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Dostoyevsky and Islam (And Chokan Valikhanov)

Author(s): Michael FutrellSource: The Slavonic and East European Review, Vol. 57, No. 1 (Jan., 1979), pp. 16-31Published by: the Modern Humanities Research Associationand University College London, School ofSlavonic and East European Studies

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SEER,Vol.57, No. i,January1979

Dostoyevsky n d s l a ma n d h o k a n Valikhanov

MICHAEL FUTRELLTOLSTOY'S long and deep concern with Oriental religions andphilosophies, his correspondence with and influence on certainChinese, Japanese, Indians (such as Gandhi) and other Orientals,and similaritiesbetween some Oriental ideas and his, have receivedconsiderable attention.' Comparable aspects of Dostoyevsky's lifeand work seem to have been neglected,2 though biographershavenoted the repeated request to his brother Michael for the Quranafter his release from the Omsk prison in I854, and many readersmust have been struck by the prominent reference, in both TheIdiotand TheDevils,to a major mystical experienceof Muhammad.In fact, although Dostoyevsky's ibrary in his later years included abook on Buddhismaswell as a copy of the Quran,3the religionotherthan Christianity with which Dostoyevsky had some particularconcern was indeed Islam. It seems sometimes to be forgotten thatDostoyevsky spent continuously no less than nine-and-a-half yearsof his life beyond the Urals, during which, both as a prisoner atOmsk and as a soldier at Semipalatinsk,he was at times in closecontact with people other than ethnic Russians particularlywithMuslimsor people of Islamic background contact, as prisoner orsoldier, different from that of Goncharov, Chekhov or Bunin duringtheir Asian travels.Islam (particularly the Quran) was of some significance in thework of several Russian poets, including Pushkin (who visited theCaucasus) and Lermontov (who served and fought there in theRussian army, as did the young Tolstoy). Griboyedov spent severalyearsin the Caucasus and in Persia.However, the closestanalogy toDostoyevsky's experience would seem to be that of Solzhenitsyn,with his years of forced labour and exile in Soviet Central Asia. Inthe epilogue of Crime ndPunishment,fter the prisonerRaskol'nikov's

M. Futrell s Professorf Russianat theUniversityof BritishColumbia.1 For example, P. I. Biryukov, Tolstoi und derOrient,Ziirich and Leipzig, I925; DerkBodde, Tolstoyand China,Princeton, 1950; A. I. Shifman, Lev Tolstoy Vostok,Moscow,

I960, and second revised edition, Moscow, I971; Vytas Dukas and Glenn A. Sandstrom,'Taoistic Patterns in WarandPeace' (The Slavic andEast Europeanournal,xiv, 2, Madison,Wisconsin, 1970, pp. I82-93).2 Mention should however be made of a brilliant article by a scholar of Buddhism,Grigoriy Pomerants: ' "Yevklidovskiy" i "neyevklidovskiy" razum v tvorchestve Dosto-yevskogo' (Kontinent, , Berlin, 1975, pp. I09-50)-3 L. P. Grossman, Seminariy o Dostoyevskomu,Moscow-Petrograd, 1922, pp. 43-44.

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DOSTOYEVSKY AND ISLAM I7Easternightmare of the whole world 'ravaged by an unknown andterrible plague that had spread across Europe from the depths ofAsia',4 his observation of 'the tents of the nomads ... where timeitself seemed to stand still' in the 'vast steppe, flooded with sunlight'(6, 42i) beyond the Siberian prison may have seemed less exotic toDostoyevskyhimself than it probablydoes to most of his readers andcritics. The Russian nationalism of Dostoyevsky'slater journalisticwritings, with their refrain 'Constantinople must be ours', hasperhapsobscuredhis interest in the personalityof Muhammad andthe meaning to him of what were seeminglycloserelationswith twoMuslims in Siberia, and also with a Kazakh - a most remarkableintellectual and man of action, one of the most unusual human beingsDostoyevsky ever knew. It may be useful to survey the availableinformation about his acquaintance with Islam, with Muslims andwith this Kazakh friend.Dostoyevsky'ssecond published story The Double(i846) containsreferences (in chaptersiv and vii) to Turksand to Muhammad; butmore meaningful evidence comes from his four years (Januaryi 85o-February I854) in the Omsk prison, which provided thematerialforNVotesfromheHouse ftheDead,publishedduring I860-62.Many critics have noted Dostoyevsky's descriptionsof unbreakablyself-willed convicts such as Orlov: 'Never in my life have I met amore powerful, more iron-charactered man. . . Clearly a completevictory over the flesh. It was evident that this man had boundlesscontrol over himself, despised all torments and punishments andfeared nothing in the world' (4, 47). But juxtaposed in the samechapter to the man of iron Orlov are two Muslims, the LezgianNurra and the Daghestan Tatar Aley.

[Nurra] made upon me from the first day the most happy andpleasing mpression.. He was alwayscheerfuland friendly o every-one, worked uncomplainingly,was calm and serene, though oftenlookedwith angerat the filthand dirt of prison ife and was furiouslyindignantat all the thieving,cheatinganddrunkennessndeverythingdishonest;butnevermadequarrels,ust turnedaway n disgust.Duringall hisprison ife he hadneverstolenanything,never done a bad deed.He was extremelydevout. He said his prayersreligiously;during thefasts before the Muslimholy days he fasted like a fanaticand stoodwholenights n prayer.Everyoneikedhimandbelieved n his honesty.'Nurra s a lion', the prisonersusedto say; so the name 'lion'stuck tohim ... One couldnot helpnoticinghiskind,sympatheticace amongthe angry,surlyand sneering acesof the otherconvicts .. Kind andnaive Nurra (4,50-5 )4F. M. Dostoyevsky, Polnoyesobraniye ochineniy tridtsatitomakh,Leningrad, I972-,vol. 6, I973, p. 419. All references to Dostoyevsky's work in the text are from this edition.All the translations are mine.

