The Missionary Project: Creating of the “True Islam” on the example of the “The Bible and the Holy Qur’an on Aram” by Professor E. A. Malov (1885)

Abstract

The article deals with the mechanism of “blurring” the ideological boundaries between Islam and Christianity as adapted by the Russian missionary the Professor of the Russian Orthodox Academy in Kazan turcologist E.A. Malov (1835-1918) in his book “The Bible and the Holy Qur’an on Aram” (1885). The author analyses the development of the narrative, argumentation and language used by E.A. Malov. She highlights some specific features, which make the boundaries between the Muslim and Christian discourse less visible. She also uses methodology developed by the Dutch T. A. Van Dyck. The Russian Missionary E.A. Malov, according to the author used a number of ways to prove his thesis about the Islamic teaching to be inferior to that of the Christians, showed the obvious contradictions in approaching the Biblical personality of Adam by the two religions. The narrative as adopted by E.A. Malov was introduced in the form of a dialogue between himself and the imaginative “learned mullah”. Remarkably in the course of this discussions were not touched the traditional ”vulnerable” topics, such as Jesus Christ, the Theotokos, the teaching of the Trinity, etc. Instead used a “less vulnerable” personality, which is traditionally most similarly (but not identically) being approached by the Muslims and Christians. By using Adam as a subject of his discourse E.A. Malov made distinction between the Christian and Muslim approaches to this topic less visible and used the Christian meanings on purpose.