Did Tolstoy really convert to Islam? Dive into the fascinating story of the legendary author’s spiritual journey, his friendships with Muslims, and his controversial opinions on religion. Discover facts you’ve never heard before! If you love history, literature, and big questions, this one’s for you. Subscribe to our channel and drop a comment telling us what surprised you most! #history #literature #Tolstoy #religion #Russia
👉 This channel was created in collaboration with https://www.youtube.com/@kramola_online
0:00 - Tolstoy and Islam: The Debate
1:08 - Tolstoy's Early Encounters with Islam
3:36 - Crimean War and Spiritual Quest
4:23 - Influence and Dialogue with Muslim Scholars
6:02 - Tolstoy and the Tatars
7:13 - Correspondence and Controversy
8:41 - Tolstoy's Views on Islam and Christianity
10:26 - Universal Spirituality and Tolstoy's Beliefs
👉 This channel was created in collaboration with https://www.youtube.com/@kramola_online
0:00 - Tolstoy and Islam: The Debate
1:08 - Tolstoy's Early Encounters with Islam
3:36 - Crimean War and Spiritual Quest
4:23 - Influence and Dialogue with Muslim Scholars
6:02 - Tolstoy and the Tatars
7:13 - Correspondence and Controversy
8:41 - Tolstoy's Views on Islam and Christianity
10:26 - Universal Spirituality and Tolstoy's Beliefs
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00Did Lev Tolstoy convert to Islam?
00:03In our last episode about Tolstoy, the triple extremist, this question kept appearing in
00:07the comments.
00:08In Russia, the question of whether the great writer became a Muslim is actually a hot topic
00:13of discussion.
00:14There are two extremes.
00:16Many Islamic websites quote a phrase from Tolstoy's private letter,
00:20Please consider me a Mohammedan, and count him among the faithful, while on literary
00:25and museum websites, it seems as if Tolstoy didn't even notice Islam.
00:30School and university textbooks also don't mention this.
00:34At the same time, they never forget to mention that the writer's main focus was his attempts
00:39to understand the personality and teachings of Jesus Christ.
00:42Everyone knows that in 1901 he was excommunicated from the Orthodox Church.
00:47It's no secret that the all-Russian Tolstoyan movement, which began during his life and
00:52was nearly destroyed under Soviet atheism, is now being revived and seen by religious scholars
00:57as a form of Protestantism.
00:59So can Lev Tolstoy be considered a Muslim or not?
01:03What was the final spiritual choice of the genius of Russian and world literature?
01:08Let's determine if Tolstoy had any interactions with Muslims and what he knew about Islam.
01:15He may have had more personal contacts and knowledge than any other classic of Russian literature.
01:21At 13, his family moved to Kazan, an ancient city on the Volga that kept its own images.
01:29Tolstoy in Kazan, the grandfather of the future writer Ilya Andreevich, was the governor from
01:351815 to 1820, and his grave is still preserved there to this day.
01:40In 1844, the young Tolstoy entered Kazan University in the Department of Oriental Languages of the Faculty
01:47Faculty of Philosophy.
01:48He then transferred to the Faculty of Law, studying there for under two years.
01:53Although brief, Tolstoy studied Arabic and Turkic languages here with Mirza Kazimbek, a leading Russian Oriental
02:01Studies scholar.
02:03Studied does not necessarily mean that he mastered them, of course, so we can only speak of his
02:08first acquaintance with Arabic and Turkic.
02:11In 1851, Nikolai, the writer's older brother, convinced him to join him in the North Caucasus,
02:17where Tolstoy spent nearly three years in a Cossack village by the Taric River.
02:22He traveled to Kislyar, Tiflis, Vladikavkaz, and joined military actions, initially as a volunteer,
02:28participating in what official chronicles called the Pacification of the Caucasus.
02:33This conflict revolved around the Russian Empire's colonial expansion into eastern lands inhabited
02:38by peoples with various beliefs.
02:40Some followed ancient pagan cults, others Orthodox Christianity, but most practiced Islam.
02:47Today, the customs of groups like the Chechens, English, and Ossetians are still shaped by
02:53adat, traditional mountain pagan practices.
