Luke Jeske1; 1 University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, United States
Discussion
Among Russian Orthodox Christians, who had inhabited an empire alongside significant Muslim populations since the sixteenth century, a new way of knowing about Islam appeared over the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries: biographies of the Prophet Muhammad. Unlike internally oriented state documents, published biographies addressed the growing Russian-language reading public. In sketching out Muhammad’s life for general audiences, Russian writers joined scores of European and North American contemporaries embracing rising interest in Islam and the Durkheimian category of “world religions.” This paper primarily focuses on placing in comparative perspective Russian narratives of Muhammad’s life. How, if at all, did Orthodox Christianity distinguish Russian approaches to the Prophet? How did Russian authors’ life experiences, which often included extended periods among Muslims in and beyond Russia’s borders, inform their interpretation of one of Islam’s central figures? I suggest that Russian Orthodox authors widely advanced pan-Christian preconceptions about Muhammad and “Mohammedanism” but diverged amongst themselves over Islam and the Prophet’s respectability.
