How strong can a wanked slavic pagan russia be?

I've seen arguments suggesting that old russians were well-accostumed to using alcoholic beverages and pork in order to survive the cold, so i contest that.

That argument is a bunch of folklore given that Islamic law never stopped Muslim cultures from drinking (distillation was perfected by Muslims and the word "alcohol" is derived from Arabic as a result, the Arabic drink arak spread globally, etc.), and not to mention you can devise a loophole that mead is acceptable. Even the issue of pork isn't necessarily a problem, since the average Russian peasant doesn't need to stop farming pigs, he just needs to say that there is no god but God and Muhammad is his prophet and everything will be okay since at least his knyaz isn't eating pork. Not to mention it fails to explain Volga Bulgaria.
 
They probably convert to Islam, seeing as that's what all of the other steppe nations did.

I've seen arguments suggesting that old russians were well-accostumed to using alcoholic beverages and pork in order to survive the cold, so i contest that.

Yes, converting to islam is out of question, they would convert to catolicism instead or try to reform their pagan faith (as they almost did OTL).
 
I think people are overstating the role of pork and alcohol in the Russian conversion to Christianity. Bacon is good but concerns over geopolitics would probably outweigh it. Same with alcohol and that's not even taking into account the various ways that particular prohibition was gotten around, or even just ignored, throughout the Muslim world. Andalusians, I believe, had a reputation for being major boozers and some scholars of Hanafi jurisprudence argue that the prohibition extends only to intoxicants derived from grape or date products which means that they would still have access to things like beer and mead.
 
That argument is a bunch of folklore given that Islamic law never stopped Muslim cultures from drinking (distillation was perfected by Muslims and the word "alcohol" is derived from Arabic as a result, the Arabic drink arak spread globally, etc.), and not to mention you can devise a loophole that mead is acceptable. Even the issue of pork isn't necessarily a problem, since the average Russian peasant doesn't need to stop farming pigs, he just needs to say that there is no god but God and Muhammad is his prophet and everything will be okay since at least his knyaz isn't eating pork. Not to mention it fails to explain Volga Bulgaria.
To be fair, i did use that counter-argument back in such discussion.
Another argument for the old russians converting to islam ITTL would have been muslim control over the Marmara straits, which could entice the russians to convert in order to better up commercial relations.
But that's mostly not in the context of what OP asked, so i'll leave it here.
 
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