MUSCAT — Islam has played an important role in the rise of Russian civilisation. It is its inherent part and the history of Islamic studies in Russia, termed the “Eastern-Western community” by the great Russian-orthodox Russian philosopher Nikolay Berdiaev, seems to prove it, said Efim Rezvan, Professor of Russian Academy of Sciences and Deputy Director of Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (Kunskamera), during a lecture, organised by the Ministry of Endowments and Religious Affairs, at the Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque yesterday.
Rezvan drew the attention to several facts which illustrate the principle to live together while remaining diverse which characterises the peculiar Eurasian cultural-historical type influence that has helped the development of Islamic studies in Russia.
The “Pax Mongolica”, at the cost of enormous human and cultural losses, united vast territories of Asia and Eastern Europe into one political unity thus facilitating trade and cultural exchanges. The conquest led to a mass migration of the population. The new state was a means for culturally integrating of the people of the empire without giving rise to unitarianism. After the disintegration of the Golden Horde, Russia inherited its territories and the state order thus continuing the existing civilizational traditions. For example, during intercourse with Muslim states, Russia for centuries used, besides its coat of arms, a calligraphic monogram (tughra) which included the formula bi-‘inayati Rabbi’lalamin. It is not surprising that until the middle of the sixteenth century many in Europe persisted in the belief that the Russian State was in the hands of an islamicised Tatar elite. The famed Russian Church writer, Maxim the Greek (ca. 1470-1556), who came to Russia in 1518, lamented in one of his works that residents of the Russian capital would in all likelihood soon be wearing turbans.
On the vast Eurasian territories there emerged the “Pax Russica”, a successor of the “Pax Monglica”. A gigantic Empire was built by common efforts and mostly common interests and the principle live together while remaining diverse many times proved to be appropriate. On the whole this is the basic algorithm of survival and development that have been elaborated on the vast territories of Eurasia. It includes such characteristics as prioritising internal sources of development, gaining a high ability to react to changes and to effect the civilisational environment actively and constructively, that would allow for the possibility to absorb easily the values and achievements of the neighbour. Periods of Unitarian tendencies have been replaced by periods of moderation. People’s wisdom and principles achieved through suffering and felt on the level of the subconsciousness did not let the ruling Unitarian trends secure their victory.