WI Moslem Russia

The pigs things, however, is a real detriment. Because the other Muslims going 'HERETICS' is much much more likely than them going 'ok, those Saqaliba are a little weird'

But there were many heretical Muslims, many with great positions of power. For instance, the Mughal emperors claimed descent from the sun through the Mongol princess Alanquwa, and they had the practice of the durbar, something that has been interpreted as idolatry and emperor worship. Yet, the Mughals were emperors of India for hundreds of years and even attracted Iranian and Turani Muslims by large numbers.

Compared to this, the saqaliba would merely be considered a little weird.
 

Deleted member 97083

But there were many heretical Muslims, many with great positions of power. For instance, the Mughal emperors claimed descent from the sun through the Mongol princess Alanquwa, and they had the practice of the durbar, something that has been interpreted as idolatry and emperor worship. Yet, the Mughals were emperors of India for hundreds of years and even attracted Iranian and Turani Muslims by large numbers.

Compared to this, the saqaliba would merely be considered a little weird.
The Mughals however were the patrons and rulers of a massive Islamic empire in a Hindu subcontinent. Going against the Mughals would weaken Islam in India. Those who would have cared about following literal religious doctrine, also would not have wanted to weaken a Muslim ruler of this caliber.
 

corourke

Donor
I agree with @Augenis, but there's also a another factor.
russia-terrestrial-ecoregions-map.jpg


This is a map of the different kind of types of dominant plant growth in Russia. The East Slavs lives in forest areas at the time, and the majority of the population still lives in those areas. Those areas are pig country. Pigs have two niches one is garbage disposal, here they can be replaced with chickens, but the other are getting calories out of forest areas, in a cold climate they can't be replaced with chickens in that niche. So adopting Islam would mean a major calorie loss. Of course some will mention that some Muslim population do eat pigs, but the problem are that there's two kind of pig eating Muslims, one is Muslim which have lived under Christian overlordship, the other are groups of people who have converted to Islam after being conquered by other Muslims. If they convert to Islam, many of the political benefits of converting disappear, if they have to break a so important religious taboo. Just see the reaction of other Muslims to the fact that the Volga Bulgars only prayed 4 times a day. Alcohol is also important in a cold climate, as it enable people to get different vitamins in the winter, but it have less importance, as the taboo against alcohol is much smaller, and many Muslim culture broke it.

So in my view the biggest problem with Russians convert to Islam is that it offer the Russians nothing, and the only way I could see them convert are if the steppe people conquer them and force Islam down over them, but I have a hard time seeing all the Rus being conquered to such a degree, usual the steppe people pillaged and raze some of their cities and forced the Rus to pay tribute, they was never really able to truly rule over the Rus.

I think it's worth noting that if you look at the present day religious distribution in Russia, you can see that a lot of muslims live in what you've designated as "pig country."
 
They still have Pagan Rus, Finns, Georgian Caucasians, Non-Muslim Steppe Tribes and so forth.

As for mobility it depends on the shape of the Islamic Rus state. Are they a Turkic State Ruling Class with a Lower-Rus peasant population? Like Iran and the Ottomans and so forth..,
I think it's worth noting that if you look at the present day religious distribution in Russia, you can see that a lot of muslims live in what you've designated as "pig country."

They live in the border region, unless you think that the Tatars (which are the Muslims in that region) wasn't a steppe people.
 
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With Russia becoming Islamic what would this mean for the Orthodox Christians in the Balkans and Middle East? Russia was always keen on poking in Balkan Affairs to protect them. In this case they still would probably for Pan Slavic reasons. However if the Rus no longer see themselves as the Third Rome...
 

Deleted member 97083

With Russia becoming Islamic what would this mean for the Orthodox Christians in the Balkans and Middle East? Russia was always keen on poking in Balkan Affairs to protect them. In this case they still would probably for Pan Slavic reasons. However if the Rus no longer see themselves as the Third Rome...
There would probably be minimal interaction between Russia and the South Slavs until the modern era.
 

CaliGuy

Banned
I'm surprised having a Moslem Russia hasn't been discussed more. It was definitely possible and would have been literally huge.

Two possible PODs are having the leaders of the Rus convert to Islam instead of Christianity, which at least according to legend they considered doing, or the POD discussed in another recent thread of the Volga Bulgars being the Mongols' enforcers instead of Muscovy. A super strong Golden Horde might also work.
Would a half-Muslim Russia be sufficiently good for this? However, it would involve a post-1900 PoD.
 
They live in the border region, unless you think that the Tatars (which are the Muslims in that region) wasn't a steppe people.

Kazan is far from being on the steppe last time I looked. And yes, the Tatars did settle in border regions, but only because the rest Slavs were already established elsewhere. Nevertheless, what's actually important for the discussion is that the Turco-Mongols abandoned nomadism and converted to Islam in different areas of present day Russia.
 
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