Modern Russia is a country with a thousand-year-old Christian history. However, in those ancient times, the choice of the Greek faith was not so obvious, and our country could go, for example, along the path of Islamization. How would this affect European history?
Before choosing
On the eve of the new millennium, pagan cults could no longer serve as a support for the nascent Old Russian state. "The Tale of Bygone Years" tells us how the Kiev prince Vladimir in 988, in search of a unifying religious idea, arranged a "test of faith." Despite the fact that many historians call this event a chronicle fiction, it can be assumed that the problem of choosing a state religion took place.
According to the author of the Tale, Vladimir rejected the offer of the Volga Bulgars to accept Islam, was not tempted by the speech of the Pope's envoys, and rejected the Khazar delegation, which inclined Russia to Judaism. But the Greek divine service had an indelible impression on the messengers of the Kiev prince, which ultimately predetermined the choice of faith.
Historians claim that Kievan Rus was already prepared for the adoption of Christianity according to the Greek rite. In addition to Princess Olga, who was baptized in Constantinople in 955, some noble Kievites were also converted to the Greek faith. This is evidenced by both foreign chronographs and pectoral crosses found in the graves of the Dnieper region of the middle of the 10th century.
Nevertheless, a number of researchers believe that Ancient Russia could well have converted to Islam. And no one bothers us to speculate about what our state and its entourage could become if the choice fell on the religion of the Mohammedans.
Volga Bulgaria - a large state (occupying the territory of modern Tatarstan, Chuvashia, Penza, Samara, Ulyanovsk regions), neighboring Russia during the X-XIII centuries - converted to Islam in 922. If the population of Bulgaria of two million people calmly adapted Islam, then why could not Russia have done it? - thinks the historian and philosopher Andrei Burovsky.
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Despite the fact that the territory of Ancient Rus was far from the centers of the spread of Islam, the Slavs repeatedly penetrated both the Volga and the Transcaucasus - the very center of Muslims. For example, the Arab traveler Ibn-Fadlan reports that he saw in the Kuban a "Slavic horde" numbering up to 20 thousand.
According to Burovsky, such isolated tribes could easily be Islamized, and the more such groups formed, the more likely they would be supported by the Arab Caliphate. And then, the historian continues, Muslim armies could have successfully reached Kiev and Chernigov, as the Saracens conquered Spain several centuries earlier.
If we assume the scenario according to which Kievan Rus is Islamized, then the next stage is a radical change in the whole picture of the European Middle Ages. A young and ambitious Islamic state centered in Kiev would seriously interfere in the affairs of its western neighbors. But first, there would have been an expansion to the south - into the lands of the still mighty Byzantine Empire.
If the pagan Rus made regular raids into the domain of Constantinople, then why not complete what had already begun under the banner of the Prophet Muhammad? With the support of fellow believers from neighboring Arab countries, Muslim Russia would sooner or later overcome the eastern stronghold of the Christian world. Further, the efforts of the strengthened Islamic state could be directed towards the pagan Baltic states: the Livs, the Prussians, shake them - they would all be inevitably converted to Islam.
The state of Rurikovich could establish allied relations with the Abbasid Caliphate, which gained power at the end of the 10th century. After the capture of Constantinople, a mighty allied army would go to conquer the Balkans, while the army of the Cordoba Caliphate would move from the West to Europe.
Who could oppose the mighty Islamic armada? Only France and the Holy Roman Empire. By the 12th century, European resistance would have been broken. This means that world history would not have known such a phenomenon as the Crusades, the Mongol invasion would not have taken place, since the hordes of Genghis Khan would have been stopped even on the approaches to the Volga.
However, there would be sad consequences. Spanish and Portuguese navigators would not have gone to discover distant continents, and humanity would be deprived of such a global phenomenon as the European Renaissance. Nevertheless, the culture of the Old World would continue to develop in the spirit of the traditions of the Islamic East: instead of painting, arts and crafts would flourish, and instead of lute and violin, rebab and sistr would sound on the streets of Europe.
True, it is unlikely that Islam would have been unconditionally accepted by the population of Russia. What did the Mohammedan ambassadors say to Vladimir? “We believe God, and Mohammed teaches us this: to circumcise, not eat pork, not drink wine, but after death, he says, you can commit fornication with your wives. Mohammed will give each of seventy beautiful wives, and will choose one of them the most beautiful, and entrust to her the beauty of all; she will be his wife."
The prince, who, according to the chronicle, had many wives and concubines, might not have been against such a belief, but circumcision, the prohibition on pork and alcohol would have come to him, like other people of Kiev, not to their liking. “In Russia there is joy to drink: we cannot be without it,” was the legendary answer of Vladimir.
But even if we admit the scenario of the Islamization of Russia, it is possible that the country's population, divided into Shiites and Sunnis, would be mired in endless sectarian strife. As a result - the lack of achievements in science and culture, which we were proud of both in the Russian Empire and in the Soviet Union.
Director of the Institute of Globalization Problems Mikhail Delyagin in an interview with Komsomolskaya Pravda noted: “Russian culture is a social mechanism that transforms the achievements of individual national cultures into a product that is understandable and interesting to all of humanity. Within the framework of Islam, with all my sincere respect for the religion of kindness, peace and mercy, this would be impossible."
Andrei Burovsky, in his forecast of hypothetical Islamic Russia, sees the borders of the state along the Elbe River. The philosopher notes that Western Slavs who did not want to accept Christianity - the Lusatian Serbs, Bodrici and Lyutichi - could agree to Islamization, thereby creating a natural barrier between the West and the East. However, Burovsky did not begin to guess how the relations between the two civilizational poles would develop.
It is possible that a united Europe not only would not allow itself to be conquered, but could also push its religious opponents further to the East. But an even more serious obstacle would arise on the path of Islamization - Russia itself. Its ethnocultural and climatic features would not have allowed the successful spread of Islam. Even with the most favorable development of Islamic expansion, as it moves to central Russia, its power would gradually dwindle.
It is difficult to imagine a Russian who, in a thirty-degree frost, would not want to warm up with a strong drink. Why should he accept faith that would rob him of such a beneficial habit? The Kiev nobility and the first Christian communities of Russia, which had already linked their political, economic and spiritual future with the Greek faith, would have stood as a serious obstacle to the advancement of Muslims.