2



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I8 MICHAEL FUTRELLOf three Daghestan Tatar brothers,the youngest, Aley, who wasnot more than twenty-two, occupied the place next to the narratoron the bunks.His handsome,open, intelligentand at the same time good-naturedlynaive face won my heart at firstglance, and I wassoglad that fatehadsent me him ratherthan anyone else as neighbour.His whole soul wasexpressedn his handsome,one can even say beautiful, ace. His smilewas so trusting,so childishlystraightforward;is large darkeyes sosoft, so gentle,that I alwaysfelt particularpleasure n lookingat him,evenrelief n distress nd sadness. am not exaggerating. . (4, 51)In obedience to his elder brothers, Aley had joined them in a

highway robbery, and received a four-yearsentence.It is difficult o imaginehow thisboy during his wholeimprisonmentwas able to preservesuch gentlenessof heart, to developsuch stricthonesty,suchsincerityandlikeableness,nd not to becomecoarseandcorrupt.But he was strongand firm, despitehis apparentsoftness..I began to talk with him; in a few monthshe learnt to speakRussianexcellently .. I considerAleyfarfromanordinaryperson,and I recallmy meetingwith himas one of the bestmeetingsn my life. Therearenatures oinnatelygood,soendowedby God, that the very idea of theireverchanging or the worseseems mpossible.One is alwaysconfidentin them.And now too I am confidentabout Aley. Where is he now?(4, 52)Froma Russian translation of the New Testament (a book that wasnot prohibited in the prison), the narrator (usually identified withDostoyevsky himself) taught Aley to read Russian. In a few weeksheread excellently; and in two months or so learnt also to write

excellently. Aley was deeply impressed by the Sermon on theMount, by the 'words of God' uttered by the 'holy prophet Jesus':'forgive, love, don't hurt others, love your enemies'. He conferredwith his brothers,and then, with the 'dignified and gracious, purelyMuslim smile, that I like so much, precisely for its dignity', theyconfirmed that Jesus was 'a prophet of God who performed greatmarvels, made a bird out of clay, breathed on it and it flew away'(a referenceo the Quran, II, 49).Aley loved the narratorperhapsas much as he loved his brothers.'I shall never forget when he left the prison ... He flung himselfonmy neck and wept. Never before had he kissed me or wept. "Youhave done so much for me, so much," he said, "my father andmother did not do so much; you have made me a man, God willrepay you, and I shall never forget you." ' (4, 54).Later in the book, in chapter x, are mentioned Nurra'sdisgustatthe convicts' Christmas drunkenness; and, in chapter xi, Aley's

delight in the theatrical performances 'all Muslims, Tatars and



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DOSTOYEVSKY AND ISLAM I9others,as I have noticed more than once, are passionatelyfond of allkinds of spectacles' (4, I23).Certainly, Notes rom the Houseof the Dead is not straight auto-biography; Dostoyevsky'screative imagination undoubtedly workedon his prison memories. But the assumption that actual encountersand experiences underlie the portrayals of Nurra and Aley isstrengthened by the requeststo his brother Michael for the Quranwhen he was releasedfromprison.Writing from Omskon 22 FebruaryI854, he asksfor the Quran, as well as Kant and Hegel; and writingfrom Semipalatinsk on 27 March he asks not only for historians,economists, Christian, classical and scientific literature, but alsoagain for the Quran.5It seemsdoubtful whetherDostoyevskyreceived the Quran at thattime. Four years of imprisonmentat Omsk were followed by morethan five years of military service at Semipalatinsk; and thenDostoyevsky spent four months at Tver' beforefinally being allowedto return to St Petersburg at the end of I859. His friend A. P.Milyukov records having sent to him at Tver' (at Dostoyevsky'srequest), among other books,the Quran in the French translationofKasimirski.6It was indeed the French translation of the Quran byM. Kasimirski that was subsequentlyin Dostoyevsky's ibrary.7However, shortly after Dostoyevsky's release from the Omskprison, at about the same time as he was writing to his brotherfor theQuran, he made the acquaintance of a remarkable Asiatic whobecame a close friend, about whom - unlike the originalsof Nurraand Aley - a good deal is known.Chokan Chingisovich Valikhanov (as his names were, and are,russified by Russian writers) was a Kazakh, born about I837,grandson of the last Khan of the Middle Horde.8 Valikhanov was

5 F. M. Dostoyevsky, Pis'ma, ed. A. S. Dolinin, vol. i, Moscow-Leningrad, z928,pp. 139, I45.6 F. M Dostoyevskyv vospominaniyakhovremennikov,d. A. Dolinin, Moscow, I964,vol. I, p. 195.7 Grossman, Seminariy o Dostoyevskomu,. 44.

