THE SPREAD OF ISLAM AMONG THE MONGOLS AND TATARS.
There is no event in the history of Islam that for terror and
desolation can be compared to the Mongol conquest. Like an avalanche,
the hosts of Chingīz Khān swept over the centres of Muslim culture and
civilisation, leaving behind them bare deserts and shapeless ruins
where before had stood the palaces of stately cities, girt about with
gardens and fruitful corn-land. When the Mongol army had marched out of
the city of Herāt, a miserable remnant of forty persons crept out of
their hiding-places and gazed horror-stricken on the ruins of their
beautiful city—all that were left out of a population of over 100,000.
In Bukhārā, so famed for its men of piety and learning, the Mongols
stabled their horses in the sacred precincts of the mosques and tore up
the Qurʼāns to serve as litter; those of the inhabitants who were not
butchered were carried away into captivity and their city reduced to
ashes. Such too was the fate of Samarqand, Balkh and many another city
of Central Asia, which had been the glories of Islamic civilisation and
the dwelling-places of holy men and the seats of sound learning—such
too the fate of Baghdād that for centuries had been the capital of the
ʻAbbāsid dynasty.
Well might the Muhammadan historian shudder to relate such horrors;
when Ibn al-Athīr comes to describe the inroads of the Mongols into the
countries of Islam, “for many years,” he tells us, “I shrank from
giving a recital of these events on account of their magnitude and my
abhorrence. Even now I come reluctant to the task, for who would deem
it a light thing to sing the death-song of Islam and of the Muslims, or
find it easy to tell this tale? O that my mother had not given me
birth! ‘Oh, would that I had died ere this, and been a thing forgotten,
forgotten quite!’ [729] Many friends have urged me and still I stood
irresolute; but I saw that it was of no profit to forego the task and
so I thus resume. I shall have to describe events so terrible and
calamities so stupendous that neither day nor night have ever brought
forth the like; they fell on all nations, but on the Muslims more than
all; and were one to say that since God created Adam the world has not
seen the like, he would but tell the truth, for history has nothing to
relate that at all approaches it. Among the greatest calamities in
history is the slaughter that Nebuchadnezzar wrought among the children
of Israel and his destruction of the Temple; but what is Jerusalem in
comparison to the countries that these accursed ones laid waste, every
town of which was far greater than Jerusalem, and what were the
children of Israel in comparison to those they slew, since the
inhabitants of one of the cities they destroyed were greater in numbers
than all the children of Israel? Let us hope that the world may never
see the like again.” [730] But Islam was to rise again from the ashes
of its former grandeur and through its preachers win over these savage
conquerors to the acceptance of the faith. This was a task for the
missionary energies of Islam that was rendered more difficult from the
fact that there were two powerful competitors in the field. The
spectacle of Buddhism, Christianity and Islam emulously striving to win
the allegiance of the fierce conquerors that had set their feet on the
necks of adherents of these great missionary religions, is one that is
without parallel in the history of the world.
Before entering on a recital of this struggle, it will be well in order
to the comprehension of what is to follow briefly to glance at the
partition of the Mongol empire after the death of Chingīz Khān, when it
was split up into four sections and divided among his sons. His third
son, Ogotāy, succeeded his father as Khāqān and received as his share
the eastern portion of the empire, in which Qūbīlāy afterwards included
the whole of China. Chaghatāy the second son took the middle kingdom.
Bātū, the son of his first-born Jūjī, ruled the western portion as Khān
of the Golden Horde; Tulūy the fourth son took Persia, to which Hūlāgū,
who founded the dynasty of the Īlkhāns, added a great part of Asia
Minor.
The primitive religion of the Mongols was Shamanism, which while
recognising a supreme God, offered no prayers to Him, but worshipped a
number of inferior divinities, especially the evil spirits whose powers
for harm had to be deprecated by means of sacrifices, and the souls of
ancestors who were considered to exercise an influence on the lives of
their descendants. To propitiate these powers of the heaven and of the
lower world, recourse was had to the Shamans, wizards or medicine-men,
who were credited with possessing mysterious influence over the
elements and the spirits of the departed. Their religion was not one
that was calculated to withstand long the efforts of a proselytising
faith, possessed of a systematic theology capable of satisfying the
demands of the reason and an organised body of religious teachers, when
once the Mongols had been brought into contact with civilised races,
had responded to their civilising influences and begun to pass out of
their nomadic barbarism. It so happened that the civilised races with
which the conquest of the Mongols brought them in contact comprised
large numbers of Buddhists, Christians and Muhammadans, and the
adherents of these three great missionary faiths entered into rivalry
with one another for the conversion of their conquerors. When not
carried away by the furious madness for destruction and insult that
usually characterised their campaigns, the Shamanist Mongols showed
themselves remarkably tolerant of other religions, whose priests were
exempted from taxation and allowed perfect freedom of worship. Buddhist
priests held controversies with the Shamans in the presence of Chingīz
Khān; and at the courts of Mangū Khān and Qūbīlāy the Buddhist and
Christian priests and the Muslim Imāms alike enjoyed the patronage of
the Mongol prince. [731] In the reign of the latter monarch the Mongols
in China began to yield to the powerful influences of the surrounding
Buddhism, and by the beginning of the fourteenth century the Buddhist
faith seems to have gained a complete ascendancy over them. [732] It
was the Lamas of Tibet who showed themselves most zealous in this work
of conversion, and the people of Mongolia to the present day cling to
the same faith, as do the Kalmuks who migrated to Russia in the
seventeenth century.
Although Buddhism made itself finally supreme in the eastern part of
the empire, at first the influence of the Christian Church was by no
means inconsiderable and great hopes were entertained of the conversion
of the Mongols. The Nestorian missionaries in the seventh century had
carried the knowledge of the Christian faith from west to east across
Asia as far as the north of China, and scattered communities were still
to be found in the thirteenth century. The famous Prester John, around
whose name cluster so many legends of the Middle Ages, is supposed to
have been the chief of the Karaïts, a Christian Tartar tribe living to
the south of Lake Baikal. When this tribe was conquered by Chingīz
Khān, he married one of the daughters of the then chief of the tribe,
while his son Ogotāy took a wife from the same family. Ogotāy’s son,
Kuyūk, although he did not himself become a Christian, showed great
favour towards this faith, to which his chief minister and one of his
secretaries belonged. The Nestorian priests were held in high favour at
his court and he received an embassy from Pope Innocent IV. [733] The
Christian powers both of the East and the West looked to the Mongols to
assist them in their wars against the Musalmans. It was Hayton, the
Christian King of Armenia, who was mainly instrumental in persuading
Mangū Khān to despatch the expedition that sacked Baghdād under the
leadership of Hūlāgū, [734] the influence of whose Christian wife led
him to show much favour to the Christians, and especially to the
Nestorians. Many of the Mongols who occupied the countries of Armenia
and Georgia were converted by the Christians of these countries and
received baptism. [735] The marvellous tales of the greatness and
magnificence of Prester John, that fired the imagination of mediæval
Europe, had given rise to a belief that the Mongols were Christians—a
belief which was further strengthened by the false reports that reached
Europe of the conversion of various Mongol princes and their zeal for
the Christian cause. It was under this delusion that St. Louis sent an
ambassador, William of Rubruck, to exhort the great Khāqān to persevere
in his supposed efforts for the spread of the Christian faith. But
these reports were soon discovered to be without any foundation in
fact, though William of Rubruck found that the Christian religion was
freely tolerated at the court of Mangū Khān, and the adhesion of some
few Mongols to this faith made the Christian priests hopeful of still
further conquests. But so long as Latins, Greeks, Nestorians and
Armenians carried their theological differences into the very midst of
the Mongol camp, there was very little hope of much progress being
made, and it is probably this very want of union among the preachers of
Christianity that caused their efforts to meet with so little success
among the Mongols; so that while they were fighting among one another,
Buddhism and Islam were gaining a firm footing for themselves. The
haughty pretensions of the Roman Pontiff soon caused the proud
conquerors of half the world to withdraw from his emissaries what
little favour they might at first have been inclined to show, and many
other circumstances contributed to the failure of the Roman mission.
