ISLAM.
Kazan is the point where Europe and Asia meet. The paper frontiers lie
a hundred miles farther east, along the crests of the Ural Mountains
and the banks of the Ural River; but the actual line on which the
Tartar and the Russian stand face to face, on which mosque and church
salute the eye together, is that of the Lower Volga, flowing through
the Eastern Steppe, from Kazan to the Caspian Sea. This frontier line
lies eastward of Bagdad.
Kazan, a colony of Bokhara, an outpost of Khiva, was not very long ago
the seat of a splendid khanate; and she is still regarded by the
fierce and languid Asiatics as the western frontier of their race and
faith. In site and aspect this old city is extremely fine, especially
when the floods run high, and the swamps beneath her walls become a
glorious lake. A crest of hill--which poets have likened to a wave, a
keel, and a stallion's back--runs parallel to the stream. This crest
is the Kremlin, the strong place, the seat of empire; scarped, and
walled, and armed; the battlements crowned with gateways, towers, and
domes. Beyond the crest of hill, inland from the Volga, runs a fine
plateau, on which stand remnants of rich old courts and towers--a
plateau somewhat bare, though brightened here and there by garden,
promenade, and chalet. Under this ridge lies Kaban Lake, a long, dark
sheet of water, on the banks of which are built the business quarters,
in which the craftsmen labor and the merchants buy and sell--a
wonderfully busy and thriving town. Each quarter has a character of
its own. The Kremlin is Christian; the High Street Germanesque. A fine
old Tartar gateway, called the Tower of Soyonbeka, stands in front of
the cathedral; but much of the citadel has been built since the
khanate fell before the troops of Ivan the Fourth. Down in the lower
city, by the Kaban Lake, dwell the children of Islam, the descendants
of Batu Khan, the countrymen of the Golden horde.
The birth-place of these Tartar nations was the Eastern Steppe; their
line of march was the Volga bank; and their affections turn still
warmly to their ancient seats. The names of Khiva and Bokhara sound to
a Tartar as the names of Shechem and Jerusalem sound to a Jew. In his
poetry these countries are his ideal lands. He sings to his mistress
of the groves of Bokhara; he compares her cheek to the apples of
Khiva; and he tells her the fervor of his passion is like the summer
heat of Balkh.
An Arab legend puts into the Prophet's mouth a saying, which is taken
by his children as a promise, that in countries where the palm-trees
bear fruit his followers should possess the land; but that in
countries where the palm-trees bear no fruit, though they might be
dwellers for a time, the land would never be their own. The promise,
if it were a promise, has been kept in the spirit for a thousand
years. No date-bearing country known to the Arabs defied their arms;
from no date-bearing country, once overrun, have they been yet
dislodged. When Islam pushed her outposts beyond the line of palms, as
in Spain and Russia, she had to fall back, after her trial of strength
on the colder fields, into her natural zones. As she fell back from
Granada on Tangiers and Fez, so she retired from Kazan on Khiva and
Bokhara--a most unwilling retreat, the grief of which she assuaged in
some degree by passionate hope of her return. The Moors, expecting to
reconquer Seville and Granada, keep the keys of their ancient palaces,
the title-deeds of their ancient lands in Spain. The Kirghiz, also,
claim the lands and houses of their countrymen, and the Kirghiz khan
describes himself as lineal heir to the reigning princes of Kazan. In
the East, as in the West, the children of Islam look on their present
state as a correction laid upon them by a father for their faults.
Some day they trust to find fresh favor in his sight. The term of
their captivity may be long; but it will surely pass away, and when
the Compassionate yields in his mercy, they will return in triumph to
their ancient homes.
In the mean time, it is right to mark the different spirit in which
the vanquished sons of Islam have been treated in the West and in the
East. From Granada every Moor was driven by fire and sword; for many
generations no Moor was suffered to come back into Spain, under pain
of death. In Russia the Tartars were allowed to live in peace; and
after forty years they were allowed to trade in the city which had
formerly been their own. No doubt there have been fierce and frequent
persecutions of the weaker side in these countries; for the great
conflict of cross and crescent has grown into a second nature, equally
with the Russian and Tartar, and the rivalries which once divided
Moscow and Kazan still burn along the Kirghiz Steppe. The capitals may
be farther off, but the causes of enmity are not removed by space and
time. The cross is at St. Petersburg and Kief, the crescent at Bokhara
and Khiva; but between these points there is a sympathy and an
antipathy, like that which fights between the two magnetic poles. The
Tartars have captured Nijni and Moscow many times; the Russians will
some day plant their standards on the Tower of Timour Beg.
A man who walks through the Tartar town in Kazan, admiring the painted
houses, the handsome figures, the Oriental garbs, the graceful
minarets, can hardly help feeling that these children of Islam hold
their own with a grace and dignity worthy of a prouder epoch. "Given
to theft and eating horse-flesh," is the verdict of a Russian officer;
"otherwise not so bad." "Your servants seem to be Tartar?" "Yes, the
rascals make good servants; for, look you, they never drink, and when
they are trusted they never steal." In all the great houses of St.
