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THE MUALLAF OF KIEV

From The Tale of Bygone Years [1]

Vladimir summoned together his vassals and the city elders and said to them: "Behold, the Greeks came before me urging me to accept their religion. Then came the Germans and praised their own faith and after them came the Red Jews. Finally, the Bolgars[2] appeared, criticizing all other faiths but commending their own and they spoke at length, telling the history of the whole world from its beginning. Their words were artful, and it was wondrous to listen and pleasant to hear them. They preach the existence of another world. 'Whoever adopts our faith and then dies shall live forever. But whosoever embraces another faith, shall be consumed with fire in the next world.' And they preach of how a ruler of their faith is free from struggle and is joined in peace with all others. What is your opinion on this subject, and what do you answer?"

The vassals and the elders replied: "You know, O Prince, that no man condemns his own possessions, but praises them instead. If you desire to make certain, you have servants at your disposal. Send them to inquire about the ritual of each and how he worships God." Their counsel pleased the prince and all the people, so that they chose good and wise men to the number of ten, and directed them to go first among the Greeks and inspect their faith. The emissaries went their way, and when they arrived at their destination they beheld the arrogance and folly of the Greeks in their grand cathedral and were insulted by the manners of their host, Emperor of the Greeks; then they returned to their own country. Vladimir then instructed them to go likewise among the Germans, and examine their faith. They thus went into Germany, and after viewing the German ceremony, they returned to their country. Vladimir then instructed them to go to the land of the Bolgars. They proceeded to Velikigorod [3] where they appeared before the King of the Bolgars, Jafar [4]. He inquired on what mission they had come, and they reported to him all that had occurred. When the King heard their words, he rejoiced, and did them great honor on that very day.

On the morrow, the King sent a message to the sheikh to inform him that a Russian delegation had arrived to examine the faith of Allah and directed him to prepare the mosque and the muezzin and to lay down the finest carpets, to impress the delegation with the riches which flowed from the grace of Allah. And the sheikh prepared the finest carpets and found the muezzin with the richest voices. The King accompanied the Russians to the mosque, calling their attention to the marvel of the minarets, the beauty of the call to prayer and he lay his fine carpet next to theirs [5] and told them of Allah. The Russians were astonished by the hospitality of the man and the quality of his gifts and in their wonder praised the mosque and the worship of the Bolgars. Then the King Jafar said to the delegation "Go hence to your native country" and dismissed them with great gifts and much honor.

Thus they returned to their own country, and the prince called together his vassals and the elders. Vladimir then announced the return of the envoys who had been sent out, and suggested that their report be heard. He thus commanded them to speak out before his vassals. The envoys reported thus: "When we came among the Greeks, we found their cathedrals grand and their ceremonies impressive. But their Emperor and their patriarchs were cruel and dismissive. Their faith is not good, if it may have men who act as the Greeks do. Then we went unto the Germans and watched their ceremonies in their buildings not unlike the Greeks but there was no glory and no kindness among the Germans. Then we came to the Bolgars, whose mosques are not as grand as the cathedrals of the Greeks, but whose call to prayer we are at a loss to describe; it made us think as though we were in heaven. We know only that God is there among those people, and the many kindnesses paid to us by the King of the Bolgars made us wish not to leave afterward." Vladimir then inquired if they would lay down the carpets given by the King of the Bolgars with him and they replied that the decision was his.

After a year had passed, in 988, Vladimir marched with an armed force against Kherson, a Greek city, and the people of Kherson barricaded themselves therein. Vladimir halted at the farther side of the city beside the bay, a bowshot from the town, and the inhabitants resisted energetically while Vladimir besieged the town. Eventually, however, they became exhausted, and Vladimir warned them that if they did not surrender, he would remain on the spot for three years. When they failed to heed this threat, Vladimir marshaled his troops and ordered the construction of an earthwork in the direction of the city. While this work was under construction, the inhabitants dug a tunnel under the city wall, stole the heaped-up earth, and carried it into the city, where they piled it up in the center of the town. But the soldiers kept on building, and Vladimir persisted. Then a man of Kherson shot into the Russian camp an arrow on which he had written: "There are springs behind you to the east, from which water flows in pipes. Dig down and cut them off." When Vladimir received this information, he raised his eyes to heaven and vowed that if this hope was realized, he would lay down upon the carpet and recite the szahada. He gave orders straightway to dig down above the pipes, and the water supply was thus cut off. The inhabitants were accordingly overcome by thirst, and surrendered.

Vladimir and his retinue entered the city, and he sent messages to the Emperors Basil and Constantine, saying: "Behold, I have captured your glorious city. I have not forgotten your treatment of my delegation, and will deal with your city as I have dealt with Kherson." Then he sent a letter to Jafar, King of the Bolgars, saying that he wished to lay his carpet next to his and be witnessed as faithful to Allah. Jafar and his Sheikh thus set out from Velikigorod to the city of Kherson to join Vladimir with the faithful.

