Abstract In this article I set out to show that tsarist officials and churchmen attempted to discredit anyone who wanted to convert from Orthodoxy to Islam in Russian Central Asia. Surrounded by a Muslim-majority population which they perceived as intrinsically hostile by dint of its religious affiliation, imperial officials regarded any apostate not only as someone breaking the law, but also in moral terms on a par with anyone who passed over to the enemy. I shall devote particular attention to the language employed by colonial authorities to frame apostasy either as the work of Muslim proselytizers or as reflective of a personality disorder on the part of the convert, such as poor morals, mental deficiency, or greed. By proceeding in this fashion, I shall argue that Russian colonial officials pursued smear campaigns against all successful converts as a means of minimizing and dismissing the phenomenon of Orthodox Christians’ conversions to Islam.
Paolo Sartori (Wed,) studied this question.