8 The most extensive account of Valikhanov in English is by Thomas G. Winner, TheOral Art and Literature f theKazakhs of RussianCentralAsia, Durham, N. Carolina, 1958,pp. 101-107. The most useful study in Russian is a careful article by V. A. Manuylov,'Drug F. M. Dostoyevskogo Chokan Valikhanov' (Trudy Leningradskogo ibliotechnogoinstituta,v, Leningrad, 1959, pp. 343-69). The Russophile requirements of official nationali-ties policy are reflected in most recent Soviet presentations, such as those of K. Beysembiyev,Iz istorii obshchestvennoy vsli Kazakhstana vtoroypoloviny XIX veka (Ch. Valikhanov,I.Altynsarin),Alma-Ata, I957, or S. Z. Zimanov and A. A. Atishev, Politicheskiye zglyadyChokana Valikhanova,Alma-Ata, 1965; an opposite orientation is represented in thepublications of Baymirza Hayit, which include 'Geistesleben Turkestans in XIX. undXX. Jahrhundert' in Der Orient n der Forschung:Festschrift ur Otto Spies, ed. WilhelmHoenerbach, Wiesbaden, I967, pp. 279-93, and Turkestan wischenRusslandund China,Amsterdam, 1971. The political, social and cultural background has been studied inseveral recent works which contain comments on various aspects of Valikhanov's many-sided life, including: CentralAsia: A Century f Russian Rule, ed. Edward Allworth, NewYork and London, I967, especially chapters iv, v and vi, all by Helene Carrere



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20 MICHAEL FUTRELL'the first Kazakh geographer, ethnographer,linguist, and historian... one of the foremost interpreters of his own culture to theRussians';9 Dostoyevsky's staunch friend and confidant in Semi-palatinsk, Baron A. E. Wrangel, considered Valikhanov 'mostcharming ... well-bred, clever and educated'.10After graduating from the Omsk Cadet School, where he readnot only Russian but also English literature, as an officer in theRussianarmythe young Valikhanov travelledextensivelyin CentralAsia during the second half of the I850s, combining military intelli-gence and exploration with pioneering investigation of Turkicfolklore and culture; his abilities attracted attention, and on therecommendation of the great geographer P. P. Semyonov-Tyan-Shansky he was elected a member of the Russian GeographicalSociety, which published some of his reports. Spending the yeari86o in St Petersburg attached to the Asiatic Department of theMinistryof Foreign Affairs, he took part in the intellectual, literaryand social life of the capital; but his health was alreadyunderminedby tuberculosis, and after returning to his native regions he diedthere in i865.

In his attitude to the peoples of Central Asia, Valikhanov was aWesternizer, critical of the influence of Islam. The ethnographerN. M. Yadrintsev s quoted assaying that, forValikhanov, Europeancivilizationrepresented the new Quran of his life'." However, in hislast years he became increasingly distressed by Russian militaryruthlessness.Personally, Valikhanov was conspicuous for his elegance, evendandyism,and ironicwit; his captivating charmincluded a penchantfor the 'hussar conversations' of Dostoyevsky's more dissolutePetersburg riends.12 n earlyjottings for the novel A Raw routhmadein I874, Dostoyevsky has a note: 'terrible simple-heartedness,Valikhanov, fascination.'13It was to this unusualtwenty-year-old(approximately the exactdate of Valikhanov's birth is unknown) that the thirty-five-year-oldd'Encausse; Alexandre Bennigsen and Chantal Lemercier-Quelquejay, Islam in theSovietUnion, New York and London, I967; Nora K. Chadwick and Victor Zhirmunsky, OralEpicsof CentralAsia, Cambridge, I969; Lawrence Krader, Peoplesof CentralAsia, Blooming-ton, Ind. and The Hague, i966; Richard A. Pierce, Russian CentralAsia 1867-1917,Berkeley and Los Angeles, I960; Geoffrey Wheeler, The ModernHistoryof SovietCentralAsia, New York and London, I964; and Serge A. Zenkovsky, Pan-Turkismand Islam inRussia, Cambridge, Mass., I960.

9 Winner, p. ioi.10 F. M. Dostoyevsky vospominaniyakhovremennikov,, p. 259.11 Beysembiyev, P. 79.12 Recollections of Yadrintsev, quoted by Manuylov, p. 354, and in Literaturnoyenasledstvo, ol. 77, Moscow, i965, pp. 464-65.13 Literaturnoyeasledstvo,vol. 77, p. 92; The Notebooksor A Raw routh, ed. EdwardWasiolek, Chicago and London, I969, p. 74.



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DOSTOYEVSKY AND ISLAM 2IDostoyevsky wrote from Semipalatinsk on I4 December I856 oneof his most enthusiastic letters ever:

You write me that you love me. I will tell you without ceremony that Ihave fallen in love with you. Never, to anybody, not even to my ownbrother, have I felt such attraction as I do to you, and God knows howthis has come about. One could say much in explanation, but whyshould I praise you And you will believe in my sincerity even withoutproof, my dear Vali-khan, and even if one were to write ten bookson this theme, one would write nothing: feeling and attraction areinexplicable ...

Dostoyevsky then urges Valikhanov to study and write, to applyfor a year's leave to go to Russia, and then if possible to travel inEurope for a couple of years.

Is it not a great aim, a holy task, to bejust about the first of your peopleto explain in Russia what the steppes are and their significance andabout your people with regard to Russia, and at the same time to serveyour native land by enlightenedntercession for it with the Russians.Remember that you are the first Kirgiz14 completely educated in theEuropean way. . . Don't laugh at my utopian ideas and propheciesabout your destiny, my dear Vali-khan. I love you so, that I havedreamt about you and your destiny for days at a time . . .15The deep impression made on Dostoyevsky by Valikhanov isconfirmed by his second wife's account of an auspicious turning-point in his (and her) life - his proposal of marriage to the twenty-year-old stenographer in the year after Valikhanov's death: 'The

eighth of November, i866, was one of the great days of my life. Thatwas the day Fyodor Mikhaylovich told me that he loved me andasked me to be his wife.' Dostoyevsky told her:

Last night I had a marvellous dream ... I attribute great meaning todreams. My dreams are always prophetic ... Do you see that bigrosewood box? That is a gift from my Siberian friend Chokan Valikha-nov and I value it very much. I keep my manuscripts and letters in it,and other things that are precious to me for their memories. And so thisis my dream: I was sitting in front of that box and rearranging thepapers in it. Suddenly something sparkled among them, some kind ofbright little star. I was leafing through the papers and the star keptappearing and disappearing. And this was intriguing to me. I startedslowly putting all the papers to one side. And there among them I founda little diamond, a tiny one, but very sparkling and brilliant.'6

14 That is, in modern terminology, Kazakh."I Pis'ma, vol. I, pp. 200-2.16 A. G. Dostoyevskaya, Vospominaniya,Moscow, 1971, pp. 74-75; Reminiscences,rans.Beatrice Stillman, New York, 1975, p. 42.



