Islam in Russia

was conquered by the Umayyad Caliphate In the mid-7th century AD, as part of the Muslim conquest of Persia, Islam was introduced to the Caucasus region, parts of which were later permanently incorporated by Russia. The first people to become Muslims within current Russian territory, the Dagestani people (region of Derbent), converted after the Arab conquest of the region in the 8th century. The first Muslim state in the future Russian lands was Volga Bulgaria In 922, the Tatars of the Khanate of Kazan inherited the population of believers from that state. Later most of the European and Caucasian Turkic peoples also became followers of Islam. The Mongol rulers of the Golden Horde were Muslims from 1313. By the 1330s, three of the four major khanates of the Mongol Empire had become Muslim. The Tatars of the Crimean Khanate, the last remaining successor to the Golden Horde, continued to raid Southern Russia and burnt down parts of Moscow in 1571. Until the late 18th century, the Crimean Tatars maintained the massive Crimean slave trade with the Ottoman Empire and the Middle East, exporting about 2 million slaves from Russia and Ukraine over the period 1500–1700. From the early 16th century up to and including the 19th century, all of Transcaucasia and southern Dagestan was ruled by various successive Iranian empires (the Safavids, Afsharids, and the Qajars), and their geopolitical and ideological neighboring arch-rivals, on the other hand, the Ottoman Turks. In the respective areas they ruled, in both the North Caucasus and South Caucasus, Shia Islam and Sunni Islam spread, resulting in a fast and steady conversion of many more ethnic Caucasian peoples in adjacent territories. The period from the Russian conquest of Kazan in 1552 by Ivan the Terrible to the ascension of Catherine the Great in 1762 featured systematic Russian repression of Muslims through policies of exclusion and discrimination - as well as the destruction of Muslim culture by the elimination of outward manifestations of Islam such as mosques. The Russians initially demonstrated a willingness in allowing Islam to flourish as Muslim clerics were invited into the various regions to preach to the Muslims, particularly the Kazakhs, whom the Russians viewed with contempt. However, Russian policy shifted toward weakening Islam by introducing pre-Islamic elements of collective consciousness. Such attempts included methods of eulogizing pre-Islamic historical figures and imposing a sense of inferiority by sending Kazakhs to highly élite Russian military institutions. The government of Russia paid Islamic scholars from the Ural-Volga area working among the Kazakhs in 1857. Crimea was conquered by the Russian Empire in 1783. Islamic slavery did not have racial restrictions, but only war prisoners were considered slave according to the Quran. Slavery was allowed but it had a huge contrast with other forms of slavery. Muhammad told Muslims - “Your slaves are your brothers. Allah has put them under your authority. So whoever has a brother under his authority should feed him from what he eats and clothe him with what he wears…” (Sahih al-Bukhari, Sahih Muslim) and Harsh treatment was banned as Muhammad told Muslims -“Whoever slaps his slave or beats him, the expiation is that he should set him free.” (Sahih Muslim). Germans, Poles, and Lithuanians were allowed to be sold to Crimean Tatars in Moscow. In 1665, Tatars were allowed to buy Polish and Lithuanian slaves from the Russians (for the Crimean slave trade). Before 1649, Russians could be sold to Muslims under Russian law in Moscow. This contrasted with other places in Europe outside Russia where Muslims were not allowed to own Christians. The Cossack Hetmanate recruited and incorporated Muslim Mishar Tatars. Cossack rank was awarded to Bashkirs. Muslim Turkics and Buddhist Kalmyks served as Cossacks. The Cossack Ural, Terek, Astrakhan, and Don Cossack hosts had Kalmyks in their ranks. Mishar Muslims, Teptiar Muslims, service Tatar Muslims, and Bashkir Muslims joined the Orenburg Cossack Host. Cossack non-Muslims shared the same status with Siberian Cossack Muslims. Muslim Cossacks in Siberia requested an Imam. Cossacks in Siberia included Tatar Muslims like in Bashkiria. , 1814 Bashkirs and Kalmyks in the Imperial Russian Army fought against Napoleon's Grande Armée during the French invasion of Russia. They were judged suitable for inundating opponents but not intense fighting. They were in a non-standard capacity in the military. Arrows, bows, and melee combat weapons were wielded by the Muslim Bashkirs. Bashkir women fought among the regiments. Denis Davidov mentioned the arrows and bows wielded by the Bashkirs. Napoleon's forces faced off against Kalmyks on horseback. Napoleon faced light mounted Bashkir forces. Mounted Kalmyks and Bashkirs numbering 100 were available to Russian commandants during the war against Napoleon. Kalmyks and Bashkirs served in the Russian army in France. A nachalnik was present in every one of the 11 cantons of the Bashkir host which was created by Russia after the Pugachev Rebellion. Bashkirs had the military statute of 1874 applied to them. Muslims were exempt from military conscription during World War I. during the Murid War While total expulsion (as practiced in other Christian nations such as Spain, Portugal and Sicily) was not feasible to achieve a homogeneous Russian-Orthodox population, other policies such as land grants and the promotion of migration by other Russian and non-Muslim populations into Muslim lands displaced many Muslims, making them minorities in places such as some parts of the South Ural region and encouraging emigration to other parts such as the Ottoman Empire and neighboring Persia, and almost annihilating the Circassians, Crimean Tatars, and various Muslims of the Caucasus. The Russian army rounded up people, driving Muslims from their villages to ports on the Black Sea, where they awaited ships provided by the neighboring Ottoman Empire. The explicit Russian goal involved expelling the groups in question from their lands. They were given a choice as to where to be resettled: in the Ottoman Empire, in Persia, or Russia far from their old lands. The Russo-Circassian War ended with the signing of loyalty oaths by Circassian leaders on 2 June [O.S. 21 May] 1864. Afterward, the Ottoman Empire offered to harbor the Circassians who did not wish to accept the rule of a Christian monarch, and many emigrated to Anatolia (the heart of the Ottoman Empire) and ended up in modern Turkey, Syria, Jordan, Palestine, Iraq, and Kosovo. Many other Caucasian Muslims ended up in neighboring Iran - sizeable numbers of Shia Lezgins, Azerbaijanis, Muslim Georgians, Kabardins, and Laks. Various Russian, Caucasus, and Western historians agree on the figure of 500,000 inhabitants of the highland Caucasus being deported by Russia in the 1860s. A large proportion of them died in transit from disease. Those that remained loyal to Russia were settled into the lowlands, on the left bank of the Kuban' River. The trend of Russification has continued at different paces in the rest of Tsarist and Soviet periods, so that more Tatars lived outside the Republic of Tatarstan than inside it. for the Ostlegionen of the Wehrmacht. Communist rule oppressed and suppressed Islam, like other religions in the Soviet Union. Many mosques (for some estimates, more than 83% in Tatarstan) were closed. For example, the Märcani Mosque was the only acting mosque in Kazan at that time. is seen assisting in raising the flag in the iconic "Raising a flag over the Reichstag" photo by Yevgeny Khaldei. ==Islam in the post-Soviet period==