Soviet Orientalist studies in Islam are academic discourses by Soviet Marxist theoreticians about Islam, its origins and development based on historical materialism and Muslims. The central question of this discourse was how Muslim society would fit into the general development of human history. Prominent Soviet orientalists include Mikhail A. Reisner, Evgenii Beliaev, , Mikhail L. Tomara, and Sandzhar D. Asfendiarov., Die Welt des Islams, Volume 49, Number 1, 2009, pp. 1-48(48)
Background The October Revolution brought the Communist Party of the Soviet Union to power. The Soviet Union had a large Muslim population of various ethnicities. Therefore, there was a pressing need for original research as Marx,, Marx To Engels In Manchester. Engels, Engels To Marx In London. only dealt with the subject superficially. In the 1920s, the Bolsheviks created new institutions and organizations intended to produce devoted Marxist scholars of Oriental studies. Foremost among them was the Moscow Institute for Oriental Studies, a party school created in 1920 mainly for the requirements of the Soviet foreign service. Its counterpart for educating party workers and administrators from the Eastern regions and republics of Russia and the USSR, as well as for training communists from abroad, was the Communist University of the Toilers of the Orient, a school founded in 1921. The new Marxist discourse on Islam was dominated by scholars from these political teaching and research institutions.
Communist theory of Islam In 1923, Zinatullah Navshirvanov (a Volga Tatar communist who was also active in the formation of a communist party in Atatürk's new Republic of Turkey) in the journal Novyi Vostok“Kommunisticheskie techeniia v istorii musul’manskoi kul’tury”, in: Novyi Vostok No. 4 (1923), 274-279. proposed that there were several forms of communism in Islamic history. The authors detected a “primitive communism” already in the activities of some of Muhammad's companions, but they found that communism was even more prominent in the tradition of Islamic Sufism. Under the cover of Sufism communist ideas and movements emerged that had nothing to do with Islam and religion whatsoever. These movements were driven by Muslims—poor nomads as well as peasants and urban craftsmen—longing to overthrow the feudal order of their times, i.e., the Abbasid, Seljukid, and Ottoman dynasties in the Near East. As examples the Navshirvanovs mentioned the Shiʿi Ismailites, the Anatolian Futūwa and Akhī organizations, and the Bektashi order of dervishes. The climax of this supposed anti-feudal Sufi communist movement was Sheikh Bedreddin of Simavna who was executed by the Ottomans in 1416 as a heretic; his disciples led peasant rebellions against Ottoman rule and set up what the Navshirvanov called the “first revolutionary government of Anatolia”.Navshirvanovy, “Kommunisticheskie techeniia”, 276-278 ff. Cf. Ahmet N. Cerrahoğlu, Şeyh Bedreddin ve Türkiye’de sosyalizm hareketleri (Istanbul, 1966).
This theory suffered from lack of sufficient historical evidence and was superseded by other theories.
Trade capitalism theory Mikhail A. Reisner (Michael von Reusner, 1868–1928), ethnic German historian of law and publicist produced a detailed Marxist analysis of the Koran from the perspective of social studies. His interpretation of Islam can be found in two articles on “The Koran and Its Social Ideology”, published in 1926 in a Soviet literary journal.M. Reisner, “Koran i ego sotsial’naia ideologiia”, part I, in: Krasnaia nov’, 1926, vol.8, 134-149; continuation as part II in: Krasnaia nov’, 1926, vol. 9, 146-164. were later included in his comparative book on “Eastern Ideologies”: M. Reisner, Ideologii vostoka: Ocherki vostochnoi teokratii (Moscow; Leningrad, 1927). In these studies Reisner maintained that Islam was the religion of the Arab merchants of Mecca. He distinguished between the big merchants, that is, the rich families of Mecca, and the less affluent and poor merchant families. Due to the disunion of the Arab tribes, trade caravans were constantly running the risk of being raided by nomads. These caravans were organized as joint ventures of rich and less affluent trade families of the Quraysh tribe, but the poorer merchants invested, and therefore risked, a higher percentage of their capital than the rich families. For this reason the idea of a union of the Arab tribes under one monotheistic religion was developed by the poorer families of the Quraysh, for only such a union would eliminate the raids. Their speaker became Muhammad, who himself hailed from one of the less privileged Quraysh clans.Reisner, “Koran”, part I, 135f.
Reisner maintains that the Koran portrayed Allah as "a rich, powerful and smart capitalist".Reisner, “Koran”, part I, 140ff.; for God as “the mighty heavenly capitalist” see ibid., 144. In Medina, Muhammad acted not so much as a prophet and preacher but as a skillful organizer. He was successful not because people were eager to join a new religion but because they longed for a law that would unite them.Reisner, “Koran”, part I, 136. The Koran, Reisner continues, only guarantees the right to property and creates a “World Trade Company of Believers” () under God's own leadership. Many elements in the Koran reflect a merchant's position: the prayers and rituals are not very complex and do not require “spiritual contortions”; the pilgrimage to Mecca (ḥajj) is linked to a trade fair; tithes (zakāt) is restricted to a moderate level, and believers are exhorted not to squander their money; while usury is forbidden, Muslims are encouraged to make moderate profits; and, of course, the Koran emphasizes the importance of oaths, correct measurements, and the faithful return of the deposit.Reisner, “Koran”, part II, 155-158.