[736]
As for the Nestorians, who had been first in the field, they appear to
have been too degraded and apathetic to take much advantage of their
opportunities. Of the Nestorians in China, William of Rubruck [737]
says that they were very ignorant and could not even understand their
service books, which were written in Syriac. He accuses them of
drunkenness, polygamy and covetousness, and makes an unfavourable
comparison between their lives and those of the Buddhist priests. Their
bishop paid them very rare visits—sometimes only once in fifty years:
on such occasions he would ordain all the male children, even the
babies in their cradles. The priests were eaten up with simony, made a
traffic of the sacred rites of their Church and concerned themselves
more with money-making than with the propagation of the faith. [738]
In the western parts of the Mongol empire, where the Christians looked
to the newly-risen power to help them in their wars with the Musalmans
and to secure for them the possession of the Holy Land, the alliance
between the Christians and the Īlkhāns of Persia was short-lived, as
the victories of Baybars, the Mamlūk Sultan of Egypt (1260–1277) and
his alliance with Baraka Khān, gave the Īlkhāns quite enough to do to
look after their own interests. The excesses that the Christians of
Damascus and other cities committed during the brief period in which
they enjoyed the favour of this Mongol dynasty of Persia, did much to
discredit the Christian name in Western Asia. [739]
In the course of the struggle, the adherents of either faith were at
times guilty of much brutality. One example may be taken from the
middle of the thirteenth century as told by al-Jūzjānī, who claims to
have heard the story, while in Delhi, from the lips of a certain Sayyid
Ashraf al-Dīn who had come there from Samarqand. “The eminent Sayyid
thus related, that one of the Christians of Samarqand attained unto the
felicity of Islam, and the Musalmans of Samarqand, who are staunch in
their faith, paid him great honour and reverence, and conferred great
benefits upon him. Unexpectedly, one of the haughty Mongol infidels of
China, who possessed power and influence, and the inclinations of which
accursed one were towards the Christian faith, arrived at Samarqand.
The Christians of that city repaired to that Mongol, and complained
saying: ‘The Musalmans are enjoining our children to turn away from the
Christian faith and from serving Jesus—on whom be peace—and calling
upon them to follow the religion of Muṣṭafạ̄ [740]—on whom be peace—and,
in case that gate becomes unclosed, the whole of our dependents will
turn away from the Christian faith. By thy power and authority devise a
settlement of our case.’ The Mongol commanded that the youth, who had
turned Musalman, should be produced, and they tried with blandishment
and kindness, and money and wealth to induce the newly-converted
Musalman to recant, but he refused to recant, and put not off from his
heart and spirit that garment of freshness—the Muslim faith. The Mongol
ruler then turned over a leaf in his temper, and began to speak of
severe punishment; and every punishment, which it was in his power to
inflict, or his severity to devise, he inflicted upon the youth, who,
from his great zeal for the faith of Islam, did not recant, and did not
in any way cast away from his hand the sweet draught of religion
through the blow of infidel perverseness. As the youth continued firm
in the true faith, and paid no heed to the promises and threats of that
depraved company, the accursed Mongol commanded that they should bring
the youth to public punishment; and he departed from the world in the
felicity of religion—may God reward and requite him!—and the Musalman
community in Samarqand were overcome with despondency and consternation
in consequence. A petition was got up, and was attested with the
testimony of the chief men and credible persons of the Musalman
religion dwelling at Samarqand, and we proceeded with that petition to
the camp of Baraka Khān, and presented to him an account of the
proceedings and disposition of the Christians of that city. Zeal for
the Muslim religion was manifested in the mind of that monarch of
exemplary faith, and the defence of the truth became predominant in his
disposition. After some days, he showed honour to this Sayyid,
appointed a body of Turks and confidential persons among the chief
Musalmans, and commanded that they should slaughter the Christian
company who had committed that dire oppression, and despatch them to
hell. When that mandate had been obtained, it was preserved until that
wretched sect had assembled in the church, then they seized them all
together, and despatched the whole of them to hell, and reduced the
church again to bricks.” [741]
For Islam to enter into competition with such powerful rivals as
Buddhism and Christianity were at the outset of the period of Mongol
rule, must have appeared a well-nigh hopeless undertaking. For the
Muslims had suffered more from the storm of the Mongol invasions than
the others. Those cities that had hitherto been the rallying points of
spiritual organisation and learning for Islam in Asia, had been for the
most part laid in ashes: the theologians and pious doctors of the
faith, either slain or carried away into captivity. [742] Among the
Mongol rulers—usually so tolerant towards all religions—there were some
who exhibited varying degrees of hatred towards the Muslim faith.
Chingīz Khān ordered all those who killed animals in the Muhammadan
fashion to be put to death, and this ordinance was revived by Qūbīlāy,
who by offering rewards to informers set on foot a sharp persecution
that lasted for seven years, as many poor persons took advantage of
this ready means of gaining wealth, and slaves accused their masters in
order to gain their freedom. [743] During the reign of Kuyūk
(1246–1248), who left the conduct of affairs entirely to his two
Christian ministers and whose court was filled with Christian monks,
the Muhammadans were made to suffer great severities. [744]
A contemporary historian, al-Jūzjānī, gives the following account of
the kind of treatment to which a Muhammadan theologian might be exposed
at the court of Kuyūk. “Trustworthy persons have related that Kuyūk was
constantly being incited by the Buddhist priests to acts of oppression
towards the Musalmans and the persecution of the faithful. There was an
Imām in that country, one of the men of learning among the Muslims ...
named Nūr al-Dīn, al-Khwārazmī. A number of Christian laymen and
priests and a band of idol-worshipping Buddhist priests made a request
to Kuyūk, asking him to summon that Imām of the Musalmans that they
might hold a controversy with him and get him to prove the superiority
of the faith of Muḥammad and his prophetic mission—otherwise, he should
be put to death. The Khān agreed, the Imām was sent for, and a
discussion ensued upon the claim of Muḥammad to be a prophet and the
manner of his life as compared with that of other prophets. At length,
as the arguments of those accursed ones were weak and devoid of the
force of truth, they withdrew their hand from contradiction and drew
the mark of oppression and outrage on the pages of the business and
asked Kuyūk Khān to tell the Imām to perform two genuflexions in
prayer, according to the rites and ordinances of the Muhammadan law, in
order that his unbecoming movements in the performance of this act of
worship might become manifest to them and to the Khān.” Kuyūk gave the
order accordingly, and the Imām and another Musalman who was with him
performed the ritual of the prayer according to the prescribed forms.
