Muslim–Christian Conversion in Modern Russia and the Idea of Russia as a Eurasian Islamo-Christian Space

Abstract

Abstract This article examines conversion between Islam and Russian Orthodoxy in contemporary Russia. The author tests the idea that Russia historically constituted an Islamo-Christian Eurasian space, and that this reality has now been revived in the hermeneutic self-perception of government rhetoric as well as in the self-understanding of converts from both religious communities. He concludes that this “hermeneutic space” is real (though not exclusive), and is expressed both in the syncretistic practice of individuals and within communities. However, instead of seeing the Eurasian space as essentialist, the author gives “Eurasianism” a philosophical reconstruction, viewing it as an inter-subjective mental hermeneutic that nonetheless has reality and causality in shaping individual and collective religious identity in Russia today.