History of Islam in Russia
Islam and the Golden Horde
The first Mongolian ruler, who embraced Islam, was
Berke Khan (in mong. "Falcon"). Indeed, he became the falcon of
Islam. He, who was the Temuchzhin’s (Genghis Khan’s) grandson and participated
in the numerous campaigns of his grandfather and brothers, including those
against Moslems, adopted Islam from Boharzi Sheikh in the city of Bukhara. And
he, mighty heir of the throne of one fourth of the Empire which included most
of the inhabited world, the grandson of “Conqueror of the Universe“, is said to
have waited for three days for an audience at the doors of the Sheikh – a
resident of the subdued country! Truly, what patience, what faith he had!
Immediately after adoption of Islam Berke Khan establishes relations with the largest in the middle of the 13th century Muslim State – the Mamluks’ State, which included Egypt, Al-Sham (the historical region of modern Syria, Lebanon, Palestine and Jordan), Sudan, Hejaz (the part of modern Saudi Arabia, which includes Mecca and Medina).
Immediately after adoption of Islam Berke Khan establishes relations with the largest in the middle of the 13th century Muslim State – the Mamluks’ State, which included Egypt, Al-Sham (the historical region of modern Syria, Lebanon, Palestine and Jordan), Sudan, Hejaz (the part of modern Saudi Arabia, which includes Mecca and Medina).
After the Mongols took Baghdad, the Mamluks
negotiated with the Abbasids and declared the Caliphate. Despite the power of
the Caliph being just a formality, it, however, gave the Mamluks’ governing
some sacrality and opportunity to disseminate sovereignty to the rest of the
Islamic world. Beside the Mamluks’ State, at that time in the world there yet
existed Muslim Spain (Al-Andalus), the Seljuk sultanates of Asia Minor and
separated emirates of the North Africa.
Who are the Mamluks?
Salah ad-Din al-Ayûbi, having set free most of
Al-Sham from the Crusaders and defeating the Ismaelian State of the Fatimids in
Egypt, created on this territory an independent state, formally resubmitted
under authority of the Abbasid Caliph in the 12th century. His troops mainly
consisted of the Mamluks - slaves-warriors, bred specifically for combat. The Mamluks
were white and black. If the blacks came from Sudan, the whites represented
Russian peoples – Kipchaks and Circassians. Kipchaks were steppe natives and
Circassians were all Caucasian mountaineers without distinction as to their
origin. What is very important, that all the Mamluks at the time they got into
slavery were not Muslims, they adopted Islam while in captivity. This fact
played a very significant role in the dissemination of Islam in the West
Caucasus, but it was a bit later.
The Mamluks played stupendous role in military
operations of Salah ad-Din al-Ayûbi, being the core of his active armed forces,
consisted, besides them, of Kurds (his fellow tribesmen), hired Turkmen and
Bedouins. Subsequently, when the descendants of Salah ad-Din dropped the banner
from their hands, the yesterday's slaves, who became emirs from the Mamluks,
picked it up. There came the time of the Mamluk sultans - our compatriots, who,
by the will of Allah, arrived as slaves to Egypt, adopted Islam, and became
governors of this vast land. The first in chain of the sultans was Kotuz, who
ruled for a short period and he was succeeded by Zahir Rukn ad-Din Bejbars
(1260-1277).
The Mamluk emirs and sultans left indelible trace
in history and culture of Egypt and Syria. Having protected them from the
Crusaders and Mongols, they became patrons of sciences and arts. Many of them
became scientists - hanafi faqih Argun-naib, Khalil ibn Kikladi al-Alai, also
known as «the keeper of the East and West». Carrying literary traditions of their
peoples, some of the Mamluks became excellent writers in the Arabic language:
al-Ashraf Khalil (son of Kalaun Emir), Emir Bashkerd and many others. For
instance, about emir of Damascus Ala ad-Din ibn Abdallah at-Tanbag al-Jawali
(died in 1343-44), known as "the most poetical turk”, his contemporary Ibn
al-Adim al-Katib wrote: «I’ve always thought that the Turks are distinguished
with charming eyes and eyelids. I found divine rhymes, an excellent divan and
became assured that all is wonderful in them». Madrasahs “Saragatmyshiya” and
“Beibarsiya”, built by the Mamluks, have been shining for ages in Egypt. A lot
of historical information of that time we found in the works of Ibn Tagribardi,
a historian and Mamluk by origin.