“When the godly Imām and the other Musalman who was with him, had
placed their foreheads on the ground in the act of prostration, some
infidels whom Kuyūk had summoned, greatly annoyed them and knocked
their heads with force upon the ground, and committed other abominable
acts against them. But that godly Imām endured all this oppression and
annoyance and performed all the required forms and ceremonies of the
prayer and in no way curtailed it. When he had repeated the salutation,
he lifted up his face towards heaven and observed the form of ‘Invoke
your Lord with humility and in secret,’ and having asked permission to
depart, he returned unto his own house.” [745]
Arghūn (1284–1291) the fourth Īlkhān persecuted the Musalmans and took
away from them all posts in the departments of justice and finance, and
forbade them to appear at his court. [746]
In spite of all difficulties, however, the Mongols and the savage
tribes that followed in their wake [747] were at length brought to
submit to the faith of those Muslim peoples whom they had crushed
beneath their feet. Unfortunately history sheds little light on the
progress of this missionary movement and only a few details relating to
the conversion of the more prominent converts have been preserved to
us. Scattered up and down throughout the length and breadth of the
Mongol empire, there must have been many of the followers of the
Prophet who laboured successfully and unknown, to win unbelievers to
the faith. In the reign of Ogotāy (1229–1241), we read of a certain
Buddhist governor of Persia, named Kurguz, who in his later years
abjured Buddhism and became a Musalman. [748] In the reign of Tīmūr
Khān (1323–1328), Ānanda, a grandson of Qūbīlāy and viceroy of Kan-Su,
was a zealous Musalman and had converted a great many persons in Tangut
and won over a large number of the troops under his command to the same
faith. He was summoned to court and efforts were made to induce him to
conform to Buddhism, and on his refusing to abandon his faith he was
cast into prison. But he was shortly after set at liberty, for fear of
an insurrection among the inhabitants of Tangut, who were much attached
to him. [749]
The author of the Muntakhab al-Tawārīkh asserts that Ānanda built four
mosques in Khānbāligh (the modern Peking), which provided accommodation
for 1,000,000 men at the time of the Friday prayer; but no credence can
be given to this or to his other statements regarding the spread of
Islam in China, in view of the fact that he represents Ānanda to have
been the successor of Tīmūr Khān on the imperial throne and gives an
entirely fictitious account of his descendants, several of whom are
represented as having professed Islam, though none of the five had any
existence except in the imagination of the writer. [750]
The first Mongol ruling prince who professed Islam was Baraka Khān, who
was chief of the Golden Horde from 1256 to 1267. [751] According to
Abu’l-Ghāzī he was converted after he had come to the throne. He is
said one day to have fallen in with a caravan coming from Bukhārā, and
taking two of the merchants aside, to have questioned them on the
doctrines of Islam, and they expounded to him their faith so
persuasively that he became converted in all sincerity. He first
revealed his change of faith to his youngest brother, whom he induced
to follow his example, and then made open profession of his new belief.
[752] But, according to al-Jūzjānī, Baraka Khān was brought up as a
Musalman from infancy, and, as soon as he was old enough to learn, was
taught the Qurʼān by one of the ʻUlamā of the city of Khujand. [753]
The same author (who compiled his history during the lifetime of Baraka
Khān), states that the whole of his army was Musalman. “Trustworthy
persons have also related that, throughout his whole army, it is the
etiquette for every horseman to have a prayer-carpet with him, so that,
when the time for prayer arrives, they may occupy themselves in their
devotions. Not a person in his whole army takes any intoxicating drink
whatever; and great ʻUlamā, consisting of commentators, traditionists,
jurists, and disputants, are in his society. He has a great number of
religious books, and most of his receptions and debates are with
ʻUlamā. In his place of audience debates on ecclesiastical law
constantly take place; and, in his faith, as a Musalman, he is
exceedingly strict and orthodox.” [754] Baraka Khān entered into a
close alliance with the Mamlūk Sultan of Egypt, Rukn al-Dīn Baybars.
The initiative came from the latter, who had given a hospitable
reception to a body of troops, two hundred in number, belonging to the
Golden Horde; these men, observing the growing enmity between their
Khān and Hūlāgū, the conqueror of Baghdād, in whose army they were
serving, took flight into Syria, whence they were honourably conducted
to Cairo to the court of Baybars, who persuaded them to embrace Islam.
[755] Baybars himself was at war with Hūlāgū, whom he had recently
defeated and driven out of Syria. He sent two of the Mongol fugitives,
with some other envoys, to bear a letter to Baraka Khān. On their
return these envoys reported that each princess and amīr at the court
of Baraka Khān had an imām and a muʼadhdhin, and the children were
taught the Qurʼān in the schools. [756] These friendly relations
between Baybars and Baraka Khān brought many of the Mongols of the
Golden Horde into Egypt, where they were prevailed upon to become
Musalmans. [757]
In Persia, where Hūlāgū founded the dynasty of the Īlkhāns, the
progress of Islam among the Mongols was much slower. In order to
strengthen himself against the attacks of Baraka Khān and the Sultan of
Egypt, Hūlāgū accepted the alliance of the Christian powers of the
East, such as the king of Armenia and the Crusaders. His favourite wife
was a Christian and favourably disposed the mind of her husband towards
her co-religionists, and his son Abāqā Khān married the daughter of the
Emperor of Constantinople. Though Abāqā Khān did not himself become a
Christian, his court was filled with Christian priests, and he sent
envoys to several of the princes of Europe—St. Louis of France, King
Charles of Sicily and King James of Aragon—to solicit their alliance
against the Muhammadans; to the same end also, an embassy of sixteen
Mongols was sent to the Council of Lyons in 1274, where the spokesman
of this embassy embraced Christianity and was baptised with some of his
companions. Great hopes were entertained of the conversion of Abāqā,
but they proved fruitless. His brother Takūdār, [758] who succeeded
him, was the first of the Īlkhāns who embraced Islam. He had been
brought up as a Christian, for (as a contemporary Christian writer
[759] tells us), “he was baptised when young and called by the name of
Nicholas. But when he was grown up, through his intercourse with
Saracens of whom he was very fond, he became a base Saracen, and,
renouncing the Christian faith, wished to be called Muḥammad Khān, and
strove with all his might that the Tartars should be converted to the
faith and sect of Muḥammad, and when they proved obstinate, not daring
to force them, he brought about their conversion by giving them honours
and favours and gifts, so that in his time many Tartars were converted
to the faith of the Saracens.” This prince sent the news of his
conversion to the Sultan of Egypt in the following letter:—“By the
power of God Almighty, the mandate of Aḥmad to the Sultan of Egypt. God
Almighty (praised be His name!) by His grace preventing us and by the
light of His guidance, hath guided us in our early youth and vigour
into the true path of the knowledge of His deity and the confession of
His unity, to bear witness that Muḥammad (on whom rest the highest
blessings!) is the Prophet of God, and to reverence His saints and His
pious servants. ‘Whom God shall please to guide, that man’s breast will
He open to Islam.’ [760] We ceased not to incline our heart to the
promotion of the faith and the improvement of the condition of Islam
and the Muslims, up to the time when the succession to the empire came
to us from our illustrious father and brother, and God spread over us
the glory of His grace and kindness, so that in the abundance of His
favours our hopes were realised, and He revealed to us the bride of the
kingdom, and she was brought forth to us a noble spouse. A Qūriltāy or
general assembly was convened, wherein our brothers, our sons, great
nobles, generals of the army and captains of the forces, met to hold
council; and they were all agreed on carrying out the order of our
elder brother, viz. to summon here a vast levy of our troops whose
numbers would make the earth, despite its vastness, appear too narrow,
whose fury and fierce onset would fill the hearts of men with fear,
being animated with a courage before which the mountain peaks bow down,
and a firm purpose that makes the hardest rocks grow soft. We reflected
on this their resolution which expressed the wish of all, and we
concluded that it ran counter to the aim we had in view—to promote the
common weal, i.e. to strengthen the ordinance of Islam; never, as far
as lies in our power, to issue any order that will not tend to prevent
bloodshed, remove the ills of men, and cause the breeze of peace and
prosperity to blow on all lands, and the kings of other countries to
rest upon the couch of affection and benevolence, whereby the commands
of God will be honoured and mercy be shown to the people of God.
