The Occult Turn in Russian Islamic Studies

Abstract

The article analyzes a series of manuscript texts on occult sciences in Islam which had been in circulation among the Muslims of the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union. Despite the harsh critique on behalf of Muslim scholars and archival marginalization of related sources, the magical texts, figures, and practices associated with them were perceived as an integral part of Russia’s Islamic culture with a system of knowledge transmission. A multilingual environment of magical texts covered a wide range of genres and disciplines, including the works on astrology, medicine, and various forms of geomancy. The manuscripts dated between the late sixteenth and the twentieth centuries help us demonstrate the perspectives of the occult turn in Russian Islamic studies — a careful study of the history of occult sciences in Russian Islam. This is especially true in regard of the material aspects of the used ingredients, talismans, and communications with people or natural objects. Attention to occult practices allows to grasp better the Weltanschauung of Russia’s Muslims, the peculiarities of the creative engagement with the respective Arabo‑Persian and Ottoman traditions.