Sarai Berke
As mentioned above, one of the first deeds of Berke
Khan, as the Muslim ruller of ulus Juchi, in Russian-speaking tradition called
the Golden Horde, was the establishment of diplomatic relations with the Mamluk
State, the keeper of the Caliph power. Moreover, he even ordered the armies,
fighting on the party of his cousin Hulagu Khan against the Mamluks, to come
over to the party of the latter. During the reign of Berke Khan from 1256 to
1266 his state several times exchanged embassies with faraway Egypt. Sarai
Berke, the new capital, built by Berke Khan, fast became one of the greatest
cities of Europe. As describes the geographer Ibn Batuta, who visited the city
in the 14th century, it took for a traveler half a day to go around it.
According to archeologists, its population was around 75 to 100 thousand
people. Compare: the population of Rome was 35, and Paris - 58 thousand
inhabitants. (Right after formation of ulus Juchi, - the fourth part of the
empire, given by Temujin to the descendants of Juchi’s sons, - Batu Khan placed
its capital in Bulgar - central city of the cultural and developed area of the
country. But shortly it was transferred to the Lower Volga, where the city of
Sarai Batu had just been built.)
Sarai Berke, or Sarai-al-Jadid, was not only one of
the largest cities in Europe of that time. While in Paris, a riding messenger
could be bogged down in filth, Sarai Berke had a developed system of water
pipes and sewers (it should be noted, that that was a feature of many large
Muslim cities of that time). According to Ibn Arabshah, for Berke Khan, Uzbek,
Djanibek, and other rulers of the Horde worked such sheikhs as Kutb ad-Din
al-Islam al-Razi, Sheikh Saad ad-Din at-Taftazani, Sheikh Jalal ad-Din and
other scholars of Hanafi and Shafii schools and Hafiz ad-Din al-Bazzazi, Ahmed
al-Hadjandari, and others. Sarai-al-Jadid, being a young city, would first
invite scientists from many scientific and cultural centers of the world, and
then produce its own staff, who glorified the capital city.
Unfortunately, the legacy of our ancestors is
poorly studied – this is the result of systematic destruction of the
collections of Muslim books, initiated by “the oprichniks in cassocks” in the
time of Ivan the Terrible, continued by their heirs, and so, down to the
“commissars in the dusty helmets”. One of the largest collections of books in
Turkic is the Cairo one (the great service of the Mamluks), but it is still
waiting for being studied.
Just for ten years of reign, Berke Khan achieved
the situation when the Muslims stopped to perceive the Mongols as something
hostile, at least within the territories of their possession. After his death,
khans would succeed each other on the throne of ulus Juchi. Most were Muslims,
few were pagans-tengrians or Christians. However, the main thing was reached –
ulus Juchi gradually took the image of a Muslim State. Finally, Uzbek Khan, who
ruled in 1312-1340, dotted his i’s and crossed his t’s in this matter. He
declared Islam as the state religion of Ulus Juchi, which had become a
sovereign power by that time. It happened in the city of Narovchat (now the
Penza region), the centre of Ulus Juchi. Unfortunately, nowadays in this city,
according to the data of the Religious Board of Muslims of the Penza region,
there are no Muslims and no functioning mosque any more.
Notable is the fact that of all khans of the
Mongolian State, the khan of Ulus Juchi, whose territory mostly located in
Russia of nowadays, was the first to embrace Islam. The other Mongol rulers
subsequently adopted Islam: ulus Djagatai - in 1378, ulus Tuluy - in 1294-95,
although percentage of the Muslim population there was quite higher. Of course,
when adopting Islam in those countries, it could not go without annoying
curiosities. For example, the ruler of ulus Tuluy, Ilhan's son Ghazan, before
adopting Islam, had been fighting against Muslims, Egyptian Mamluks, over a
long period. Having adopted Islam, with a new title of "great Sultan,
Sultan of Islam and Muslims, the victorious in the world and faith Mahmoud
Ghazan", he continued to fight against the Mamluks. Having taken Damascus,
he read out his Decree: "We have heard that the rulers of Egypt and Syria
are shying away from the path of faith, do not adhere to Islam, breach their
obligations, take unholy oath; they have neither fidelity nor duty; when one
comes to power, he seeks for lands to bankrupt them, though Allah does not love
ruining; religious interests of protecting Islam led us to this country to
eliminate such injustice."