Herein, God inspired us to quench this fire and put an end to these
terrible calamities, and make known to those who advanced this proposal
(of a levy) what it is that God has put into our hearts to do, namely,
to employ all possible means for the healing of all the sickness of the
world, and putting off what should only be appealed to as the last
remedy. For we desire not to hasten to appeal to arms, until we have
first declared the right path, and will permit it only after setting
forth the truth and establishing it with proofs. Our resolve to carry
out whatever appears to us good and advantageous has been strengthened
by the counsels of the Shaykh al-Islām, the model of divines, who has
given us much assistance in religious matters. We have appointed our
chief justice, Qutb al-Dīn and the Atābak, Bahā al-Dīn, both
trustworthy persons of this flourishing kingdom, to make known to you
our course of action and bear witness to our good intentions for the
common weal of the Muslims; and to make it known that God has
enlightened us, and that Islam annuls all that has gone before it, and
that God Almighty has put it into our hearts to follow the truth and
those who practice it.... If some convincing proof be required, let men
observe our actions. By the grace of God, we have raised aloft the
standards of the faith, and borne witness to it in all our orders and
our practice, so that the ordinances of the law of Muḥammad may be
brought to the fore and firmly established in accordance with the
principles of justice laid down by Aḥmad. Whereby we have filled the
hearts of the people with joy, have granted free pardon to all
offenders, and shown them indulgences, saying, ‘May God pardon the
past!’ We have reformed all matters concerning the pious endowments of
Muslims given for mosques, colleges, charitable institutions, and the
rebuilding of caravanserais; we have restored their incomes to those to
whom they were due according to the terms laid down by the donors....
We have ordered the pilgrims to be treated with respect, provision to
be made for their caravans and for securing their safety on the pilgrim
routes; we have given perfect freedom to merchants, travelling from one
country to another, that they may go wherever they please; and we have
strictly prohibited our soldiers and police from interfering with them
in their comings or goings.” He seeks the alliance of the Sultan of
Egypt “so that these countries and cities may again be populated, these
terrible calamities be put down, the sword be returned to the scabbard;
that all peoples may dwell in peace and quietness, and the necks of the
Muslims be freed from the ills of humiliation and disgrace.” [761]
To the student of the history of the Mongols it is a relief to pass
from the recital of nameless horrors and continual bloodshed to a
document emanating from a Mongol prince and giving expression to such
humane and benevolent sentiments, which sound strange indeed coming
from such lips.
This conversion of their chief and the persecutions that he inflicted
on the Christians gave great offence to the Mongols, who, although not
Christians themselves, had been long accustomed to intercourse with the
Christians, and they denounced their chief to Qūbīlāy Khān as one who
had abandoned the footsteps of his forefathers. A revolt broke out
against him, headed by his nephew Arghūn, who compassed his death and
succeeded him on the throne. During his brief reign (1284–1291), the
Christians were once more restored to favour, while the Musalmans had
to suffer persecution in their turn, were dismissed from their posts
and driven away from the court. [762]
The successors of Takūdār were all heathen, until, in 1295, Ghāzān, the
seventh and greatest of the Īlkhāns, became a Musalman and made Islam
the ruling religion of Persia. During the last three reigns the
Christians had entertained great hopes of the conversion of the ruling
family of Persia, who had shown them such distinguished favour and
entrusted them with so many important offices of state. His immediate
predecessor, the insurgent Baydū Khān, who occupied the throne for a
few months only in 1295, carried his predilection for Christianity so
far as to try to put a stop to the spread of Islam among the Mongols,
and accordingly forbade any one to preach the doctrines of this faith
among them. [763]
Ghāzān himself before his conversion had been brought up as a Buddhist
and had erected several Buddhist temples in Khurāsān, and took great
pleasure in the company of the priests of this faith, who had come into
Persia in large numbers since the establishment of the Mongol supremacy
over that country. [764] He appears to have been naturally of a
religious turn of mind, for he studied the creeds of the different
religions of his time, and used to hold discussions with the learned
doctors of each faith. [765] Rashīd al-Dīn, his learned minister and
the historian of his reign, maintained the genuineness of his
conversion to Islam, the religious observances of which he zealously
kept throughout his whole reign, though his contemporaries (and later
writers have often re-echoed the imputation) represented him as having
only yielded to the solicitations of some Amīrs and Shaykhs. [766]
“Besides, what interested motive,” asks his apologist, “could have led
so powerful a sovereign to change his faith: much less, a prince whose
pagan ancestors had conquered the world?” His conversion, however,
certainly won over to his side the hearts of the Persians, when he was
contending with Baydū for the throne, and the Muhammadan Mongols in the
army of his rival deserted to support the cause of their
co-religionist. These were the very considerations that were urged upon
Ghāzān by Nawrūz, a Muhammadan Amīr who had espoused his cause and who
hailed him as the prince who, according to a prophecy, was to appear
about this time to protect the faith of Islam and restore it to its
former splendour: if he embraced Islam, he could become the ruler of
Persia: the Musalmans, delivered from the grievous yoke of the Pagan
Mongols, would espouse his cause, and God, recognising in him the
saviour of the true faith from utter destruction, would bless his arms
with victory. [767] After hesitating a little, Ghāzān made a public
profession of the faith, and his officers and soldiers followed his
example: he distributed alms to men of piety and learning and visited
the mosques and tombs of the saints and in every way showed himself an
exemplary Muslim ruler. His brother, Uljāytū, who succeeded him in
1304, under the name of Muḥammad Khudābandah, had been brought up as a
Christian in the faith of his mother and had been baptised under the
name of Nicholas, but after his mother’s death, while he was still a
young man, he became a convert to Islam through the persuasions of his
wife. [768] Ibn Baṭūṭah says that his example exercised a great
influence on the Mongols. [769] From this time forward Islam became the
paramount faith in the kingdom of the Īlkhāns.
The details that we possess of the progress of Islam in the Middle
Kingdom, which fell to the lot of Chaghatāy and his descendants, are
still more meagre. Several of the princes of this line had a Muhammadan
minister in their service, but they showed themselves unsympathetic to
the faith of Islam. Chaghatāy harassed his Muhammadan subjects by
regulations that restricted their ritual observances in respect of the
killing of animals for food and of ceremonial washings. Al-Jūzjānī says
that he was the bitterest enemy of the Muslims among all the Mongol
rulers and did not wish any one to utter the word Musalman before him
except with evil purpose. [770] Orghana, the wife of his grandson and
successor, Qarā-Hūlāgū, brought up her son as a Musalman, and under the
name of Mubārak Shāh he came forward in 1264 as one of the claimants of
the disputed succession to the Chaghatāy Khānate; but he was soon
driven from the throne by his cousin Burāq Khān, and appears to have
exercised no influence on behalf of his faith, indeed judging from
their names it would not appear that any of his own children even
adopted the religion of their father. [771] Burāq Khān is said to have
“had the blessedness of receiving the light of the faith” a few days
before his death in 1270, and to have taken the name of Sulṭān Ghiyāth
al-Dīn, [772] but he was buried according to the ancient funeral rites
of the Mongols, and not as a Musalman, and those who had been converted
during his reign relapsed into their former heathenism. It was not
until the next century that the conversion of Ṭarmāshīrīn Khān, about
1326, caused Islam to be at all generally adopted by the Chaghatāy
Mongols, who when they followed the example of their chief this time
remained true to their new faith. But even now the ascendancy of Islam
was not assured, for Būzun who was Khān in the next decade—the
chronology is uncertain—drove Ṭarmāshīrīn from his throne, and
persecuted the Muslims, [773] and it was not until some years later
that we hear of the first Musalman king of Kāshgar, which the break-up
of the Chaghatāy dynasty had erected into a separate kingdom. This
prince, Tūqluq Tīmūr Khān (1347–1363), is said to have owed his
conversion to a holy man from Bukhārā, by name Shaykh Jamāl al-Dīn.