02:55Lev Tolstoy directly interacted with the people of this multinational and complex world.
03:01The majestic nature of the Caucasus, knowledge of the daily life and customs of the warring
03:07sides, and the understanding of characters shaped by the spirit of the mountains and Islam.
03:12These appeared in Tolstoy's autobiographical novella, The Cossacks, the stories, the raid,
03:18the cutting of the forest, and later in Haji Murat.
03:21When he returned to Russia, the writer wrote in his diary that he had grown fond of this wild
03:26land, where war and freedom are so strangely and poetically intertwined.
03:32He remembered his Caucasian Kunak friends for the rest of his life.
03:36Once, a young and reckless count lost at cards and was facing a debtor's prison, but he was
03:41saved by a Chechen named Sodomy Serbiev, who completely won back his losses.
03:46Tolstoy wrote the famous Sevastopol stories during the Crimean War, while commanding an artillery
03:53battery in besieged Sevastopol.
03:56His bravery earned him the Order of St. Anna and several medals.
04:01In Crimea, he witnessed both the war's heroism and tragedy, as well as the customs of the
04:06indigenous Crimean Tatars.
04:08Moreover, some of the most important ideas that emerged during those years allow us to
04:13see in the young officer, the later Tolstoy, the preacher.
04:16In Crimea, he began to dream of founding a new religion, a purified and practical religion
04:22of Christ.
04:23Later, he corresponded with Muhammad Abdo, a well-known reformer of Islam who became the
04:29chief mufti of Egypt in 1899.
04:32He was both a student and associate of pan-Islamism theorist Jamal al-Din al-Afghani.
04:38Communication with the Arab scholar, a native speaker and tradition bearer, became crucial for Tolstoy,
04:44as he translated hadiths into Russian.
04:47Tolstoy considered knowledge of the hadiths to be just as important for Russian readers
04:51as knowledge of the wisdom of other peoples.
04:53Lev Tolstoy and the Muslim Turks developed unexpectedly close communication.
04:58It can be generally said that moral prose, and later journalism, exposed the vices of Russian
05:04society.
05:05Lev Nikolaevich believed the Orthodox Church's teachings strayed too far from Jesus Christ's,
05:10which in turn sparked sympathy among the Muslim Turkic peoples of the Russian Empire.
05:16The first to actively translate Tolstoy into their language were the Azerbaijanis in 1896.
05:22He corresponded and personally communicated with many Tatars, both supporters of traditional
05:27Islam and reformers in the Tatar press of 1905-1907.
05:33During the period of the Tatars' vibrant national revival, Lev Tolstoy received more attention
05:39than all other Russian writers combined.
05:42He was very concerned with religious questions, especially Islam, then called Mohammedanism.
05:48The Tatars knew about this and wrote to him about their faith, asked questions, sought advice,
05:54and debated with him, and he replied to them.
05:57The Tatars not only wrote to Tolstoy, but also traveled to see him at Yasnaya Polyana.
06:02The topic of Tolstoy and the Tatars is extremely broad.
06:06At the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries, there was probably not a
06:10single Tatar writer or public figure who, in one way or another, did not turn to the
06:15works and teachings of Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy.
06:18Sheikh Qasim Subayev wrote to Tolstoy from Kazan, to the great teacher of morality, on behalf
06:24of all Muslims of Russia, I express my gratitude for teaching us and all peoples, regardless of
06:30religion or nationality.
06:32And moreover, you are a great teacher of life.
06:35You worked describing the life of the Bashkirs in a small but valuable work, the story Ilyas,
06:41which I translated and published.
06:43Here, another of the Muslim peoples of Russia is mentioned, the Bashkirs, whom Tolstoy visited
06:50in 1862 in the village of Korolik for kumis treatment.
06:55Tolstoy never visited Islamic countries, but learned about Islam from Caucasians, Tatars and Bashkirs.
07:02His Islamic journeys covered the North Caucasus, Astrakhan, Orenburg, Bashkiria, Tatar settlements
07:09in the Volga and Penza regions and Crimea.
