If you want, it will be me.Īli learnt Russian with a speed that surprised Dostoevsky. In three months, the young Tatar was able to read and write. But it is the New Testament reading of the Sermon on the Mount that deepened their relationship: “Listen, Ali," I said to him one evening. Why don’t you learn to read and write in Russian? It would be so useful for you, later in Siberia. In return, Dostoevsky would find out their two religions - Christianity and Islam - shared a number of similarities, notably their reverence of Jesus. "The three Tatars of Dagestan were brothers. Two had reached middle age, but the third, Ali, was not older than twenty-two and looked even younger."ĭostoevsky would teach Ali Russian. Fanatically religious, he recited his prayers fervently, observed the fasts preceding the Mahometan festivals, and spent entire nights in prayer. The religious difference was not a source of conflict between the prisoners of the barracks."Ī dummy of a prisoner sits in a cell for recidivists in Prison Castle in Tobolsk, where Dostoyevsky spent 10 days before being transferred to Omsk ĭostoevsky benefited from the sympathy and protection of his mates, particularly those from Dagestan. "ĭostoevsky becomes interested in the Chechan, Nourra, and his pious Islamic behaviour: "Throughout the course of his imprisonment, he never stole anything and committed no villainy. In Memoirs of the House of the Dead, Dostoevsky describes: "a group of Caucasian mountaineers - two Lezghians, a Chechen and three Tatars from Dagestan - almost all condemned for robbery, occupied the left side of the partition.
It is probable that Dostoevsky read the Quran in the 1840s in Russian or in a French translation as it had been translated several times into Russian from French during the eighteenth century.
In it, Dostoevsky recalls meeting a young Tatar convict named Ali: "I was teaching young Tcherkess (a prisoner convicted for being a bandit) to read Russian. How grateful he was!"Īnd it is through this meeting between Dostoevsky and Ali that Russians became aware of a new subject: Islam.
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