This Shaykh, in company with a number of travellers, had unwittingly
trespassed on the game-preserves of the prince, who ordered them to be
bound hand and foot and brought before him. In reply to his angry
question, how they had dared interfere with his hunting, the Shaykh
pleaded that they were strangers and were quite unaware that they were
trespassing on forbidden ground. Learning that they were Persians, the
prince said that a dog was worth more than a Persian. “Yes,” replied
the Shaykh, “if we had not the true faith, we should indeed be worse
than the dogs.” Struck with his reply, the Khān ordered this bold
Persian to be brought before him on his return from hunting, and taking
him aside asked him to explain what he meant by these words and what
was “faith.” The Shaykh then set before him the doctrines of Islam with
such fervour and zeal that the heart of the Khān that before had been
hard as a stone was melted like wax, and so terrible a picture did the
holy man draw of the state of unbelief, that the prince was convinced
of the blindness of his own errors, but said, “Were I now to make
profession of the faith of Islam, I should not be able to lead my
subjects into the true path. But bear with me a little; and when I have
entered into the possession of the kingdom of my forefathers, come to
me again.” For the empire of Chaghatāy had by this time been broken up
into a number of petty princedoms, and it was many years before Tūqluq
Tīmūr succeeded in uniting under his sway the whole empire as before.
Meanwhile Shaykh Jamāl al-Dīn had returned to his home, where he fell
dangerously ill: when at the point of death, he said to his son Rashīd
al-Dīn, “Tūqluq Tīmūr will one day become a great monarch; fail not to
go and salute him in my name and fearlessly remind him of the promise
he made me.” Some years later, when Tūqluq Tīmūr had re-won the empire
of his fathers, Rashīd al-Dīn made his way to the camp of the Khān to
fulfil the last wishes of his father, but in spite of all his efforts
he could not gain an audience of the Khān. At length he devised the
following expedient: one day in the early morning, he began to chant
the call to prayers, close to the Khān’s tent. Enraged at having his
slumbers disturbed in this way, the prince ordered him to be brought
into his presence, whereupon Rashīd al-Dīn delivered his father’s
message. Tūqluq Khān was not unmindful of his promise, and said: “Ever
since I ascended the throne I have had it on my mind that I made that
promise, but the person to whom I gave the pledge never came. Now you
are welcome.” He then repeated the profession of faith and became a
Muslim. “On that morn the sun of bounty rose out of the east of divine
favour and effaced the dark night of unbelief.... They then decided
that for the propagation of Islam they should interview the princes one
by one, and it should be well for those who accepted the faith, but
those who refused should be slain as heathens and idolaters.” The first
to be examined was a noble named Amīr Tūlik. The Khān asked him, “Will
you embrace Islam?” Amīr Tūlik burst into tears and said: “Three years
ago I was converted by some holy men at Kāshgar and became a Musalman,
but from fear of you I did not openly declare it.” Then Tūqluq Khān
rose up and embraced him, and the three sat down again together. In
this manner they examined the princes one by one, and they all accepted
Islam, with the exception of one named Jarās, who suggested a trial of
strength between the Shaykh and his servant, an infidel who was above
the ordinary stature of man and so strong that he could lift a
two-year-old camel. The Shaykh accepted the challenge, saying: “If I do
not throw him, I will not require you to become a Musalman. If it is
God’s wish that the Mongols become honoured with the blessed state of
Islam, He will doubtless give me sufficient power to overcome this
man.” Tūqluq Khān and those who had become Musalmans with him tried to
dissuade the holy man, but he persisted in his purpose. “A large crowd
assembled, the infidel was brought in, and he and the Shaykh advanced
towards one another. The infidel, proud of his own strength, advanced
with a conceited air. The Shaykh looked very small and weak beside him.
When they came to blows, the Shaykh struck the infidel full in the
chest, and he fell senseless. After a little he came to again, and
having raised himself, fell again at the feet of the Shaykh, crying out
and uttering words of belief. The people raised loud shouts of
applause, and on that day 160,000 persons cut off the hair of their
heads and became Musalmans. The Khān was circumcised, and the lights of
Islam dispelled the shades of unbelief.” From that time Islam became
the established faith in the settled countries under the rule of the
descendants of Chaghatāy. [774] But many of the nomad Mongols appear to
have remained outside the pale of Islam up to the early part of the
fifteenth century, judging from the violent methods adopted for their
conversion by Muḥammad Khān, who was Khān of Mughalistān [775] about
1416. “Muḥammad Khān was a wealthy prince and a good Musalman. He
persisted in following the road of justice and equity, and was so
unremitting in his exertions, that during his blessed reign most of the
tribes of the Mongols became Musalmans. It is well known what severe
measures he had recourse to, in bringing the Mongols to be believers in
Islam. If, for instance, a Mongol did not wear a turban, a horseshoe
nail was driven into his head: and treatment of this kind was common.
May God recompense him with good.” [776]
Even such drastic measures were ineffectual in bringing about a general
acceptance of Islam, for as late as at the close of the following
century, [777] a dervish named Isḥāq Walī found scope for his
proselytising activities in Kāshgar, Yārkand and Khotan, where he spent
twelve years in spreading the faith; [778] he also worked among the
Kirghiz and Kazaks, from among whom he made 180 converts and destroyed
eighteen temples of idols. [779]
In the preceding pages some attempt has been made to indicate some of
the steps by which the Muslims won over to their faith the savage
hordes who had destroyed their centres of culture. By slow degrees,
Islam thus began to emerge out of the ruins of its former ascendancy
and take its place again as a dominant faith, after more than a century
of depression. In the course of the struggle between the followers of
rival creeds for the adherence of the Mongols, considerations of
political expediency undoubtedly operated in favour of the Muslim
party, and the intrigues of Western Christendom caused the Christians
to become suspect, as agents of a foreign power; but at the beginning
such of the Mongols as were Nestorians could put forward a better claim
to be the national party and could attack the Musalmans as adherents of
a foreign faith. Aḥmad Takūdār was denounced by Arghūn as a traitor to
the law of his fathers, in that he had followed the way of the Arabs
which none of his ancestors had known. [780] The insurrection that
caused Ṭarmāshīrīn to be driven into exile, gained strength from the
complaint that this monarch had disregarded the Yassāq or ancient code
of Mongol institutes. [781] But though the issue of the struggle long
remained doubtful, Islam gradually gained ground in the lands of which
it had been dispossessed. The means whereby this success was achieved
are obscure, and the scanty details set forth above leave much of the
tale untold, but enough has been recorded to indicate some of the
proselytising agencies that led to individual conversions. Ānanda drank
in Islam with his foster-mother’s milk; [782] and the remnant of the
faithful, especially the older families of Muhammadan Turks, exercised
an almost insensible influence on the Mongols who settled down in their
midst. But of special importance among the proselytising agencies at
work was the influence of the pīr and his spiritual disciples. In the
midst of the profound discouragement which filled the Musalmans after
the flood of the Mongol conquest had poured over them, their first
refuge was in mysticism, and the pīr, or spiritual guide, and religious
orders—such as the Naqshbandī, which in the fourteenth century entered
on a new period of its development—breathed new life into the Muslim
community and inspired it with fresh fervour. “In the hands of the pīr
and his monks, the Musalman in Asia came to be an agent, at first
passive and unconscious, later on the adherent of a party—the party of
the national faith, in opposition to the rule of the Mongols, which was
at once foreign, barbaric and secular.” [783]
Let us now return to the history of Islam in the Golden Horde. The
chief camping ground of this section of the Mongols was the grassy
plain watered by the Volga, on the bank of which they founded their
capital city Serai, whither the Russian princes sent their tribute to
the khān. The conversion of Baraka Khān, of which mention has been made
above, and the close intercourse with Egypt that subsequently sprang
up, contributed considerably to the progress of Islam, and his example
seems to have been gradually followed by those of the aristocracy and
leaders of the Golden Horde that were of Mongol descent. But many
tribes of the Golden Horde appear to have resented the introduction of
Islam into their midst, and when the conversion of Baraka Khān was
openly proclaimed, they sent to offer the crown, of which they
considered him now unworthy, to his rival Hūlāgū. Indeed, so strong was
this opposition, that it seems to have largely contributed to the
formation of the Nogais as a separate tribe. They took their name from
Nogāy, who was the chief commander of the Mongol forces under Baraka
Khān. When the other princes of the Golden Horde became Musalmans,
Nogāy remained a Shamanist and thus became a rallying point for those
who refused to abandon the old religion of the Mongols. His daughter,
however, who was married to a Shamanist, became converted to Islam some
time after her marriage and had to endure the ill-treatment and
contempt of her husband in consequence. [784]
To Ūzbek Khān, who was leader of the Golden Horde from 1313 to 1340,
and who distinguished himself by his proselytising zeal, it was said,
“Content yourself with our obedience, what matters our religion to you?