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22 MICHAEL FUTRELLFor Dostoyevsky,his second wife was indeed a bright star and adiamond.Besidespassages n TheIdiotand TheDevilswhich will be con-sidered ater, the most strikingevidenceof Dostoyevsky's oncernwith Muhammadoccurs in the memoirsof Sof'ya Kovalevskaya.Born in I850, she was one of the outstanding ntellectualsamongRussiansof the time, becomingan internationallyamousmathe-matician,andwasappointedprofessorn Stockholmn 1884,whereshedied n I89 I. Hermemoirsncludeavividaccountof theabortivecourtshipby Dostoyevsky f her eldersisterAnnaKorvin-Krukov-skaya,alsoan intellectualand writer,early n i865. Once, to theirsurprise,Dostoyevsky egan tellingthe youngsistersabout whathesaid was his first epilepticfit. In Siberia after his imprisonment,Dostoyevsky aid, one EasterEve, he was absorbed n passionatediscussion f religionwith an atheist riend:'God exists,He does ' cried Dostoyevskyat last, besidehimselfwithexcitement.At that momentthe bells of a nearbychurchbegan toringforthe EasterService.Thewholeatmosphereoaredandshuddered.'And I felt,' related FyodorMikhaylovich, that heaven came down

to earthand swallowedme. I reallyknewGod and waspenetratedbyHim. "Yes,Godexists,"I cried,and I remembernothingmore.''Allyou healthypeople,'he continued,have no idea what happinessis, that happinesswhich we epilepticsexperience,a momentbefore hefit. Muhammaddeclares n his Quranthat he had seenparadiseandbeenin paradise.Allyouclever oolsareconvinced hathewassimplyaliar and impostor.But no He does not lie He reallywas in paradisein the fit of epilepsy,which he suffered rom,like I do. I don't knowwhether hat bliss asts orseconds,orhours,ormonths,but believeme,I wouldn'ttakeall thejoys thatlifecan offer n exchange orit '17To complementhisexaltation, t may be worthcitingsomeotherlittle-knownmemoirs,whichshowa contrastingideofDostoyevsky.Thenextyear,i866, ustbeforemeetinghissecondwife,Dostoyevskyspent the summerin the country with his marriedsister VeraIvanovaand herfamilyand a largenumberof high-spirited oungfriends.Dostoyevskywas workingon the fifth part of Crime ndPunishment,ut took a leading part in the fun and games of the

summervacation.The memoirsof Vera'sseconddaughterMariyaIvanova, then eighteen years old, provide unique glimpses ofDostoyevskyinhismid-forties)sjester,mproviser fcomicverse, ndmasterof revels, orexampleactingthe roleof polar bear n a skit.1817 S. V. Kovalevskaya, Vospominaniyapis'ma, Moscow, I951, pp. 106-7.18 It has often been assumed that this atmosphere of gaiety invigorated by some sharp-ness contributed much to the scenes of sometimes multi-layered merrymaking in Dosto-

yevsky's story The EternalHusband I870).



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DOSTOYEVSKY AND ISLAM 23Dostoyevsky's favourite butt in the company was a solemn youngdoctor, A. P. Karepin. He assuredKarepin that being a doctor wasunworthy of his talents; he should rather proclaim himself-

Muhammad II. As punishment for a sharp retort, Karepin washung up in a tree, suspendedon towels.19The sardonic Svidrigaylov would have appreciated this playfulcaricature by Dostoyevsky of the conception of Muhammad as apotentate. In Raskol'nikov's discussion with Porfiriy (CrimeandPunishment, art 3, chapter v) of his theory of the exceptional manwho has the right 'to permit his conscience to step over certainobstacles ... if it is necessaryfor the fulfilmentof his idea on whichpossibly the welfareof all mankind may depend' (6, i99), Muham-mad occurs three times, linked first with Lycurgus, Solon, andNapoleon, then with Lycurgus,and finally again with Napoleon.Another nuance of the conception of Muhammad as a wielder ofpower over men appeared nearly ten years later at the end of thefirst chapterof the secondpart of A Raw routh i875), whereVersilovtells his son Arkadiy: 'It's impossibleto love people such as they are.And yet we must ... People are vile by nature and they'd ratherlove out of fear. Don't give in to such love: despiseit always. There'sa passagein the QuranwhereAllah bids the Prophetlook upon thosetroublesomecreaturesasupon mice, do them good and passthem by.It may sound ratherhaughty but it's the right way . ..' (I 3, I74-75).The sombre climax of part 2, chapter v of The Idiot (i868) isformedby Myshkin'sepileptic fit, precipitated by his encounter withthe armed Rogozhin in demonic mood: 'Rogozhin's eyes glitteredand a frenzied smile contorted his face. He raisedhis right hand andsomething flashed in it' (8, 95). Rogozhin was lurkingin a niche ofthe thick central column of the dark, narrow, spiral stone staircaseup which Myshkin had rushed after him. ' "Everything will bedecided now " said Myshkinto himself,with strangeconviction' (8,I94). Struck not by Rogozhin's knife but by the epileptic fit,Myshkin, 'shaking and writhing in convulsions', rolls down fifteensteps from the first landing to the bottom of the staircase and liesthere in a pool of blood.