07:12Tolstoy's correspondence with the Tatar Asfandiar Voinov became especially well known in Russia.
07:19Outraged by the decision of the Synod, the main body of the Orthodox Church, on February
07:2422, 1901, to excommunicate Lev Nikolaevich, Voinov wrote to him from Istanbul, I admit,
07:32when I read about how they treated you, I shuddered for you.
07:35Yes, may the Almighty save and protect you.
07:38Tolstoy responded quite kindly to these letters from Istanbul.
07:41Your agreement with the main points of my faith, as expressed in my response to the Synod,
07:47brought me great joy.
07:49I greatly value spiritual communion with Muslims, he wrote to Voinov.
07:53However, Asfandiar Voinov and Tolstoy's correspondence drew Tsarist authorities' attention
07:59and appeared very dangerous to them.
08:01The growing authority of the writer among Russian Muslims required immediate action, so
08:06the task of discrediting the writer was entrusted to the Kazan missionary Yakov Koblov, who published
08:13a major exposé article, Count Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy and Muslims in Orthodox Interlocutor
08:20Journal.
08:20Thus, the polemic that Tolstoy conducted with the state church became, in many ways, a shared
08:25one for him and the Muslims of Russia, extremely important spiritually and very dangerous socially.
08:31Tolstoy's courageous example inspired many Muslims to revive their ancestors' faith and
08:38make it equal amid the country's democratization.
08:41Well, as for the acceptance of Islam, here is a quote from a letter written to a woman who asked
08:47Tolstoy
08:47for advice on what to do.
08:49Her sons were planning to convert to Islam.
08:52Strange as it may be for me to say this, since I value Christian ideals and Christian teachings
08:57above all else in their true sense.
08:59For me, there can be no doubt that, in its outward forms, Islam stands incomparably higher
09:04than Orthodox Christianity.
09:06Christianity.
09:06Here, essentially, Tolstoy places true Christianity above all else, but considers the external forms
09:13of Islam to be superior to those of Orthodox Christianity.
09:17And here is another excerpt from the same letter.
09:20If a person is given only two choices, to adhere to Orthodox Christianity or to Islam, then
09:26for any reasonable person, there can be no doubt in the choice, and everyone would prefer
09:31Islam.
09:31This phrase is often considered evidence of the writer's conversion to Islam, but it only
09:36says that if one must decide which of the two official churches is preferable, the choice
09:42would be in favor of Islam.
09:43As for himself, Tolstoy excluded himself from any official churches altogether, calling for
09:49a return to the times of the first apostles and a rethinking of the very essence of Christian
09:54teaching.
09:55Here is another quote.
09:56I would be very glad if you shared the same faith as me.
09:59You will understand a little about my life.
10:02All the successes in life, wealth, honors, fame, I have none of that, my friends.
10:08Even my family turns away from me.
10:10Some liberals and esthets think I'm insane or feeble-minded like Gogol.
10:15Others, revolutionaries and radicals, consider me a mystical blabbermouth.
10:20Government people see me as a dangerous revolutionary, and the orthodox think I'm the devil.
10:26I admit, it's hard for me, so please, just see me as a good Muslim, and then everything
10:33will be fine.
10:34Yasnaya Polyana, April 1884.
10:38But we must not forget that while searching for the truth about Jesus and recognizing himself
10:43as a good Muslim, he was no less fascinated by Buddha and Confucius.
10:48He kept a close correspondence with devotees of different spiritual traditions, including
10:54Mahatma Gandhi, and featured their texts in his well-known daily reading list.
10:59And finally, one more quote.
11:01It will be a very good teaching, and will coincide with the teachings of all truly religious
11:07people.
11:08Only then, when he rejects blind faith in Muhammad and the Quran, and takes from it what is in
11:13accordance with the reason and conscience of all people.
11:16It turns out that in this quote, the writer suggests doing with the Quran and with Islam
11:21the same thing he has already done with the Gospels and Christianity.
11:25That means removing all dogmas and keeping only the pure idea, its essence.
11:30Examining the writer's whole life, this attitude is typical of Tolstoy.
Comments