Strange neophites of islam: the transition of christians to islam in Russian Turkestan

Abstract

The relevance of the study is determined by the fact that Russia was and remains a multinational and multi-confessional country, transitions from one religion to another are not too rare today, therefore it seems important to consider the reasons and motives that prompted people to change their faith. The article deals with the problem of Christians' conversion to Islam in general and in Russian Turkestan in particular. The study describes the characteristics of Islam-Christian relations in Russian Turkestan in the last third of the XIX – early XX century. Based on archival sources, the author gives examples of the religious change of Russian people in favor of Islam, reveals the reasons, writes about the attitude of the Turkestan administration, the Holy Synod and the diocesan authorities to them. The author notes that interreligious relations in tsarist Russia were generally tolerant, but unequal. The Russian Orthodox Church was considered the dominant denomination in the country. The State has firmly and consistently protected her interests in a legal manner. Therefore, the conversions of Orthodox Christians to Islam were extremely rare and secret, since renegades and their seducers were subject to punishment. However, the situation changed after the adoption of liberal religious legislation in the early XX century. Despite the prohibitions of Orthodox Christians to convert to Islam, the lack of punitive punishment for this prompted some to change their faith. Over time, the number of renegades from Orthodoxy who converted to Islam began to amount to many dozens in the region. Coupled with transitions to other confessions, the number of traitors to Orthodoxy was measured in hundreds. Russian Turkestan's conversions to Islam were a noticeable phenomenon in its socio-political life and they did not contribute to the growth of the prestige of the Russian Orthodox Church among the multinational population of Central Asia.