About good “harm” of soap
The only ulus, given by the mighty conqueror
Temujin (Genghis Khan) to his sons, where the rulers declined Islam, was ulus
Ugedei. In the time when the ruler of the latter was the Temujin’s grandson
Gadahn (Kadagan), he one day fell ill with a severe skin disease. None of
healers could help him, but one, a Buddhist monk, who managed to cure a
mysterious illness and the thankful ruler ordered his people to practice
Buddhism. The interpreters of this legend, being familiar with Mongolian life
and Jasa, the code of Temujin, which strictly prohibited washing, argue that
the miraculous cure was just a piece of ordinary soap. Perhaps, this is the
first example of using inventions, made by Muslims (in this case soap), against
Islam.
The spread of Islam in the land Ugedei was
permanently stopped. Some known facts from the history of one of his
successors, the Jungar Khanate may illustrate this fact. The one, who killed an
animal under the Shariat, must be executed in the same manner. Even individual
tribal groups, particularly former Muslims, having come to Jungaria, had to
renounce Islam. Among them is the hotan- kipchak genus, which came to Altai
from the East Turkistan, and maybe altaian naimans and kipchaks.
The population of the western regions of the Mongol
Empire (Juchi, Jagatai and Tuluy), consisted of a large local population,
sedentary and nomadic, and comparatively few travelers from Central Asia
(hereinafter in this region we are aware of Mongolia and the surrounding areas of
modern Russia and China). These comers, the Mongols and Turks in origin,
despite their insignificant quantity, would play a very important role: it is
them, who were feudal nobility – in modern language, the Generals, the upper
officials and the administers. Moreover, the policy of Islamization, which
Uzbek Khan led, having proclaimed Islam the religion of his power, was
especially focused on them.
What were the results? The Mongolian tribes,
settled in ulus Juchi, as we know, were, for example, the Keraits, Kongirats,
Katakins, Jalairs, Mangyts and many others. It is worth mentioning the turkic
tribe of Naimans, who also came with Temujin. Most of them were tengrians and
shamanists or some (Naimans and Keraits) – nestorians. Today the
mangyts-shamanists or tengrians don’t exist, neither do they among the Jalairs
and Katakins. There are quite few kongirats-buddhists, and many
kongirats-muslims among the Kazakhs and Uzbeks, among the Tatars they were a
lot, but they were no longer divided by tribes. Among the Naymans there are no
nestorians – all are Muslims (the Kazakhs, Bashkirs, Tatars), there left only
few Naymans-Pagans in Altai just due to the policy of the Jungars. All mangyts,
the Tatars, Nogais, Kazakhs, and Uzbeks were Muslims. (Being an ambitious tribe,
they formed a substantial layer of the feudal aristocracy; it gave way to the
terms “mangyts” and “the Golden Horde aristocracy” in the Tatar historical
tradition; from those mangyts came the dynasty of the Bukhara Emirs.) There is
no trace of nestorians in the modern keraits – the Bashkirs, Nogajs, Tartars, -
but they gave their names to the great dynasty of the Gireys of the Crimea, who
ruled over a vast territory from the boundaries of the Astrakhan Khanates to
modern Romania.
Islamization, declared by Uzbek Khan, influenced
the indigenous nomads of the ulus – the kypchak and bashkir tribes, which had
been long living on this land. Having begun as far back as in the pre-Mongol
epoch, it emerged with new strength. It is the 14th century, when Husain-bek, a
disciple of sheikh Khoja Ahmad Yasawi spread Islam among the Bashkirs. The tomb
of Husain-bek near Ufa over the centuries has been the subject of respect for
the man, who brought the light of Islam to many hearts. Though certain muslims
among the Bashkirs were mentioned by Ibn Fadlan much earlier, massive adoption
of Islam by the Bashkir tribes began in the 14th century and is connected with
the name of Uzbek Khan.
