Recognition Without Convergence: Abdürreşid İbrahim’s Cross-Religious Encounters in Korea, 1909

In 1909 Abdürreşid İbrahim (1857–1944), a Tatar Muslim intellectual from the Russian Empire, spent about ten days in Korea and recorded the visit in Âlem-i İslâm. Previous scholarship has examined the account primarily through translation and Pan-Asianism. This article examines İbrahim’s encounters with Koreans through a published Korean translation of his travelogue. It asks how he responded to the conduct and arguments of Koreans whose religious and political views differed from his own. The honesty of a boatman whose religious affiliation was unknown prompted İbrahim to examine his own conduct. A discussion of women’s covering turned from religion and custom to protection and imperial violence. A Russian-speaking Korean traveler who claimed to rely on his own reason in matters of religion challenged İbrahim’s favorable assessment of Japanese rule by describing what Koreans had learned through the loss of sovereignty. The traveler’s distinction between conscience and social relationships, on the one hand, and legal punishment and discipline, on the other, invites a limited comparison with Confucian discussions of moral transformation and punishment. These encounters show that İbrahim could recognize moral worth in others without accepting their religious or political perspectives. The study thus identifies ethical recognition without religious or political agreement as a significant dimension of cross-religious encounters.