This abortive attempt of the 'holy fool' (as Rogozhin had calledMyshkin in the first chapter of the novel) to ascend the spiral inpursuit of his demon is preceded by several pages of elaboratelyaccumulated foreboding, in which Dostoyevsky included a much-quoted section, almost an essay, on the immediately pre-epilepticstate of consciousness: 'an extraordinary light ... harmony and

19 F. M. Dostoyevsky vospominaniyakhovremennikov,ol. I, pp. 362-70.



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24 MICHAEL FUTRELLbeauty in the highest degree ... a feeling, unknown and undivinedtill then, of completeness,proportion,reconciliationand an ecstaticand prayerful fusion with the highest synthesis of life . . . an extra-ordinary heightening of awareness if this condition had to beexpressedin one word - of awarenessand at the same time of themost direct sensation . .. Yes, one could give one's whole life forthis moment' (8, I88). But this is presented as Myshkin's thoughtswhile sitting 'under a tree in the Summer Garden. It was aboutseven o'clock. The garden was deserted; a shadow passed over thesetting sun for a moment. It was close; it seemed like the distantpresage of a thunderstorm' (8, I89). Despite this ominous setting,the climaxof the essay-likesectionis the directquotationof somethingMyshkinhad said to Rogozhin duringone of their previousmeetingsin Moscow: ' "At that moment the extraordinarysaying that thereshall be time no longerbecomes somehow comprehensible to me. Isuppose," he added, smiling, "this is the very second in which therewas not time forthe overturned ug of water of the epileptic Muham-mad to spill, while he had plenty of time in that very second tobehold all the dwellings of Allah."' And now, in the SummerGarden in St Petersburgon the summer evening, Myshkin realizes:'Rogozhin said just now that I had been a brother to him then -today was the first time he said it.' (8, i89)Thus, the transcendenceof time in the pre-epilepticstate is linkedboth with the canonical Christianapocalypse ('thereshould be timeno longer', Revelation, I1, 6)20 and with a majormystical experienceof Muhammad (Quran, xvii, i, the Night Journey).The Quranic reference recurs in part 3, chapter v, section 5of The Devils (i87V-72), where Kirillov describes to Shatov his'seconds of eternal harmony', similar to Myshkin's pre-epilepticbliss, though denying that he is an epileptic. Shatov replies:

'Take care, Kirillov, I've heard that's how epilepsy begins...RememberMuhammad'sug that didn't have time to spill while heflewroundparadiseon his horse .. It's too muchlikeyourharmony,and Muhammadwas an epileptic.Take care,Kirillov it's epilepsy ''Therewon't be time,'Kirillov aughedsoftly.(IO, 451)These passagesin TheIdiot and TheDevils should by consideredtogether with Dostoyevsky's mpassioned comparisonin i865 of hisexperience and Muhammad's, recorded by Sof'ya Kovalevskaya.It has been suggested by a recent editor that Dostoyevsky'ssource

20 The importance in nheIdiotof the book of Revelation has been elucidated by Roger L.Cox, BetweenEarthandHeaven:Shakespeare, ostoyevsky,ndtheMeaningof ChristianTragedyNew York, I969, chapter vIII.



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DOSTOYEVSKY AND ISLAM 25for his knowledge of Muhammad's supposed epilepsy and his NightJourney was Washington Irving's biography of Muhammad (I849-50), a Russian translation of which appeared in I857.21 The surmiseseems unnecessary. It has already been mentioned that Dostoyevsky'slibrary in his later years included the French translation of theQuran by M. Kasimirski; and that this work had been supplied tohim by A. P. Milyukov in I859.In his introductory biographical notes, Kasimirski wrote aboutthe child Muhammad: 'La tradition raconte que celui-ci etait sujetaune maladie dont on ne pouvait pas se rendre compte, mais qu'onattribuait a l'action du demon', adding a footnote: 'Cette maladiepouvait etre l'epilepsie. En effet, le vulgaire en Orient croit que les6pileptiques sont possedes du demon.'22A vast edifice was erected around the Night Journey by Islamictradition;23 the prime Quranic inspiration comprises just one verse(xvii: i), which reads as follows in Kasimirski's version: 'Gloire acelui qui a transport6, pendant la nuit, son serviteur du templesacre de la Mecque au temple dloign6 de Jerusalem, dont nous avonsb6ni l'enceinte, pour lui faire voir nos miracles. Dieu entend et voittout.' But for Dostoyevsky's source, one need surely look no furtherthan Kasimirski's footnote:

II s'agit ici du voyage aerien que Mahomet aurait fait d'abord dutemple de la Mecque au temple de Jerusalem, et ensuite a travers lessept cieux jusqu'au trone de Dieu. Mahomet aurait ete transportedansles regions celestes par l'ange Gabriel, sur une monture nommeeBorak, que la tradition represente comme un etre aile, a la figure defemme, au corpsde cheval, a la queue de paon. On a longtemps dispute,dans les premiers temps de l'Islam, sur l'authenticite de ce fait; les unssoutenant que cette ascension nocturne eut lieu en vision seulement;d'autres, qu'elle fut effectuee par Mahomet reellement et corporelle-ment ... C'est une des croyances universellement resues aujourd'huichez les musulmans, que cette ascension a eu lieu en realite. On ajouteque ce voyage celeste, ou Mahomet a vu les sept cieux et s'est entretenuavec Dieu, s'est fait si rapidement, que le prophete trouva son litqu'il avait quitte, tout chaud, et que, le pot oiu il chauffait de l'eauetant pres de se renverser a son depart, il revint assez a temps pour lerelever sans qu'il y eut une goutte d'eau de repandue.24The belief mentioned by Kasimirski that Muhammad mayhave been an epileptic, as Dostoyevsky was, has sometimes been

