it?

Our chief pro-Western philosopher of the 19-th century Pyotre Chaadayev depicted the Moslem faith as “one of the best manifestations of the Law”, and prophet Mohammed for him was a towering figure, “who incomparably commands more respect from people than all this crowd of useless sages who had failed to envelop a single of their reflections with flesh and blood and fill a single human heart with a firm conviction; and who instead merely sowed division into human beings rather than try to combine the disparate elements of his nature”.

The progenitor of Slavophiles A. Khomyakov devoted only one small article to Islam proper called “Features in the Life of Calyphs”. And he poses himself a question in it: why a short time after the emergence of Islam, straggling and poorly armed Arabian bribes were able to capture Byzantium, Persia, Syria, Egypt and subsequently invaded Europe? The crux of the matter, according to the Russian philosopher, is that the first Moslem rulers were persons endowed with high morality, which testifies to the high morality of all the Arabian people. The Europe in their time and all other conquered countries wallowed in sin and that’s why the victory came down on the side of Moslem armies. And the common people did not particularly resist their conquest, seeing the moral supremacy of Islam followers.”

Remarkably, A. Khomyakov did not perceive Islam as anti-Christianity and he considered it as a religion of the same root with Christianity, based partly on the original tenets.

Why then after only several centuries after its blossoming, the Islamic civilization has plummeted? Khomyakov believed that “the Arabians adopted a new law, for which they were prepared by their own legends with searing love and unbridled faith. They implemented it in their private and public lives, but herein lies the reason for their decline. The limits prescribed by their faith was reached and even surpassed, Mohammed’s cause was completed and further evolution became impossible and the decline ensued.”

In our days the majority of scholars espouse a completely different viewpoint. The primary reason for Islam’s retrogression which became evident in the Middle Ages, they see in their gradual deviation from the strict performance of Islamic norms and edicts , as well as various innovations adopted under the influence of an alien and hostile world to them.

Quite original is the approach to Islam elaborated by Konstantin Leontyev - a staunch monarchist, a talented writer and philosopher – who rejected both pro-westerners and Slavophils. He considered Islam from the point of view of Russia’s interests in the East, linked with the spiritual traditions of the Russian Orthodoxy. Leontyev wrote: “By a strange play of political events it turns out that in our time the pure interests of the Russian Orthodoxy (not political but spiritual) appear to be indelibly linked with the sway of a Moslem ruler. The sway of a Mohammed’s inheritor is our assurance of protection and liberty for Christian asceticism”.

“Once and for all it became clear to us that it is England, rather than Islam, that is our only natural and eternal enemy in the East”.

Criticizing his pro-western contemporaries, the Russian philosopher refers to Islam as an example of historic stability and a self-sufficient organic civilization. “Islamism” , he noted, shifted its center, changed its tribes, changed its statehood, but did not change itself, as might have been expected in an original religious culture”.

As a staunch Christian and a political conservative, Konstantin Leontyev, in contrast to liberals and democrats, who saw only Europe as an example to follow, acknowledged the spiritual self-value of Islam and considered the Moslem world much closer to Russia by comparison with the West.

Vladimir Solovyev who is customarily viewed as Russia’s most eminent philosopher, displayed multiple contradictions and deviations in the perception of Islam. Apart from a number of articles he penned on Islam, he also wrote a separate work called “Mohammad : His Life and Religious Teachings”. The “Russian Plato” generally rated Islam quite highly.

Elaborating on the issue of correlation of Islamic faith and lifestyles, Vladimir Solovyev stated: “The Moslems have before us the advantage of correlating their faith and lifestyles and that they live in accordance of their faith. And while we recognize by faith Christian laws, lead our lives by different laws inherited by us from pre-Christian times”

He rejected common perceptions of Moslems’ religious fanaticism and their intolerance linked to the idea of jihad. “ The purpose of the holy war”, he pointed out, “is not an attempt to convert the infidels into Islam and is only their obedience to Islam. Therefore, the discrepancy here is only seeming and Mohammed’s teaching views faith tolerance as fully compatible with the idea of the holy war”.

While staying within the confines of Christian world perceptions, Vladimir Solovyev was able to discern Islam’s magnitude and discern its historical perspective. He wrote providently: “The Koran’s spiritual milk is still needed by humanity”.

Leo Tolstoi likewise paid attention to Islam and the Moslem world. In his youth he studied Arabic and Turkish at Kazan University and later maintained correspondence with the high mufti of Egypt – Mohammad Abdo, the founder of Moslem modernism, whom he considered “an enlightened figure” in Islam and whose views he thought were akin to his own. Leo Tolstoi, it is believed looked upon Islam and other religious movements as sources of ideas which corresponded with his own convictions. Islam, most likely interested the writer not by itself, but only as material for building up his own cognitive system.

Russian philosophers and writers tried to comprehend Islam and the Moslem world as a way to foresee historic and spiritual prospects of Russia and of Russian Orthodoxy. Close acquaintance and encounter with the Islamic world were highly instrumental in the emerging idea of Russia’s special way and the perception of Russia as a connecting link between the East and the West.

“Literary Gazette”, issue #49, 2004