Islam in Siberia
In the end of the 14th century, governors of the
lands, later called Siberian Khanate, invited 360 naqshbandi sheikhs from
Maverannahr (Central Asia) to explain Islam to their subjects. Not everyone in
the da`wah of these sheiks was immediately understood, some of them died while
explaining Islam to people. The place of their deaths, around the aul of Astana
in the South of the Tyumen region; is still revered by people. Part of the
sheikhs returned to their homes, and descendants of those who remained there
are highly respected by Muslims in Siberia. It is from them originated our
great compatriot, Siberian tatar Abdur Rashid Ibrahimov, who would spread Islam
in Japan in the early 20th century and built first mosque there. Thus, Islam
started to spread over the large areas of modern Sverdlovsk region in the West
to Tomsk and the North Kemerovo region in the East, from the edge of the
Barrens to the South and further into the boreal forest, to the North.
The lands of Omsk and southern Tyumen were the
ethnic core. In addition to the local Turkic population, with the growth of trade
exchanges, in the orbit of Islamic civilization, Finno-Ugric peoples – the
Khanty and the Mansi were gradually involved. Some authors state that Islam
caused divisiveness between Turks, who became Muslims, and Finno-Ugrians, who
remained pagans. So how to explain the existence of the Tatar villages in
Siberia of the Khanty origin, which retained their life-style and domestic
traditions. Some of these villages were formed later, but the foundation was
laid back in the 14th century.
One of the traditional occupations of the Siberian
Tatars was exchanging traffic with their northern neighbours, right up to the
Arctic Ocean, and the eastern ones - to the Yenisei River and farther. In the
course of trade contacts, the peoples of taiga and tundra were gradually coming
into Islam. Another interesting fact: some traces of influence of the Muslim
culture are found in the indigenous people of Taymyr – the Nganasan. Among the
Pantheon of their spirits is mentioned "Iblis". There may be other
evidences of the Islamic influence, but it requires serious consideration, also
even among cultures of other Northern peoples.
Why did Uzbek stop?
Frequently asked question is why Uzbek Khan did not
go further and spread Islam among the Slavs and the Finno-Ugrians (the latter
made up not less than half the population of the Kazan Khanate, most of the
Kasimovski Khanate and, in the opinion of many historians, most of the
population of Vladimir- Suzdal Russia, Novgorod region and Ryazan land).
Moreover, under Uzbek Khan and his son Janibek
Khan, very active missionaries of Islam in the inner areas of the Horde, the
positions of orthodoxy in Russian principalities increased. There might be two
reasons:
First - in Uzbek Khan’s opinion the population of
his power consisted of two unequal groups – those "at the top”, and all
the rest. Cavalry was the reliance of his power, and its position determined
the fate of the country. It is not without reason the lands, directly
subordinate to Khan (“Takht Ile” – «country of the throne) were lands of nomad
tribes. And it was here where imams of da`wah (Da`i), prepared in the madrasahs
of Bulgar and Khoresm were directed, and if there was a shortage of them
"the foreign ones" would be invited from Maverannahr (ulus Jagatai).
Maybe these great khans-warriors, also famous for consolidation of state power,
simply ignored, nothing serious, from their point of view, christian and pagan
population. However, such an arrogant approach soon produced a very negative
result.
Second - maybe Uzbek did intend Islamization of
Slavic, Finno-Ugric and others. But he had to strengthen the positions of Islam
among the equestrian units – the support of his throne. He even went to
repressions against his relatives, having executed 70 chingizids (Genghis
Khan’s offsprings), for refusal to adopt Islam. This is why Christianity among
the Finno-Ugrians thrived.
If to consider Christianity a transitional stage
from Paganism to Islam, the Finno-Ugrians could, possibly, get closer to the
adoption of Islam. However, not all the equestrians adopted Islam. One part
went to the Slavic lands, protected by the Horde; there they were received and
given lands. Another one, which was away from the Islamic culture centres,
preferred to stay in steppe. Their ancestors are the Don and Zaporozh Cossacks.
All these facts clearly demonstrate that the Muslim
community is the most tolerant one. It is important that the active policy of
spreading Islam under the Hord only took place during the reign of Uzbek Khan
(1312-1341) and his son Janibek Khan (1342-1357). Subsequently the spread of
Islam had a folksy character and was of private nature. However, starting with
the Uzbek Khan and until the mid-16th century, the population of the modern
Russian Federation had been living in the Muslim country, and it framed the
people's minds. Moreover, the Muslim governing spread to the distant provinces
and peripheral zones of the Golden Horde.
Source : “Islam” magazine