By divine agency, Vladimir was suffering at that moment from a disease of the eyes, and could see nothing, being in great distress. The Sheikh made his way to Kherson and said that his ailment could be cured through the Szahada and through prayer in the holy month of Ramadan. When Vladimir heard this message, he said, "If this proves true, then of a surety is Allah great," and joined immediately with the Sheikh in prayer and fasting in the center of the city, where the Khersonians would go to trade. When the sun arose at the end of Ramadan, he straightway received his sight. Upon experiencing this miraculous cure, Vladimir glorified Allah, saying, "I have now perceived the one true God." When his followers beheld this miracle, many of them also recited the Szahada and lay down their carpets in the center square of Kherson.

In Kherson he thus founded a mosque on the mound which had been heaped up in the midst of the city with the earth removed from his embankment; this mosque is standing at the present day. Vladimir also found and appropriated two bronze statues and four bronze horses, which now stand behind the Great Mosque of Kiev, and which the ignorant think are made of marble.

When the prince arrived at his capital, he directed that the idols should be overthrown and that some should be cut to pieces and others burned with fire. He thus ordered that Perun should be bound to a horse's tail and dragged along Borichev to the river. He appointed twelve men to beat the idol with sticks, not because he thought the wood was sensitive, but to affront the demon who had deceived man in this guise, that he might receive chastisement at the hands of men. While the idol was being dragged along the stream to the Dnepr, the unbelievers wept over it, for they had not yet witnessed the faith. After they had thus dragged the idol along, they cast it into the Dnepr. But Vladimir had given this injunction: "If it halts anywhere, then push it out from the bank, until it goes over the falls. Then let it loose." His command was duly obeyed. When the men let the idol go, and it passed through the falls, the wind cast it out on the bank, which since that time has been called Perun's Shore, a name that it bears to this very day.

Thereafter Vladimir sent heralds throughout the whole city to proclaim that if any inhabitant, rich or poor, did not betake himself upon a carpet, he would risk the prince's displeasure. When the people heard these words, they wept for joy, and exclaimed in their enthusiasm, "If this were not good, the prince and his boyars would not have accepted it." On the morrow the prince went forth to the market with the Sheikh and with the qadis sent by the Caliph, and a countless multitude assembled with their carpets. The qadis stood by and offered prayers. There was joy in heaven and upon earth to behold so many souls saved. But the Deceiver groaned, lamenting: "Woe is me! how am I driven out hence! For I thought to have my dwelling place here, since the teachings of Muhammad do not abide in this land. Nor did this people know God, but I rejoiced in the service they rendered unto me. But now I am vanquished by the ignorant, not by apostles and martyrs, and my reign in these regions is at an end."

When the people were baptized, they returned each to his own abode. Vladimir, rejoicing that he and his subjects now knew Allah himself, looked up to heaven and said: "O Allah, who hast created heaven and earth, look down, I beseech thee, on this thy new people, and grant them to know thee as the true God, even as the other faithful nations have known thee. Confirm in them the true and unalterable faith, and aid me, O Merciful, against the hostile adversary, so that, hoping in thee and in thy might, I may overcome his malice." Having spoken thus, he ordained that mosques should be built and established where pagan idols had previously stood. He thus founded the Great Mosque of Kiev on the hill where the idol of Perun and the other images had been set, and where the prince and the people had offered their sacrifices. He began to found churches and to assign qadis throughout the cities, and to invite the people to recite the Szahada in all the cities and towns. He took the children of the best families, and sent them to madrassas for instruction in book learning. The mothers of these children wept bitterly over them, for they were not yet strong in faith, but mourned as for the dead. For these persons had not ere this heard words of the Book, and now heard them only by the act of God, for in his mercy the Lord took pity upon them, as Cherisher and Sustainer of Worlds.

[1] An OTL work, although mine is obviously quite different. I used a translation to write most of this.
[2] Volga Bulgarians. And yes, the Red Jews are Khazars, something the original did not specify.
[3] From a Kievan name for the capital of the Bolgars, meaning "Great City"
[4] A source of mine lists the King as
Cäğfär which is a Bulgarian corruption of Jafar. The author of TTL's Tales goes for Jafar much as he goes for "Vladimir" at this point....
[5] While it may precede this chronicle, "to lay your carpet down" becomes a common term of friendship or alliance among the Rus.

[And thus it begins.... a tale of the Muslim Rus.... Keep in mind that what was above is standard of medieval histories- it is more wrong than not.]

"Do you not see those who dispute concerning the signs of Allah - how they are turned away? Those who reject the Book and that with which We sent Our messengers - soon they will know. When the yokes round their necks and the chains. They will be dragged in the boiling water. Then in the Fire they will be burned."- Surah Ghafir, 40: 69-72


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