Russian society first encountered its ethnic Russian Muslim population relatively recently, in the latter half of the 2000s. Back then, the fact that Russians had begun to convert to Islam was discussed widely, as was their prominent presence in civic life. These people, of course, were from all walks of life, and they converted not only to marry partners, but also as conscious spiritual choices.
Indeed, the existence of Muslim converts in Russia, with its traditional Orthodox-cum-secular background, seems paradoxical. The country’s recent history of fundamentalist Islamic terrorism, which goes back to the 1990s, when explosions ripped through apartment blocks in Moscow and Volgodonsk, has led to serious levels of Islamophobia. On the street and in private, girls who chose to wear hijabs were seen as potential terrorists: people tried to stay away from them on public transport, and police officers frequently checked their papers. People saw immigrants from the east as Muslims—whether they were or not—and thus a foreign element inside Orthodox Russia.
Ali Vyacheslav Polosin, an Orthodox priest who converted to Islam, says that there are more than 10,000 ethnic Russian Muslims in Russia today. We’ve spoken to several of them, and here you’ll find out how to make a hijab out of a Pavlov-Possad shawl, whether Russian Muslims face Islamophobia and why converts don’t have to take second names.