21 Polnoye obraniyeochineniy, ol. 9, Leningrad, 1974, p. 442.22 Le Koran, transl. M. Kasimirski, Paris, n.d., p. vii.23 See for example A. J. Arberry, Sufism,New York, I970, pp. 19-20, 28-30; SeyyedHossein Nasr, Ideals and Realitiesof Islam, Boston, I972, p. I33; Annemarie Schimmel,Mystical Dimensions f Islam, Chape lHill, N. Carolina, 1975, p. 220.24 Kasimirski,pp. 219-20.



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26 MICHAEL FUTRELLentertained, particularly by opponents of Islam; most authoritiesdiscount it.25It is not surprisingthat Dostoyevsky,fascinated by hisown experience of pre-epileptic bliss, absorbed Kasimirski's noteon Muhammad's time-transcending ascent to paradise and sawMuhammad as a fellow in epilepsy.Surveyingthe varied biographicaland literarymaterial,it appearslikely that Dostoyevsky's interest in Muhammad and Islam wasaroused by his close contact with Muslims during his years in theOmsk prison, which produced the figures of Nurra and Aley inNotes rom the Houseof theDead- incarnations of simple goodness,straightforward kindness, pure morality, noble dignity, innateintelligence, courage and beauty. With all that, there is a touch ofcondescension in his portrayals of them; but he was sufficientlyimpressed to want to read the Quran, which he eventually did,deriving from it (or, probably, from Kasimirski'scommentary) hisawareness of the Night Journey to paradise and of the supposedepilepsy of the mystical voyager.Dostoyevsky's close friend for several years, the well-educated,talented and versatile Valikhanov, may have contributed to hisknowledge and opinions of Islamic culture and tradition and ofCentral Asia. One must regret the scantinessof information abouttheir intercourse,first in Siberiaand then (in i 86o) in St Petersburg.Until Valikhanov'senergieswere sapped and finally extinguished bytuberculosis (and the end of his life darkened by revulsion at Russianmilitarism),his rangeof abilitiesand experiences,his combination ofthe exotic and the European,and not least his personalcharm, madehim unique among Dostoyevsky'sacquaintances.

The notion of Muhammad as a ruthless wielder of power thatoccursin Crime ndPunishmentnd A RawYouthwas, and is, somethingof a commonplace (and certainly is inadequate and misleadingfrom any sophisticated viewpoint, whether historical or religious),that Dostoyevskycould have acquiredfrom many places in his widereading.Although Valikhanov and Muhammad reappeared briefly in1874-75 at the time of A Rawrouth, respectivelyin early notes andin the final text, the generalorientation of Dostoyevsky's hought andwriting in the I870s probably submerged these interests that hadbeen more evident in the i 86os. His concern with Turkey and theEastern Question became almost obsessive in the voluminous

25 For example Alfred Guillaume, Islam, Harmondsworth, I956, p. 25; Tor Andrae,Mohammad: The Man and His Faith, New York, I96o, p. 5I; W. Montgomery Watt,Muhammad t Mecca, Oxford, 1953, p. 57, and Muhammad:Prophetand Statesman,Oxford,I96I, p. I9; Fazlur Rahman, Islam, London, I966, p. 13.



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DOSTOYEVSKY AND ISLAM 27journalismof TheDiaryof a Writer, ppearingas Russiannationalism.At the same time, his concern with the Russian Orthodox Churchdeepened and became embodied in TheBrothersKaramazov.

It remains to look more closely at the pre-epileptic experience ofMyshkin (and Kirillov), associated by Dostoyevskywith his own andwith Muhammad's Night Journey. The significant link seems to bethe transcendenceof time.The distinctionbetween psychologicaland chronologicaltime maybe noticed in some of Dostoyevsky's early works; the story WhiteNights (1848) ends with the cry: 'A whole minute of bliss And is thatreally little even for a whole lifetime?' (2, I4I); and NetochkaNezvanova observes n chapter iIIof the unfinishednovel bearinghername (I849) that 'there are minutes in which one experiences inone's consciousnessfar more than in whole years' (2, I 79).In TheIdiot, the epileptic Myshkin broods almost obsessivelyontime and death, pouring out to the Yepanchins' footman his excitedaccount of an execution by guillotine (part i, chapter ii), thenregaling Mrs Yepanchin and her daughters with his story (Dosto-yevsky'sown experience) of a political prisonersentenced to be shotbut reprieved at the last minute (part i, chapter v), then at onceurging Adelaida (the artist among the Yepanchin daughters) todraw the face of a condemned man a minute before the blow of theguillotine,with another intensepsychologicaldisquisition.The themerecursin Lebedev's story of the execution of the Countess du Barry(part 2, chapter ii). In the same sphere of time and death are theprolonged mental agonies of Ippolit, dying of tuberculosis,and thesymbolic presence in Rogozhin's house of a copy of Holbein'spainting of Christ's battered corpse (part 2, chapter iv) that sparksmeditations by both Myshkin and Ippolit.In The Devils the theme is associatedwith the apparent epilepticKirillov and his metaphysically motivated suicide. He imagines thefear of pain in waiting for death from a rock as big as a large house(or as a mountain) (part i, chapter iII, section 8). He declares toStavrogin (part 2, chapter i, section 5) that 'there are minutes, youreach minutes, and time comes to a sudden stop, and it will becomeeternal', to which Stavrogin replies: 'That's hardly possible in ourtime. In Revelation the angel swears that there will be no moretime,' to which Kirillov assents, generalizing his conviction: 'That'svery true ... When all mankind achieves happiness, there will beno more time, for there won't be any need for it. . . Time is not anobject, but an idea. It will be extinguished in the mind' (io, i88).Subsequently, as previously mentioned, the comparison withMuhammad is made to Kirillov by Shatov, whereas in The Idiotit was made by Myshkin himself to Rogozhin.