Why should we abandon the faith of Chingīz Khān for that of the Arabs?”
But in spite of the strong opposition to his efforts, Ūzbek Khān
succeeded in winning many converts to the faith of which he was so
ardent a follower and which owed to his efforts its firm establishment
in the country under his sway. [785] A further sign of his influence is
found in the tribes of the Ūzbeks of Central Asia, who take their name
from him and were probably converted during his reign. He is said to
have formed the design of spreading the faith of Islam throughout the
whole of Russia, [786] but here he met with no success. Indeed, though
the Mongols were paramount in Russia for two centuries, they appear to
have exercised very little influence on the people of that country, and
least of all in the matter of religion. It is noticeable, moreover,
that in spite of his zeal for the spread of his own faith, Ūzbek Khān
was very tolerant towards his Christian subjects, who were left
undisturbed in the exercise of their religion and even allowed to
pursue their missionary labours in his territory. One of the most
remarkable documents of Muhammadan toleration is the charter that Ūzbek
Khān granted to the Metropolitan Peter in 1313:—“By the will and power,
the greatness and mercy of the most High! Ūzbek to all our princes,
great and small, etc., etc. Let no man insult the metropolitan church
of which Peter is the head, or his servants or his churchmen; let no
man seize their property, goods or people, let no man meddle with the
affairs of the metropolitan church, since they are divine. Whoever
shall meddle therein and transgress our edict, will be guilty before
God and feel His wrath and be punished by us with death. Let the
metropolitan dwell in the path of safety and rejoice, with a just and
upright heart let him (or his deputy) decide and regulate all
ecclesiastical matters. We solemnly declare that neither we nor our
children nor the princes of our realm nor the governors of our
provinces will in any way interfere with the affairs of the church and
the metropolitan, or in their towns, districts, villages, chases and
fisheries, their hives, lands, meadows, forests, towns and places under
their bailiffs, their vineyards, mills, winter quarters for cattle, or
any of the properties and goods of the church. Let the mind of the
metropolitan be always at peace and free from trouble, with uprightness
of heart let him pray to God for us, our children and our nation.
Whoever shall lay hands on anything that is sacred, shall be held
guilty, he shall incur the wrath of God and the penalty of death, that
others may be dismayed at his fate. When the tribute or other dues,
such as custom duties, plough-tax, tolls or relays are levied, or when
we wish to raise troops among our subjects, let nothing be exacted from
the cathedral churches under the metropolitan Peter, or from any of his
clergy: ... whatever may be exacted from the clergy, shall be returned
threefold.... Their laws, their churches, their monasteries and chapels
shall be respected; whoever condemns or blames this religion, shall not
be allowed to excuse himself under any pretext, but shall be punished
with death. The brothers and sons of priests and deacons, living at the
same table and in the same house, shall enjoy the same privileges.”
[787]
That these were no empty words and that the toleration here promised
became a reality, may be judged from a letter sent to the Khān by Pope
John XXII in 1318, in which he thanks the Muslim prince for the favour
he showed to his Christian subjects and the kind treatment they
received at his hands. [788] The successors of Ūzbek Khān do not appear
to have been animated by the same zeal for the spread of Islam as he
had shown, and could not be expected to succeed where he failed. So
long as the Russians paid their taxes, they were left free to worship
according to their own desires, and the Christian religion had become
too closely intertwined with the life of the people to be disturbed,
even had efforts been made to turn them from the faith of their
fathers; for Christianity had been the national religion of the Russian
people for well-nigh three centuries before the Mongols established
themselves in Russian territory.
Another race many years before had tried to win the Russians to Islam
but had likewise failed, viz. the Muslim Bulgarians who were found in
the tenth century on the banks of the Volga, and who probably owed
their conversion to the Muslim merchants, trading in furs and other
commodities of the North; their conversion must have taken place some
time before A.D. 921, when the caliph al-Muqtadir sent an envoy to
confirm them in the faith and instruct them in the tenets and
ordinances of Islam. [789]
These Bulgarians attempted the conversion of Vladimir, the then
sovereign of Russia, who (the Russian chronicler tells us) had found it
necessary to choose some religion better than his pagan creed, but they
failed to overcome his objections to the rite of circumcision and to
the prohibition of wine, the use of which, he declared, the Russians
could never give up, as it was the very joy of their life. Equally
unsuccessful were the Jews who came from the country of the Khazars on
the Caspian Sea and had won over the king of that people to the Mosaic
faith. [790] After listening to their arguments, Vladimir asked them
where their country was. “Jerusalem,” they replied, “but God in His
anger has scattered us over the whole world.” “Then you are cursed of
God,” cried the king, “and yet want to teach others: begone! we have no
wish, like you, to be without a country.” The most favourable
impression was made by a Greek priest who, after a brief criticism of
the other religions, set forth the whole scheme of Christian teaching
beginning with the creation of the world and the story of the fall of
man and ending with the seven œcumenical councils accepted by the Greek
Church; then he showed the prince a picture of the Last Judgment with
the righteous entering paradise and the wicked being thrust down into
hell, and promised him the heritage of heaven, if he would be baptised.
But Vladimir was unwilling to make a rash choice of a substitute for
his pagan religion, so he called his boyards together and having told
them of the accounts he had received of the various religions, asked
them for their advice. “Prince,” they replied, “every man praises his
own religion, and if you would make choice of the best, send wise men
into the different countries to discover which of all the nations
honours God in the manner most worthy of Him.” So the prince chose out
for this purpose ten men who were eminent for their wisdom. These
ambassadors found among the Bulgarians mean-looking places of worship,
gloomy prayers and solemn faces; among the German Catholics religious
ceremonies that lacked both grandeur and magnificence. At length they
reached Constantinople: “Let them see the glory of our God,” said the
Emperor. So they were taken to the church of Santa Sophia, where the
Patriarch, clad in his pontifical robes, was celebrating mass. The
magnificence of the building, the rich vestments of the priests, the
ornaments of the altars, the sweet odour of the incense, the reverent
silence of the people, and the mysterious solemnity of the ceremonial
filled the savage Russians with wonder and amazement. It seemed to them
that this church must be the dwelling of the Most High, and that He
manifested His glory therein to mortals. On their return to Kief, the
ambassadors gave the prince an account of their mission; they spoke
with contempt of the religion of the Prophet and had little to say for
the Roman Catholic faith, but were enthusiastic in their eulogies of
the Greek Church. “Every man,” they said, “who has put his lips to a
sweet draught, henceforth abhors anything bitter; wherefore we having
come to the knowledge of the faith of the Greek Church desire none
other.” Vladimir once more consulted his boyards, who said unto him,
“Had not the Greek faith been best of all, Olga, your grandmother, the
wisest of mortals, would never have embraced it.” Whereupon Vladimir
hesitated no longer and in A.D. 988 declared himself a Christian. On
the day after his baptism he threw down the idols his forefathers had
worshipped, and issued an edict that all the Russians, masters and
slaves, rich and poor, should submit to be baptised into the Christian
faith. [791]
Thus Christianity became the national religion of the Russian people,
and after the Mongol conquest, the distinctive national characteristics
of Russians and Tatars that have kept the two races apart to the
present day, the bitter hatred of the Tatar yoke, the devotion of the
Russians to their own faith and the want of religious zeal on the part
of the Tatars, kept the conquered race from adopting the religion of
the conqueror. Especially has the prohibition of spirituous liquors by
the laws of Islam been supposed to have stood in the way of the
adoption of this religion by the Russian people.