Reisner explains that mystical elements, which tended to supersede the clear class distinctions, were to enter Islam only much later, mainly stemming from the Persian tradition.Reisner, “Koran”, part II, 161
Reisner's interpretation turned out to be very influential among Soviet scholars of the late 1920s.
Beliaev's modification of trade capitalism theory Evgenii Beliaev (1895–1964) was the only professional trained in Oriental languages among all participants in the early Soviet discourse on Islam. In his contribution to the 1930 special issue of Ateist on the origins of Islam, Beliaev argued that Islam emerged from the merchant environment of Mecca.Evg. Beliaev, “Rol’ mekkanskogo torgovogo kapitala v istorii proiskhozhdeniia islama”, in: Ateist no. 58 (November 1930), 48-60. The pagan religion served the purpose of trade, and the authority of the gods in the kaaba grew with the wealth of the merchants. Islam emerged in the late 6th century as a movement of the less wealthy, “intermediary and lower Meccan bourgeoisie” against this “‘aristocracy’ of avaricious traders and pitiless usurers.”Beliaev, “Rol’ mekkanskogo torgovogo kapitala”, 54.
In contrast to Reisner, however, Beliaev did not see anything progressive, liberating, or even revolutionary in this initial Islam: for instance, Islam did not stand up against slavery. Beliaev compared the image of God in the Koran to that of a despot and slave owner.Beliaev, “Rol’ mekkanskogo torgovogo kapitala”, 51, 55, 57.
According to Beliav, a similar struggle was taking place in Medina, where some clans became dependent upon others, and especially upon the Jewish clans, whose wealth was based on “usury capital” (rostovshchicheskii kapital). The gradual dissolution of the ancient tribal and clan structures in Muslim Medina must not be ascribed to the religion of Islam but rather to the development of Meccan trade capital, and in general to the transition to private property in slaves, cattle, and other possessions. “With an eagerness and love for detail that is characteristic for the petty bourgeoisie, the boring, depressing and dull Suras of the Medinan period lay down the regulations for property and inheritance as well as buying and selling”. In Medina Muhammad changed the prayer direction from Jerusalem to Mecca; “praying to the Muslim God, they bow down before the only god that they respect, namely capital.” When the “medium wealthy” traders finally took over Mecca, they reached their goal: together with the rich “Quraysh of the Center” they found themselves at the helm of the “trade capitalist organization of the Hijaz” which eventually united the tribes of Arabia. The nomads, by contrast, did not play an active role in Beliaev's scenario; after Muhammad's death they easily committed apostasy and had to be forced back to Islam by the first caliph, Abu Bakr.Beliaev, “Rol’ mekkanskogo torgovogo kapitala”, 58ff.
Ditiakin , an expert on the history of Marxism, took as his starting point the works of Marx and Engels instead of Islamic tradition, nor Western Oriental studies or even Reisner. Ditiakin conceded that Marx and Engels had only limited sources at their disposal and never devoted a special study to Islam; nevertheless he believed they came to important insights on this topic.
According to Ditiakin, Marx and Engels understood that pre-Islamic Arabia was characterized by two different environments, that of nomadic Bedouins and that of settled urban traders. As the correspondences of the two thinkers show, the Bedouins could hardly be characterized as bearers of high culture, whereas the population of the southwestern Arabian peninsula was a “civilized” Oriental high culture. Obviously, Engels had access to publications on petroglyphs from Yemen, which, in his mind, reflected “the ancient, national Arabic tradition of monotheism”. However, in the centuries immediately before Muhammad the old culture of Yemen was destroyed by incursions of the Ethiopians, and consequently also the Arabian trade route to the north via Mecca was in decay. This decline of trade in the period before Muhammad was, as Engels wrote to Marx in 1853, “one of the chief factors in the Muhammadan revolution”.Ditiakin, “Marks i Engel's”, 82, referring to Engels’ letter to Marx of June 6, 1853; see Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Correspondence 1846-1895: A Selection with Commentary and Notes (New York: International Publishers, without date [1934?]), 67.
To quote Engels again, “it seems that Mohammad's religious revolution, like every religious movement, was formally a reaction, an alleged return to the old, the simple”.Ditiakin, “Marks i Engel's”, 83 (Engels’ letter to Marx, May 1853; cf. Marx and Engels, Correspondence 1846-1895, 64; emphasis in the original) “the movement [of Muhammad] has seemed to me to have the character of a Bedouin reaction against the settled but degenerate fellahin of the towns, who at that time had also become very decadent in their religion, mingling a corrupt nature-cult with corrupt Judaism and Christianity.” The decline referred to by Engels was thus economic and religious.
According to Ditiakin, Engels’ statements led to the apparent contradiction that the uncivilized Bedouins, who were defeated and driven out of their country by foreign invaders, created an “ideological system” that would ultimately rescue Arabia and soon rule over a huge part of the world.Ditiakin, “Marks i Engel's”, 83. In Ditiakin's mind, this apparent contradiction can only be solved by the following line of reasoning: The cradle of Islam was characterized by a coexistence of the nomadic lifestyle of the Bedouins and the formerly highly developed trade economy of the “urban fellahs”, which was however in decline, but still “potentially” stronger than the Bedouin culture. A series of “revolutionary blows” was necessary to dissolve the contradictions between the two, and to free the trade formation from its restrictions. These blows came in the form of foreign invasions, as Engels had