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28 MICHAEL FUTRELLDostoyevsky displayed keen intuition when he seized on Muham-mad's Night Journey. One of the greatest modern scholarsof Islamhas written that, compared with Western thought, 'Islam has an

entirely differentvision of time ... not a continuous"duration",buta constellation, a "galaxy" of instants ... there exists only theinstant'.26In their pre-epileptic instants Myshkin ('harmony andbeauty in the highest degree ... ecstaticand prayerfulfusionwith thehighest synthesisof life') and Kirillov ('eternal harmony') transcendtime, asdid Dostoyevsky('Heavencamedown to earthandswallowedme. I really knew God and was penetrated by Him').But what follows? In Dostoyevsky, eventually, there emerged thevision of Christiantheocracyin TheBrothersKaramazov;but Myshkin,shattered by human beingswith whom he cannot cope, relapsedintoidiocy, and the revolver-shot of Kirillov's suicide produced nometaphysical revolution, only 'splashesof blood and brains'.In them,the ecstasy is ultimately followed by involuntary dissolutionof thepersonalityor by its wilful destruction.An outstanding recent philosophical work provides a usefulcontext here:

Butthereare alsopositive orcesat work n thefiniteformsof timeandspace,enabling heunification f livedexperience.Thesepositive orcesare most readily discernible n the phenomenonof decision,whichfunctionsas the existentialgroundof unity and continuity.Anxietymakes manifest the negativityof experience; decision occasions itspositivity. t needsto be remembered, owever, hatdecision s not anisolatedact of will. Decisionrequiresa world,a contextof vectorsandlived ntentionalities, hichenter nto theconstituting rocess fmakingchoices .. The positiveforcesin the finite form of temporality enteraround the presentation of time as the opportuneime or decision.Time can be affirmedn the creativemoment,unitingthe past and thefuturewith the present n the resoluteness f committed houghtandaction... Authenticexistenceapprehendshe momentin choice andcommitment.. . The finitude of time may be transcended,but itcannotbe annulled.27Borrowing from the title of a book by Montgomery Watt,Muhammad was not only prophet, he was also statesman. But much

more than that: fundamental to Islam is the belief that Muhammadwas the perfect man: 'He marks the establishment of harmony andequilibrium between all the tendencies present in man . .. Hisspiritual way means to accept the human condition which is

26 Louis Massignon, 'Time in Islamic Thought' in Man and Time, ed. Joseph Campbell,London, I958, p. Io8.27 Calvin 0. Schrag, Experience nd Being: Prolegomenao a FutureOntology,Evanston,Illinois, I969, pp. 78-79.



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DOSTOYEVSKY AND ISLAM 29normalized and sanctified as the ground for the most lofty spiritualcastle ... At once the prototype of human and spiritual perfectionand a guide towards its realization.'28Or, as Schuon puts it with theutmost concentration: 'Imitation of the Prophet implies, first,strength as regards oneself, next, generosity as regards others and,thirdly, serenity in God and through God.'29Another recent writer on Islamic mysticism has observed, with thesword-like incisiveness that sometimes distinguishes Sufis, that 'onthe Night Journey the Prophet was first transported "horizontally"from Mecca to Jerusalem before he made his "vertical" ascent. . .Only from the centre of the earthly state, that is, from the degree ofhuman perfection, is it possible to have access to the higher states ofbeing.'30Myshkin is a connoisseur of bliss, sucked into a vortex of humanentanglements. He escapes Rogozhin's knife while ascending thespiral staircase only by igniting into epilepsy and falling to inertnessin a pool of blood; his private ecstasies, ike those of Kirillov, remainunintegrated. He does indeed act: but his actions - sublime, orridiculous,or disastrous too often represent erratic inspiration orquixotic impulse, they are not lived intentionalities; his non-actionsometimes seems to express impotence or bewilderment,ratherthanself-masteryor serenity; when in despair, he does not turn to orseek what transcends himself, but broods fruitlesslyon his isolation;his moments of brilliance dazzle, but do not create, his audience isimpressed,not changed; his behaviour, in a word, is in the deepestsense inopportune.In a letter ofJanuary I868 about his conception that emerged asMyshkin, Dostoyevsky made oft-quoted associations with Christ,and with Don Quixote, Pickwick, and Hugo's Jean Valjean 31 butthe immense and profoundly relevant potentialities of Muhammadas 'perfect man' were not realized by the Russian ChristianDosto-yevsky. For while Christ for the Christian is both God and man(whence many profundities, complexities and controversies ofChristian theology), Muhammad's status for the Muslim is quitedifferent: Muhammad is not God, just exemplaryman - a conceptrelated to that of Dostoyevskythat produced Myshkin.The Idiotbegan with Myshkin'shorizontaljourney from Switzer-land to Russia, a traditional platform for spiritual ascent- whichturns into catastrophe. He had been successfully treated in the

28 Nasr, Idealsand Realitiesof Islam, p. 77.29 Frithjof Schuon, Understandingslam, London, I963, p. 93.30 Martin Lings, What is Sufism?,London, I975, p. 38.31 Pis'ma, vol. II, 1930, p. 7I.