It would appear that not until after the promulgation of the edict of
religious toleration in 1905 throughout the Russian empire and the
active Muslim propaganda that followed it, were cases observed of
Russians being converted to Islam, and those that have occurred are
ascribed to the strong attraction of the material help offered by the
Tatars to such converts and the influence of the moral strength of the
Muslims themselves. [792]
Not that the Tatars in Russia had been altogether inoperative in
promoting the spread of Islam during the preceding centuries. The
distinctly Hellenic type of face that is to be found among the
so-called Tatars of the Crimea has led to the conjecture that these
Muhammadans have absorbed into their community the Greek and Italian
populations that they found settled on the Crimean peninsula, and that
we find among them the Muhammadanised descendants of the indigenous
inhabitants, and of the Genoese colonists. [793] A traveller of the
seventeenth century tells us that the Tatars of the Crimea tried to
induce their slaves to become Muhammadans, and won over many of them to
this faith by promising them their liberty if they would be persuaded.
[794] Conversions to Islam from among the Tatars of the Crimea are also
reported after the proclamation of religious liberty in 1905. [795]
A brief reference may here be made to the Tatars in Lithuania, where
small groups of them have been settled since the early part of the
fifteenth century; these Muslim immigrants, dwelling in the midst of a
Christian population, have preserved their old faith, but (probably for
political reasons) do not appear to have attempted to proselytise. But
they have been in the habit of marrying Lithuanian and Polish women,
whose children were always brought up as Muslims, whereas no Muhammadan
girl was permitted to marry a Christian. The grand dukes of Lithuania
in the fifteenth century encouraged the marriage of Christian women
with their Tatar troops, on whom they bestowed grants of land and other
privileges. [796]
One of the most curious incidents in the missionary history of Islam is
the conversion of the Kirghiz of Central Asia by Tatar mullās, who
preached Islam among them in the eighteenth century, as emissaries of
the Russian government. The Kirghiz began to come under Russian rule
about 1731, and for 120 years all diplomatic correspondence was carried
on with them in the Tatar language under the delusion that they were
ethnographically the same as the Tatars of the Volga. Another
misunderstanding on the part of the Russian government was that the
Kirghiz were Musalmans, whereas in the eighteenth century they were
nearly all Shamanists, as a large number of them were still up to the
middle of the nineteenth century. At the time of the annexation of
their country to the Russian empire only a few of their Khāns and
Sulṭāns had any knowledge of the faith of Islam—and that very confused
and vague. Not a single mosque was to be found throughout the whole of
the Kirghiz Steppes, or a single religious teacher of the faith of the
Prophet, and the Kirghiz owed their conversion to Islam to the fact
that the Russians, taking them for Muhammadans, insisted on treating
them as such. Large sums of money were given for the building of
mosques, and mullās were sent to open schools and instruct the young in
the tenets of the Muslim faith: the Kirghiz scholars were to receive
every day a small sum to support themselves on, and the fathers were to
be induced to send their children to the schools by presents and other
means of persuasion. An incontrovertible proof that the Musalman
propaganda made its way into the Kirghiz Steppes from the side of
Russia, is the circumstance that it was especially those Kirghiz who
were more contiguous to Europe that first became Musalmans, and the old
Shamanism lingered up to the nineteenth century among those who
wandered in the neighbourhood of Khiva, Bukhārā and Khokand, though
these for centuries had been Muhammadan countries. [797]
This is probably the only instance of a Christian government
co-operating in the promulgation of Islam, and is the more remarkable
inasmuch as the Russian government of this period was attempting to
force Christianity on its Muslim subjects in Europe, in continuation of
the efforts made in the sixteenth century soon after the conquest of
the Khanate of Kazan.
At the beginning of the nineteenth century many of the Kirghiz dwelling
in the vast plains stretching southwards from the district of Tobolsk
towards Turkistan were still heathen, and the Russian government was
approached for permission for a Christian mission to be established
among them. But this request was not granted, on the ground that “these
people were as yet too wild and savage to be accessible to the Gospel.
But soon after other missionaries, not depending on the good-will of
any government, and having more zeal and understanding, occupied this
field and won the whole of the Kirghis tribe to the faith of Islam.”
[798]
After the conquest of Kazan by the Russians in the sixteenth century,
the occupation of the former Tatar Khanate was followed up by an
official Christian missionary movement, and a number of the heathen
population of the Khanate were baptised, the labours of the clergy
being actively seconded by the police and the civil authorities, but as
the Russian priests did not understand the language of their converts
and soon neglected them, it had to be admitted that the new converts
“shamelessly retain many horrid Tartar customs, and neither hold nor
know the Christian faith.” When spiritual exhortations failed, the
government ordered its officials to “pacify, imprison, put in irons,
and thereby unteach and frighten from the Tartar faith those who,
though baptised, do not obey the admonitions of the Metropolitan.”
In the eighteenth century the Russian government made fresh efforts to
convert the heathen tribes and the relapsed Tatars, and held out many
inducements to them to become baptised. Catherine II in 1778 ordered
that all the new converts should sign a written promise to the effect
that “they would completely forsake their infidel errors, and, avoiding
all intercourse with unbelievers, would hold firmly and unwaveringly
the Christian faith and its dogmas.” But in spite of all, these
so-called “baptised Tartars” were Christians only in name, and soon
began to try to escape from the propagandist efforts of the Orthodox
Church and abandoned Christianity for Islam, their so-called conversion
merely serving as a stepping-stone to their entrance into the faith of
the Prophet.
