The leading Russian Arabist, author of 24 books and about 450 articles, R. G. Landa could not ignore the most important problem for the history and modernity of Russia-the role of Muslims and the Muslim community in its historical existence, especially when starting from the turn of the 1980s-1990s this problem became extremely acute. The researcher has repeatedly addressed the topic of modern Islam in Russia and the CIS, both in historical terms and in terms of studying modernity. He has published a number of scientific reports, articles and books on this topic. This peer-reviewed book is perhaps the most comprehensive and fundamental domestic study devoted to the role and place of Islam and Muslims in the history of our country from ancient times to the present day. R. G. Landa begins the story of the relationship between Muslims and non-Muslims under the shadow of the Russian state from the earliest times, when Russia, and Russia in its own sense of the word, did not yet exist. However, there was a territory inhabited by eastern Slavs mixed with Ugro-Finns, which closely interacted with the nomadic Turkic-speaking steppe in the south, and Iranian-Alanian ethnic elements in the Caucasus. Later, when the Old Russian state was already formed, it retained ties with the steppe Turks, the peoples of the Caucasus, and the lands of the Volga-Kama basin, where Volga Bulgaria was formed almost simultaneously with Russia, in which the dominant position was occupied by the Turkic-speaking ethnic element. Such a geopolitical position of Russia, its close ethnic ties with the world of the East, as R. G. Landa quite rightly notes, were a prologue to close Russian-Muslim contacts in the future. Specifically, the establishment of ties between Russia and the world of Islam was facilitated by the spread of the Muslim religion in the Caucasus, mainly in Dagestan, the conversion to the Muslim faith of the first ruling elite, and then the bulk of the population of Volga Bulgaria, and ... Читать далее