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30 MICHAEL FUTRELLSwiss linicof DrSchneider, utprovespsychicallymperfect ndun-centredin the maelstromof St Petersburg;he emergenceof theSwiss-treatedholy fool' is overwhelmed n the city seethingwithcapitalistmaterialismand corrupt egotism (Yepanchin,Ganya,Totsky) and with the demonicforcesof ambiguityand self-willembedded n the Russian radition(Rogozhin,Lebedev,Nastas'yaFilippovna).Bizarrely bsessed n arrivalwith the intensecondensa-tion oftime andexperience f one awaitingdeathbybulletorguillo-tine,nourishedhen (or perhaps appedandmisled)by epilepsy,heends n St Petersburgwith no NightJourney ranscendingimeandspace,butwith a timelessnightof staticnegation,keepingvigilwiththe murdererRogozhinby the corpseof Nastas'yaFilippovnaas herelapsesnto idiocy.For Myshkin,as for the laceratedbodyin thepicturecherishedby Rogozhin, there seems little hope of risingagain;a merehuskof a humanbeing, he is transported ackto theneutral point of Schneider'sSwiss clinic, an objectof despairingpity for the few saneRussiansn evidence.Dostoyevskyhimselfwas able to integrate the experienceandsignificance to him) of epilepsy into his ongoinglife of literarycreativity;but bothof theunforgettable pilepticmetaphysiciansecreated Myshkin and Kirillov collapsed or blew up. Histhird epileptic,Smerdyakovn TheBrothers aramazov,s a parodistand mockerof philosophy,hanger of cats and of himself,whoseepilepsyprovidesan alibiformurder;n TheBrothers aramazovhename of Muhammadoccurs but likewise as parody (book IO,chapter v), in the title of a scurrilousor pornographicbook, AKinsmanf MuhammadrHealingFolly,which Kolya says he hadexchanged or the cannon hat he brings o Ilyushka'sbedside I4,493).Although he goodMuslims f the Omskprisonhad aroused uchadmirationn Dostoyevsky nd seemingly nspiredhim to read theQuran,Muhammad emained or him essentially n exemplarof acertainkind of mystical xperience nd a ruthless onquerorimilarto Napoleon.Dostoyevskyannotbe reproachedor not attainingadeeper comprehension f Islam, which was probablyeven rareramongChristianshen than it is now; thoughone mayspeculateonthe impacthe mighthavereceivedhad he encounteredomeonewhowould have combined he outstanding ualitiesof ChokanValikha-nov with Islamic aith.As it was, Dostoyevsky'sncreasingdentifica-tion with OrthodoxChristianityand with Russian nationalism,facingthe IslamicTurks,evidently,and not surprisingly, lockedforhim a theoretically ossibledeeperpenetration f Islam and itsfounder a possibilityhat one might deducefromthe potentiallyuniversalcomprehension roclaimed n his famousaddresson the



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DOSTOYEVSKY AND ISLAM 3IPushkin anniversaryat the end of his life. In fact, in that address,what he mentionedof Islam (in connectionwith Pushkin's'Imitationsof the Quran') was 'the very spirit of the Quran, its sword, thenaive majesty of its creed and its threatening bloody power'.32One might perhaps wish that at that time Dostoyevsky hadremembered the Daghestan Tatar Aley, the meeting with whomthe narratorof Notesrom theHouseof theDead had described as 'oneof the best meetings in my life. There are natures so innately good,so endowed by God, that the very idea of their ever changing fortheworse seemsimpossible': that Aley who on leaving the prison 'flunghimself on my neck and wept. Never before had he kissed me orwept. "You have done so much for me, so much," he said, "myfather and mother did not do so much; you have made me a man,God will repay you, and I shall never forget you." 'It may be appropriate in conclusion to make more specific theattitude underlying this survey. Without asserting that Dostoyevskymust be regardedas philosopheras well as novelist, it is well knownthat his fiction has influenced a number of writers often consideredphilosophers,particularly some existentialists,and it is indisputablethat his workhas a place in the generalhistory of ideas. The horizonsof explorationin this latter area have lately been expanding rapidlythrough the pioneering researches of a few scholarswho have inte-grated Occidental and Oriental expertise (such as Herbert V.Guenther, Agehananda Bharati, Seyyed Hossein Nasr, EdwardConze, and the late Richard H. Robinson, in Tibetan, Tantric,Islamic and Buddhiststudies). From this point of view Dostoyevsky,like Tolstoy, deserves consideration from a wider angle than thatmerely of sources and influences, and it is hoped that this glance atDostoyevsky and Islam may lead to more expertexamination of suchtopics. As the Catholic Christian compiler of a remarkable recentanthology has observed,Western 'historiansof thought give one thefeeling that the writings of its thinkersare the only fit expression ofhuman ideas ... But we cannot permit the most ecumenical ofcivilizations both to enjoy the benefitsof an informed and extensivecuriosityin other cultures,and to indulge a flatteringbut parochialcomplacency about its own uniqueness ... Western thinkers mayindeed have acquired some of these insights independently ofIndic or other influence, but what they gained was previously un-knownonly to themselves,not to the human race as a whole - muchasAmericawas discoveredfor Europeansonly, not for its inhabitants,hence not for mankind'.33

32 The Diary of a Writerof i88o; in the translation by Boris Brasol (New York, I954,p. 978) the word 'bloody' of the original is omitted.33 Jos6 Pereira, Hindu Theology:A Reader, ew York, 1976, pP. 2I-22.

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