They may, indeed, have been inscribed in the official registers as
Christians, but they resolutely stood out against any efforts that were
made to Christianise them. In a semi-official article, published in
1872, the writer says: “It is a fact worthy of attention that a long
series of evident apostasies coincides with the beginning of measures
to confirm the converts in the Christian faith. There must be,
therefore, some collateral cause producing those cases of apostasy
precisely at the moment when the contrary might be expected.” The fact
seems to be that these Tatars having all the time remained Muhammadan
at heart, resisted the active measures taken to make their nominal
profession of Christianity in any way a reality. [799] But in the
latter part of the nineteenth century efforts were made to Christianise
these heathen and Muslim tribes by means of schools established in
their midst. In this way it was hoped to win the younger generation,
since otherwise it seemed impossible to gain an entrance for
Christianity among the Tatars, for, as a Russian professor said, “The
citizens of Kazan are hard to win, but we get some little folk from the
villages on the steppe, and train them in the fear of God. Once they
are with us they can never turn back.” [800] For the Russian criminal
code used to contain severe enactments against those who fell away from
the Orthodox Church, [801] and sentenced any person convicted of
converting a Christian to Islam to the loss of all civil rights and to
imprisonment with hard labour for a term varying from eight to ten
years. In spite, however, of the edicts of the government, Muslim
propagandism succeeded in winning over whole villages to the faith of
Islam, especially among the tribes of north-eastern Russia. [802]
The town of Kazan is the chief centre of this missionary activity; a
large number of Muslim publications are printed here every year, and
mullās go forth from the University to convert the pagans in the
villages and bring back to Islam the Tatars who have allowed themselves
to be baptised. The increasing number of these Christian Tatars, who
have gone to swell the ranks of Islam, has alarmed the clergy of the
Orthodox Church, but their efforts have failed to check the success of
the mullās. [803] Especially since the edict of toleration in 1905,
mass conversions have been reported, e.g. in 1909, ninety-one families
in the village of Atomva are said to have become Muhammadan, [804] and
as many as 53,000 persons between 1906 and 1910. [805] This propaganda
is said to owe much of its success to the higher moral level of life in
Muslim society, as well as to the stronger feeling of solidarity that
prevails in it; [806] moreover, the methods adopted by the Russian
clergy, supported by the government, to make the so-called Christian
Tatars more orthodox, have caused the Christian faith to become
unpopular among them. [807] On the other hand, the propaganda of Islam
is very zealously carried forward; “every simple, untaught Moslem is a
missionary of his religion, and the poor, dark, untaught heathen or
half-heathen tribes cannot resist their force. In many villages of
baptised aborigines the men go away for the winter to work as tailors
in Moslem villages. There they are converted to Islam, and they return
to their villages as fanatics bringing with them Moslem ideas with
which to influence their homes.” [808]
The tribes that have chiefly come under the influence of this
missionary movement are the Votiaks, the greater part of whom are
baptised Christians, but many became Muslims in the eighteenth and the
beginning of the nineteenth centuries; and the influence of Islam is
continually growing both among those that are Christian and among the
small remnant that is still heathen. The Cheremiss, like the Votiaks,
are a Finnish tribe, about a quarter of whom are still heathen, but
many have already embraced Islam and it is probable that most of them
will soon adopt the same religion. The movement of the Cheremiss
towards Islam made itself manifest in the nineteenth century and though
many of them were nominally Christian, whole villages of them became
Muhammadan despite the laws forbidding conversion except to the
Orthodox Church. [809] They became Muhammadan through their immediate
contact with the Bashkirs and Tatars, whose family and social customs
were very similar to their own. The process sometimes began with
intermarriages with Muhammadans—e.g. in one village a Cheremiss family
intermarried with some Bashkirs and adopted their faith; the converts
being persecuted as “circumcised dogs” in their own village, moved away
and founded a new settlement some miles off, some wealthy Bashkirs
helping them with money; but as they were officially registered as
heathen, they could not get permission for the building of a mosque, so
a few Bashkir families in the neighbourhood moved into the new
settlement, in order to make up the number requisite for obtaining the
necessary official permission. [810] A similar process has several
times occurred in other villages in which Muhammadans have come to
settle and have intermarried with Cheremiss. [811] In other cases there
has been a definite missionary movement—e.g. in the beginning of the
nineteenth century the village of Karakul was inhabited by Christian
Cheremiss, but shortly after the middle of the century some families
were converted to Islam by a Cheremiss who had become a mullā; on his
death he was succeeded by a Bashkir from another village. Later on, the
converts moved away to Tatar and Bashkir villages, their place being
taken by Tatars, until the whole village became practically Tatar, few
of the younger generation retaining any knowledge of the Cheremiss
language, and intermarriages taking place only with Tatars. [812] Apart
from this proselytising activity, there has been a very distinct spread
of Tatar influence in speech and manners among the Cheremiss. The Tatar
language has spread among them, bringing with it the moral and
religious ideas of Islam; the adoption of the Tatar dress is held to be
a sign of superior culture, and if a Cheremiss does not dress like a
Tatar he runs the risk of being laughed at by the first Tatar he meets
or by his fellow Cheremiss; all this cultural movement tends to the
ultimate adoption of the Tatar religion. [813] After their conversion,
the Cheremiss are said to be very zealous in the propagation of their
new faith and receive the assistance of wealthy Tatars; [814] on the
other hand, the Russians despise the Cheremiss as an inferior race and
apply opprobrious epithets even to those among them who are Christians.
[815] About one-fourth of the Cheremiss are still heathen, but Muslim
influences are so powerful among them that it is probable that in
course of time they will for the most part become Muhammadans. [816]
The Chuvash, who number about 1,000,000, have nearly all been baptised;
there are about 20,000 of them that are still heathen but these are
gradually being absorbed by Islam, while some of the Christian Chuvash
have become Muhammadans and the rest are coming under Muslim
influences. The extent of their zeal for their converts may be judged
from the instance of a Christian Chuvash village, the priest of which
had spent several years in collecting the 300 roubles necessary for the
repair of the church; eight Chuvash families became Muhammadan and in
the course of a few months 2000 roubles were collected for the building
of a mosque. [817] Such ready activity is characteristic of the Muslim
propaganda now being carried among the aboriginal tribes. Each family
that accepts Islam receives help either in money or in kind: a house is
built for one; a field, cattle, etc., are purchased for another; when
several families in a village are converted, a mosque is built for them
and a school established for their children. [818]
Of the spread of Islam among the Tatars of Siberia, we have a few
particulars. It was not until the latter half of the sixteenth century
that it gained a footing in this country, but even before this period
Muhammadan missionaries had from time to time made their way into
Siberia with the hope of winning the heathen population over to the
acceptance of their faith, but the majority of them met with a martyr’s
death. When Siberia came under Muhammadan rule, in the reign of Kūchum
Khān, the graves of seven of these missionaries were discovered by an
aged Shaykh who came from Bukhārā to search them out, being anxious
that some memorial should be kept of the devotion of these martyrs to
the faith: he was able to give the names of this number, and up to the
last century their memory was still revered by the Tatars of Siberia.
[819] When Kūchum Khān (who was descended from Jūjī Khān, the eldest
son of Chingīz Khān) became Khān of Siberia (about the year 1570),
either by right of conquest or (according to another account) at the
invitation of the people whose Khān had died without issue, [820] he
made every effort for the conversion of his subjects, and sent to
Bukhārā asking for missionaries to assist him in this pious
undertaking. One of the missionaries who was sent from Bukhārā has left
us an account of how he set out with a companion to the capital of
Kūchum Khān, on the bank of the Irtish. Here, after two years, his
companion died, and, for some reasons that the writer does not mention,
he went back again; but soon afterwards returned to the scene of his
labours, bringing with him another coadjutor, when Kūchum Khān had
appealed for help once more to Bukhārā. [821] Missionaries also came to
Siberia from Kazan. But the advancing tide of Russian conquest soon
brought the proselytising efforts of Kūchum Khān to an end before much
had been accomplished, especially as many of the tribes under his rule
offered a strong opposition to all attempts made to convert them.
But though interrupted by the Russian conquest, the progress of Islam
was by no means stopped. Mullās from Bukhārā and other cities of
Central Asia and merchants from Kazan were continually active as
missionaries of Islam in Siberia. In 1745 an entrance was first
effected among the Baraba Tatars (between the Irtish and the Ob), and
though at the beginning of the nineteenth century many were still
heathen, they have now all become Musalmans. [822] The conversion of
the Kirghiz has already been spoken of above: the history of most of
the other Muslim tribes of Siberia is very obscure, but their
conversion is probably of a recent date. Among the instruments of
Muhammadan propaganda at the present time, it is interesting to note
the large place taken by the folk-songs of the Kirghiz, in which,
interwoven with tale and legend, the main truths of Islam make their
way into the hearts of the common people. [823]