Petersburg and Moscow, and in the large hotels everywhere, we have
Tartar servants, chosen on account of their sobriety and honesty. The
Begs and Mirzas fled from the country when their city was stormed, and
only the craftsmen and shepherds remained behind; yet a new
aristocracy of trade and learning has sprung up; and the titles of
mirza and mollah are now enjoyed by men whose grandfathers held the
plough. These Tartars of Kazan are better schooled than their Russian
neighbors; most of them can read, write, and cipher; and their youths
are in high demand as merchants, salesmen, and bankers' clerks--offices
of trust in which, with care and patience, they are sure to rise.
Mirza Yunasoff, Mirza Burnaief, and Mirza Apakof, three of the richest
traders in the province, are self-made men. No one denies them the
rank of mirza (lord, or prince). Mirza Yunasoff has built, at his
private charge, a mosque and school.
It is very hard for a Christian to get any sort of clue to the
feelings of these sober and industrious folk. That they value their
religion more than their lives is easy to find out; but whether they
share the dreams of their brethren in Khiva and Bokhara is not known.
Meanwhile they work and pray, grow rich and strong. An innocent and
useful body in the empire, they are wisely left alone, so far as they
can be left alone.
They can not, however, be treated as of no importance in the state.
They are of vast importance; not as enemies only, but as enemies
camped on the soil, and drawing their supports from a foreign land.
Even those among the Tartars who are least excited by events around
them, feel that they are out of their natural place. They hate the
cross. They are Asiatics; with their faces and affections turning day
and night, not towards Moscow and St. Petersburg, but towards Khiva,
Bokhara, and Samarcand. A foreign city is their holy place, a foreign
ruler their anointed chief. They get their mollahs from Bokhara, and
they wait for conquerors from the Kirghiz Steppes. They have not
learned to be Russians, and they will not learn; so that, whether the
Government wishes it or not, the conflict of race and creed will rage
through the coming years, even as it has raged through the past.
Reforming the country on every side, the Emperor is not neglecting
this Eastern point; and in the spirit of all his more recent changes,
he is taking up a new position as regards the Tartar race and creed.
Nature and policy combine to prevent him trying to convert the
Mussulmans by force; but nothing prevents him from trying to draw them
over by the moral agencies of education and humanity. Feeling that,
where the magistrate would fail, the teacher may succeed, the Emperor
is opening schools in his Eastern provinces, under the care of
Professor Ilminski, a learned Russian, holding the chair of Tartar
languages and literature in the university of Kazan. These schools
already number twenty four, of which the one near Kazan is the chief
and model.
Professor Ilminski drives me over to these Tartar schools. We visit a
school for boys and a school for girls; for the sexes are kept apart,
in deference to Oriental notions about the female sex. The rooms are
clean and well kept; the children neat in dress, and orderly in
manner. They are taught by young priests especially trained for the
office, and learn to sing, as well as to read and cipher. Books are
printed for them in Russian type, and a Tartar press is working in
connection with the university. This printing of books, especially of
the Psalms and Gospels, in the Tartar tongue, is doing much good; for
the natives of Kazan are a pushing and inquisitive people, fond of
reading and singing; and the poorest people are glad to have good
books brought to their doors, in a speech that every one can hear and
judge for himself. In the same spirit the Emperor has ordered mass to
be said in the Tartar tongue; a wise and thoughtful step; a hint, it
may be, to the mollahs, who have not come to see, and never may come
to see, that any other idioms than Arabic and Persian should be used
in their mosques. If these clever traders and craftsmen of Kazan are
ever to be converted from Islam to Christianity, they must be drawn
over in these gentle ways, and not by the jailer's whip and the
Kozak's brand.
The children sing a psalm, their bright eyes gleaming at the sound.
They sing in time and tune; but in a fierce, marauding style, as
though the anthem were a bandit's stave.
Not much fruit has yet been gathered from this field. "Have you any
converts from the better classes?" "No; not yet," the professor sighs;
"the citizens of Kazan are hard to win; but we get some little folk
from villages on the steppe, and train them up in the fear of God.
Once they are with us, they can never turn back."
Such is the present spirit of the law. A Moslem may become a
Christian; a Christian may not become a Moslem; and a convert who has
taken upon himself the cross can never legally lay it down. It is an
Eastern, not a Western rule; and while it remains in force, the cross
will be denied the use of her noblest arms. Not until conscience is
left to work in its own way, as God shall guide it, free from all fear
of what the police may rule, will the final victory lie with the faith
of Christ.
Shi Abu Din, chief mollah of Kazan, receives me in Asiatic fashion;
introduces me to two brother mollahs, licensed to travel as merchants;
and leads me over the native colleges and schools. This mollah, born
in a village near Kazan, was sent to the university of Bokhara, in
which city he was trained for his labors among the Moslems living on
Russian soil, just as our Puritan clergy used to seek their education
in Holland, our Catholic clergy in Spain. Shi Abu Din is considered,
even by the Professor of Tartar languages, as a learned and upright
man. His swarthy brethren have just arrived from Bokhara, by way of
the Kirghiz Steppe. They tell me the roads are dangerous, and the
countries lying east of the Caspian Sea disturbed. Still the roads,
though closed to the Russians, are open to caravan merchants, if they
know the dialects and ways of men. No doubt they are open to mollahs
travelling with caravans through friendly tribes.
The Tartars of Kazan are, of course, polygamists; so that their social
life is as much unlike the Russian as their religious life.